Wednesday, November 13, 2013

"Go Get Yourself Some Guts, Gil!"

There's been a lot of Ken Landau pre-code horror work showcased here at THOIA over the years, now today I present a spooky, kooky, fun, and sometimes funny example of his post code horror work from ACG's June-July 1967 issue of Unknown Worlds #56. Ken's style is very distinct, (we'll see a more familiar Landau look in the next post), but todays story feels a bit stripped down and stylized in a way that I'm not sure I've ever seen him attempt before visually, it's kind of cool for what is essentially a silly, 11-page adventure into the realm of monsters tale. Anyway, this is a leftover Halloween story that I never got around to posting last month because I was still out on a much needed vacation-- enjoy! (Cover art by Edvard Moritz.)

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4 comments:

  1. Mestiere11/14/2013

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  2. Brian Barnes11/14/2013

    Wow.

    Gil ran from the wrong monsters. Millie is about as high maintenance as you can imagine. I'd rather face down Dracula!

    Right off the bat gets him to do something he's obviously not suited for, dogs him into it, then yells and leaves him, and only comes back when he fulfills his only wish?

    I usually laugh at romance comics that paint women as uptight, or horror stories that paint them as nose-y busy bodies, or black windows, but this is probably the worst I've seen in a long time. Millie is just outright evil in disguise.

    Some writer got turned down for a date, it seems.

    Maybe this is one of the most truly horrible stories of them all; you can run from monsters and devils, but the *real* devil will always own you in the end!

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  3. Mr. Cavin11/14/2013

    I love the look of sixties "horror" comics. Maybe the stories come and go, but that plucky, colorful, very fashion-conscious, look is one that gets me every time. It's both timely and fresh-faced, and it really sells the conservative pretense of the decade in a way that the comics of both the fifties and the seventies seemed to be driven by their lurid countercultures. I assume I have Fredric Wertham to thank for that (and by Fred, I really mean an industry-wide capitulation to more scaremongering from the US senate), but I kind of actually feel thankful. If nothing else, it's just so damn cheerful.

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  4. Mr. Karswell11/14/2013

    Any love for that first panel on the last page, haha! A super sock-a-thon!

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