Monday, November 23, 2009

The Hand in the Wall

Over at Frankensteinia, Pierre is celebrating Boris Karloff’s 122nd birthday by throwing a weeklong Blogathon (Nov. 23rd -29th) in his honour. Pierre has also asked his favourite fellow horror bloggers to join in and of course THOIA is more than thrilled to participate. So, since the theme around here is comic books, let’s resurrect two dead birds with one mad experiment and make it a “Silver Age Flash Forward” as well, with a shivery chiller from the October 1962 issue of Boris Karloff Thriller #1.

And don't forget to head over to Frankensteinia for TONS more Karloff all this week! HAPPY BIRTHDAY BORIS!













PLUS! Way back in June 2008, Pappy posted The Haunted Honeymoon, also from this issue of Boris Karloff Thriller #1. Click HERE! And learn more about the great 1960's THRILLER TV series hosted by Boris Karloff, by clicking HERE!

16 comments:

  1. Thanks for the plug, Steve. "Hand in the Wall" in one of my favorites from that great Gold Key squareback comic. I love Jerry Robinson's artwork.

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  2. Anonymous11/23/2009

    WHEN I WAS A KID I HAD THE SECOND ISSUE OF THRILLER AND NEVER COULD FIND THE FIRST ONE SO THIS IS AN KILLER POST FOR ME BECAUSE I HAVE ALWAYS WANTED TO SEE IT, THANKS MAN! I AM EXCITED ABOUT THE FRANKENSTEINIA FEST TOO, THIS IS GONNA BE AN AWESOME WEEK.

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  3. Karswell: I echo Pappy. Love the comic. Love Jerry Robinson. Love the post (how's that for keeping it short and sweet?). -- Mykal

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  4. Nice to see a semi happy ending on this one. Nobody dies, and maybe cousin Horace will even recover to learn his lesson. Normally that would be lame, but since it goes against the norm in horror comics, I sort of liked it.

    To satisfy my never ending love for short horror stories in comics, naturally I've looked into Charlton, Dell, and Gold Key comics over the years, but hardly any really seemed to hold up. Anyone out there have some favorites they could suggest from this category?

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  5. LOVE when you Flash Forward Karswell~ I have never been a purist~ heck~ I mix Fruit Loops with Shredded Wheat !

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  6. Holy hemlock... I think I just became a Jerry Robinson fan! It's very subtle stuff... I love it. Thanks so much for posting. By the way Karloff fans,... last time I checked HULU was still offering free downloads of the THRILLER tv show.

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  7. Anonymous11/24/2009

    great story again, b ut how did he survive down there without food and water?

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  8. Wow! I've got a lot of comics, but I sure wish I owned that one. Great post. And Michael M, thanks for the heads-up on Thriller episodes from Hulu. I wait impatiently to reacquaint myself with that great series (and I'm especially dying to see "The Cheaters" again). Fun to be part of this event celebrating Karloff.

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  9. AIEEE! it's Karloff overload--- I can't keep up! If someone does a Lugosi or Vincent Price fest next my head will likely explode.

    Also, Kitty LeClaw has another purrrrfect story from this Thriller issue up over at her blog as well, follow the link below:

    http://killer--kittens.blogspot.com/2009/11/gleam-of-evil-1962.html

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  10. Anonymous11/24/2009

    I usually find the Gold Key horror comics a bit lacking, but this was surprisingly well told and had wonderful art. Same goes for the story at Kity's blog too.

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  11. Joe S. Walker11/24/2009

    Thriller is coming out on DVD some time in the near future, too. (Trivia: when it was shown in Britain in the Eighties, it was called "Boris Karloff Presents," as there'd been a British series called Thriller in the meantime.)

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  12. The British television Thriller show is great too, I have that box set that came out a few years ago... there are some really phenomenal, atmospheric entries in that series, thanks of course to the fabulous Brian Clemens scripts.

    I have also heard about a Karloff Thriller box set, but it's been a long time coming. I remember somebody putting out about a dozen episodes on vhs years ago but believe they're long out of print now... for those who can't wait, there are complete DVD set bootlegs available everywhere online, as well as FREE downloads as George has already mentioned above.

    The Karloff Blogathon continues, another quality post coming soon! And thanks for the comments!

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  13. Pappy, how do you know this is by Jerry Robinson, who at that point had not drawn any comics for ten years and not by Fred Fredricks, who did a lot of similar work for other DC horror books?

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  14. Could be Fredricks too... I'm sure Pappy is trusting the info at GCD for THE HAND IN THE WALL which credits "Jerry Robinson", of course this doesn't mean it's correct as we've seen wrong info at GCD many times before:

    Credits

    Script:?

    Pencils:Jerry Robinson(s)

    Inks:Jerry Robinson(s)

    Colors:?

    Letters:Ben Oda Content

    Information
    Genre:Horror Synopsis:in Mystery Comics Digest (Gold Key, 1972 series) #8 (October 1972)

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  15. They say Robinson did another story in #2 and now I want to see that too. Honestly, it could be by Robinson as I do see some connectio to the looer style he was using in his cartoon panels at the time.... but the composition and the faces have none of his characteristics... which are hard to put into words except that every story he did in the fifties just blows me away and this one doesn't.

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  16. As gaslighters go, Horace is pretty incompetent. You'd think he'd realise that Sid wouldn't be away for "weeks", because as soon as he left the house the "dreams" would stop. He would've done better to arrange for Sidney to "commit suicide" out of insanity.

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