Sunday, June 5, 2011
Beast of Bedlam
Ask and you shall receive, (actually, I had planned to post this one next anyway, but yes, thanks for asking anyway!) The "Beast of Bedlam" is an ugly, centuries-spanning tale of cruelty, possession, and hair-pulling... as well as the last story to be posted from the January 1953 issue of Journey into Fear #11, (see our previous post "Miser in the Coffin", as well as "Terror in the Night" in our archive, and the excellent "Blood on Her Lips" that I donated to Killer Kittens back in 2008.)
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8 comments:
Outstanding!! I love this story!
Thank you!! Thank you!! Thank you!!
Besides the story itself, there are deep lessons here that are better delved into elsewhere, but this was well, well, well worth waiting for!!
Thank you again a thousand times over!
i love this stuff!
Actually, I think Sir Hector could have become a spinoff character. But how could such an apparently crass oaf have become a knight? Well, what if he had saved some really important noble or friend of the king at, say, the battle of Blenheim, killed a bunch of enemy single-handed, and perhaps have come from a relatively good family (say, of barristers) and been literate, thus considered not ineligible?
Sir Hector could be presented as being not quite as bad as he was in this story. It is tempting to write and draw a prequel (oy vay, but would it involve copyright infringement?).
Turok1952: I'm guessing a youngrer son of a nobleman who inheirited a lesser title; (But, then, I have *no* idea how the British Peerage works!)?
Yes, Anon, your idea would be much, much more plausible were I thinking of keeping Sir Hector as a lowly brutish sadist.
Oh, my, but how to explain throwing that poor old man into the snake pit? Well, it was a rather accepted way to "shock" them "back to sanity." but how to explain beating poor but stunningly beautiful Nell? Gadzooks, that one is tough, but in some parts of the world that is still done.
The battle of Dettingen is a better candidate for his moment of glory. Hector takes two bullets meant for King George II and survives to be knighted.
I'm more interested in the prequel where the oddly corporeal-though-disposable ghost of the queen enacts some confusing age-old revenge scheme on Hector by possessing the body of Nell Blythe.
I love the strangulation panel at the bottom of page six. And the groovy line work on the wooden doors and that round, meaty crosshatching. There are indications here and there that this art was lush and primitive and all but obliterated by the infamous printing. Of course, there is also the top panel of page five. Broadmoor, eh? I know the White House when I see it.
Broadmoor = 1600 Pernnsylvania! I love it!
Where is Sir Hector now that he is so needed?
Yes, but gadzooks, where was Quality Control on the presses in those days?
Haha, you guys kill me... so much so that I'm unleashing some goofball vampires upon you all-- NEXT!
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