Wednesday, November 30, 2011
The Black Dungeon
THOIA's beastly "Month to Beware" concludes with another Atlas reprint, this one from the May '74 issue of Beware! #8 (originally presented in the May '51 issue of Mystic #2.) This is a sprawling, eerie 8-pager with some nice Mike Sekowsky art, especially the stunning, but totally irrelevant splash.
This seems to be a rip-off of Robert Bloch's story "The Weird Tailor" (made into a segment of the Amicus film Asylum aka House of Crazies and an episode of Boris Karloff's Thriller). I wonder why they didn't keep the plotline about the necromantically-enchanted clothing?
ReplyDelete>This seems to be a rip-off of Robert Bloch's story "The Weird Tailor"
ReplyDeleteBut-- but-- Brandi, it says in the splash "You have never read a tale like this before... and you never will again!"
"...especially the stunning, but totally irrelevant splash."
ReplyDeleteI really want to get everyone started calling these "twist beginnings." I mean, it works just like a twist ending, wherein the reader is set up to expect one thing and is suddenly surprised by a tricky outcome. It just happens after the first panel is all.
I love any girl meets deformed henchman story. I love the moment at the top of page seven where I realized that she was going to escape this bastard by going crazy. I love the ending where she realized that crazy was so nice she might as well retire there. Chills on chills.
@Karswell: The strange thing is, the first 5 pages are original material, but the last 3 crib from Bloch right down to keeping the names of the characters from Bloch's story and Anna's observation that the tailor's dummy looks like Hugo (though in the original Hugo was her prior fiance, killed in a WWII bombing; his face when they found his body was maimed and missing an eye). Did they figure they'd be less likely to get caught if they only took part of the story?
ReplyDeleteallow me to have the honor of acknowledging and supporting the term "twist-beginnings" as extremely viable.
ReplyDeleteNot much to do with a Black Dungeon now, is there? lol
ReplyDeleteExcellent, Prof.! We're one step closer to viral now!
ReplyDeleteOkay, in 2012 I shall start yet ANOTHER blog, and this one will be called TWIST BEGINNINGS, devoted of course to comic book tales like this.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry I can't help you out Brandi, that particular Bloch story is one of the few by him that I have not yet read. I will say though that I doubt anyone in the comic industry back then thought much about "getting caught" while ripping off fiction, films, tv, etc for story ideas... hell, even the comic industry today seems to thrive on this very production process.