Sunday, December 29, 2013
Creature of the Deep!
Golden Age greats Jack Katz and Jack Abel do a little Jack Kirby channeling and team-up for this epic monster-rama from the August 1971 issue of Nightmare #5. Also!-- the gorgeous Boris Vallejo cover I know a few of you were waiting for a large scan of too. Hope everyone enjoyed this look at a really cool Skywald "horror mood" issue, maybe we'll do another one next year (and thanks again to Brian Barnes who gave me this issue a long time ago.) We've got one more tale on deck to round out 2013 while ringing in the New Year... yes, we've lots more-- see ya in a few!
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Oh yeah, this one is most definitely my favorite story from this book. I see they've somehow managed to rein-in that seventies impulse toward ever greater excesses in wonky, attention-grabbing paneling. Here the artists have judiciously broken with the timeless standards only for real artistic purposes instead of mere style over substance. Pages six, seven, and eight are all great, but I especially love that inventive insert panel in the top corner of seven.
I also love the lively, imaginative art here, far more emotional and engaging than the overly designed, commercially arty fare in many other seventies examples. Kirby-esque indeed. These guys were reaching for something, not merely rendering a bunch of illos. When I find myself in the same room with my Photoshop again, I'm going to put that beautiful two-page splash panel back together. It's a showstopper!
Happy New Year Karswell (and everybody else, too)! Can't wait to see what's in store for us in 2014.
Now there's a face that says, "I really don't like holding this mutant baby".
There's one completely odd element to this art -- the hero's face is almost always shown looking down. Go check it out, it's not something you normally see in comic art. They must have been going for something as he seems to be the only character drawn that way.
It's really sticks out!
Other than that, this story really delivers what any kid buying this magazine would love to see. Tanks and planes fighting big monsters. Big monsters stealing women and eating men. Big monsters blowing up into chunks, and the threat of even more big monsters.
And, of course, the topper on the cake, uber-crabby nurse.
Love the way the nurse is determinedly looking away from the baby.
So, since the oceans only "have traces of one celled life" there can't be anything for these mutant fishes to feed and grow on. There's only one explanation! They're coming from Sunken R'lyeh under the ocean, where Great Cthulhu has begun stirring. Ph'nglui mgwl'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn! Iä iä Cthulhu fhtagn!
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