Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Sinister Return of the Priestess of Baal

The last story in our Ace Comics Fest this month is from the November 1952 issue of Baffling Mysteries #11, and what a story it is, surely featuring the creepiest female to ever haunt the pages of a pre-code horror comic book! With her rotten, shrunken apple-esque head and disturbing lust for blood sacrifices, this is the kind of story that nightmares are truly made of!









And speaking of rotten, shrunken apple-esque heads, below is the one I made in 1975 with the Milton Bradley Shrunken Head apple sculpture kit that I got for my birthday that year. She's been slumbering at the bottom of a box for a few decades so her nose got a little smooshed, but look at those spooky beady eyes and icky teeth! Does anyone else still have their creation?

7 comments:

PooBahSpiel said...

I created several shrunken heads with my kit. Most of them ended up on the heads of granny and witch dolls that my mom's friend made and sold. Some were given to my friends as gifts. Sadly none remain in my possession. I wonder if any of them are still around sitting on a broom and hanging in somebody's kitchen.

KW said...

GASP! I can't believe your apple is still in a whole chunk! Don't you have any insects in your house?!

Anonymous said...

Re: *the story (not that the shrunken apple head isn't cool if you're into that type of thing!); *Where is an Old Testament prophet when you need one? Those guys were always tangling with Baal's or Chemosh's, or Ashtoroth's worshipers and priests!

Hey, Jeremiah? Elijah? Elisha?

DBurch7670

Mr. Karswell said...

>Most of them ended up on the heads of granny and witch dolls that my mom's friend made and sold. Some were given to my friends as gifts.

That's interesting Mark, I would've never thought to make the heads and then sell them, (of course in '75 I was only 7 years old though!)

>can't believe your apple is still in a whole chunk! Don't you have any insects in your house?!

The apple wasn't an apple anymore when it came out of The Shrinker... it was more like an old baseball glove. I would love to see an insect try to eat it though.

>*Where is an Old Testament prophet when you need one?

Possibly in Ace Comics other series "Bibling Mysteries."

Well, Mykal hasn't done an Eerie Pub post over at The Bloody Pulp since early March so I thought maybe we'd end April 2011 with some black and white terror tales from the tomb... see ya in few!

Unknown said...

I might consider making a couple shrunken head apples for Halloween decorations this year!

Mr. Cavin said...

The apple head thing is certainly very interesting. I've experimented with cutting jack-o-lanterns in such a way as to affect how they will eventually desiccate--but I've never even heard of this playset. Odd, since you are only a year and a half ahead of me. How did "The Shrinker" work? I imagine a frankly awesome process of core replacement, coptic jars, salt, and tightly woven reed wrappings.

I really enjoyed this story, by the way. I like the idea that, in the climactic mummy fight, it is the cadaver who is the good guy. You don't see that in too many movies.

Dr. Theda said...

We still have a few "Creepy Crawlers" Go the thing for Christmas and they had stopped selling the "thing-maker" oven (due to some burns)
And many years later (late 90's and again a few years back) they made "Plastic-Goop"... So going to figure out a way to use these old Mattel molds to again make "Creepy Crawlers" ( actually the Guts form a late 90's set and the "Eeeks!" set that we have had since early childhood...