Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Help! / The Alien!
Time for the two remaining stories from the October 1952 issue of Adventures into Weird Worlds #11, (see our last post for the others plus a link to another yarn I posted years ago by clicking HERE!) A couple of intense little Atlas terror tales with art from Eerie Ed Winiarski and Mad Marty Elkin-- man, the thing I liked most about Atlas, aside from the great artists, was the variety in story themes as evident in this issue: you get horror, adventure, and even some sci-fi... Atlas had it all. So yes, another FULL ISSUE in the bag, and lots more horror on the way-- including a Halloween story! Yep, you thought Halloween was behind us, didn't ya? But of course around here it's just another day. See ya in a few!
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10 comments:
Thanks for the postings ! Yes, there's something about Atlas, starting with those covers. Even the post-code covers looked intriguing. Would it be possible to post a complete issue of an Atlas comic once a week? It would be appreciated by many people here, I'm sure. Your blog is my "go to" blog when I check for pre-code horror stories. Yes, there are others, but yours is the best on the web.
An Atlas comic a week is definitely not a possibility, but maybe one a month could be... there's tons in our archive as well of course so if you haven't made your way through that then start digging!
Second story, eh. Atlas had it's clunkers, and that was one of them.
The first story more than makes up for it. The splash is staged great, the silly wolf drawing actually works well, cartoonish, but looks crazy. The plot takes an incredible amount of nearly impossible circumstances to work, but even with that, the entire thing holds together to form a tight little story with a great arc and satisfying ending. Great facial work, especially with a lot of the story being static heads.
The first story seems to be an uncredited adapation of the Saki short story "The Interlopers" but without the irony of the two men reconciling before the end. Read it here: http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/Inte.shtml
Good eye, Brandi-- thanks!
I wouldn't say The Alien is a total clunker, but for issue completists it's worth a read and the art is great
Oh, I've been through the complete archives of this blog and have seen every story, including all Atlas postings. I'm definitely a completist, though. I'll take a complete Atlas issue once a month, though. Got to have my Atlas fix. Thanks !
Interesting. The Martian story sets its rules up at the very beginning and then tells a story within them. Perhaps it's a story we have gotten very used to seeing already--assistant comes up with scheme to make off with scientist's bored wife, B movie ensues--but I'd hardly call anything in it a deal-breaker. It's short and sweet and has a wicked scheme that, for once, cleverer that murder.
On the other hand, this post's first story takes place in some version of the real world, where an astronomically unlikely series of events has to line-up in perfect order just to inject a little irony into a story as prosaic as "rivals eventually kill one another." Plus it goes on at least one page longer than it really should. I mean, I totally liked both of these stories (especially the art in the first), but neither seem to be particularly brilliant or clunky. Certainly I find it difficult to imagine a standard that boosts the first while dismissing the second.
I'm sentimental about that scientist, wife and partner triangle idea that Brian Barnes mentions. Partly because it's used in the anthology film GALLERY OF HORRORS, an incredibly cheap movie that it's easy to get attached to.
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