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Vintage Ad
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Spooky Bonus Quickie
Sunday, May 3, 2009
The Thing With the Golden Hair!
Lurking behind a rather tame sounding title comes a surprisingly eerie jungle terror tale of evil from beyond the stars, illustrated by Sheldon Moldoff. Plus, the usual vintage ad, and a neat little George Klein bonus quickie, all from the March 1954 issue of Forbidden Worlds #27.
I love the dialogue in this first story: "I knew Maitland... he was a handsome, blond, giant of a man." ...priceless. Also the way they just get tired of the chief's silly warnings and decide to plug 'em.
ReplyDeleteWhite devil bastards! At least they get theirs in the end though, now you might say their bark is worse than their bite. Muhaa-aa-a-aa
"My vheels, I can't move my vheels"
ReplyDeleteEek! Radioactive dirt. I think I'll take off my protective gear and wallow in it a while!
ReplyDeleteI've never been a big fan of Sheldon Moldoff, but this is one of his better jobs. Shelly was known to swipe and the penultimate panel on page 6 has a couple of swipes from Graham Ingels. Still, a pretty good horror story with the usual stupid horror comics characters.
ReplyDelete"Ghastly" plants? Is that the first word that comes to mind?
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone recognize this concept as lifted from an old sci-fi story? I had major deja vu reading this one, like it was something I already read as a kid from some short story collection possibly.
ReplyDeleteKars,
ReplyDeleteIt vaguely resembles a 1932 short story by John Collier called "Green Thoughts" where an exotic plant in an English hothouse consumes (or subsumes, it's never very clear) two humans and a cat and turns them into large blossoms that resemble their faces. It's a creepy-ass tale, and was also the inspiration for a Dick Briefer Frankenstein 8 pager (or maybe it was longer, but you get the idea).
If that doesn't ring a bell for you, then I'm drawing a blank.
j-
There's a genuine creepy vibe to the main story reminiscent of an EC tale. There's gold in them pre code stories.
ReplyDeleteThanks Anony-J, while the Collier story isn't ringing any immediate bells with me it just might be the one.
ReplyDeleteGreat story! Do I see an Ingels swipe on the second to last panel?
ReplyDeleteCoupla Toth swipes, too, and probably a bunch of others too obscure to immediately identify.
ReplyDelete"Uncle Henry The Friendly Ghost, the Friendliest Ghost you know!..."
ReplyDeletesorry.
holy crap, COVEN!!! how cool is that? thanx for the link, i had no idea Jinx was at it again!
ReplyDelete>i had no idea Jinx was at it again!
ReplyDeleteShe's on facebook too, me and Kitty are friends with her.
I love jungle horror. It reminds me of a story I found in an old anthology - Fungus Isle by Philip M. Fisher (1923).
ReplyDeleteGreat story here! Why do they ALWAYS shoot the witch doctor? Never a good idea...
ReplyDeleteAlso, that beret-wearing artist in the art-kit ad? Total perv. You can tell.
Happy belated, K!
Great story, except for the clumsy exposition at the beginning.
ReplyDelete-maybe you're thinking of "day of the Triffids" ? Not really all that similar, but probably well known enough to make it a possible candidate.
This is great, it reminds me a little of Lovecraft's "The Colour Out of Space", where weird, misshapen plant life is part of an awful secret.
ReplyDeleteI WAS GOING TO SAY LOVECRAFT TOO JP, COOL STORY........ NO ONE SAID ANYTHING ABOUT THE SECOND TALE SO I'LL SAY THAT WAS PRETTY GOOD TOO. YOU FIND THE GEMS KARS, KEEP IT UP!! AND THANKS!
ReplyDeleteWeird, not counting my comments this one got almost double the number of comments than the previous Nostrand / Kremer post? You guys are sometimes hard to figure out!
ReplyDeleteSo ya'lls seem to like the jungle horror, maybe we'll make it a theme for a few more posts. See ya tomorrow, and thanks!
'Weird, not counting my comments this one got almost double the number of comments than the previous Nostrand / Kremer post? You guys are sometimes hard to figure out!'I believe a reason for this might be that 'The Thing With the Golden Hair' was just a lot better story-wise than the two Nostrand/Kremer tales. Or at least that's the way I see it.
ReplyDeleteI really didn't have much to say about the previous post... precisely because the Nostrand stuff is always great!
ReplyDeleteI THINK THE PREVIOUS POST BLEW THIS ONE AWAY BUT THEY ARE ALL GREAT SO I GUESS THATS NOT REALLY SAYING MUCH.
ReplyDeleteNice story, very good art. I liked the vegetation, wonder what the two guys had against it :-)
ReplyDeleteThere is a Clark Ashton Smith story called "The Seed from the Sepulcher" where a explorer gets infected with a strange plant which blooms out of him till he is the flower. Or something.
Maybe you thought of that, Karswell?
Thank you very much for posting the second story, "He Spoke with a Spirit!" This is the first time I've gotten to see a story pencilled by my favorite Curt Swan inker, George Klein.
ReplyDeleteInteresting how in the first panel of the second page the boy Tommy looks very much like Jimmy Olsen--or perhaps the son of Jimmy Olsen. There were at least two imaginary stories that depicted the children of Jimmy Olsen. One story featured Jimmy passing out in a dentist's chair after being administered nitrous oxide, and dreaming of being married to Lucy Lane. The other story, (Action 270) featured Superman falling asleep while reading an essay by Supergirl detailing her future aspirations for her role as Superwoman, and dreaming of his old age, including a visit with a middle aged Jimmy Olsen with kids--one of whom looked very much like Tommy in that panel.