Monday, April 21, 2014

Justice for the Dead!

I recently picked up a great collection of Rip Kirby comic strips and liked the art so much I checked to see if I had anything featuring illustrations by John Prentice in my horror collection. Lucky for us, I found this nicely produced supernatural crime spooker from the June-July 1951 issue of Black Magic Vol. 1 #5  highlighted by his beefy, broad style. FYI: Trying to get this blog back on a consistent post schedule seems pretty much impossible these days with my own personal projects and work demands,--but I'm trying, hang in there!








10 comments:

Mestiere said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bzak said...

Howdy,

Very cool! Love Prentice's work. Some of the faces remind me of another of my favorite artists style, Ed Goldfarb. Thanks for posting.

Brian Riedel

aldi said...

"Trying to get this blog back on a consistent post schedule seems pretty much impossible these days with my own personal projects and work demands,--but I'm trying, hang in there!"

Don't sweat it, Karswell. You're always worth waiting for!

Great distinctive artwork and well written too. "The car was like a black beetle coming out of the night." At first I thought one of the hoods was trying to gaslight the other but of course it didn't turn out that way. Supernatural noir, I love it!

JMR777 said...

I second what aldi said, sometimes you have to do the dull, annoying and frustrating stuff done first before you can get to the fun things (namely this blog.)

When deadlines gotta get met they gotta get met no ifs ands or buts.
Just remember, don't let the work at hand wear you down, the only person in the world who got anything on Friday was Robinson Crusoe.

Kids in the fifties had to wait a whole month before the latest copy of their favorite horror comic came out, we know sometimes you have to wait to get the good stuff so most of us can wait it out knowing that you never disappoint.

As always, Thank you Karswell.

Brian Barnes said...

I like the noir-ish style of this one, and the super heavy inks and shadowing give it a great look that fits with the style. Last page, panel 2 is especially great.

The noir setting even translates to the overwrought text. A very interesting take on the horror genre.

Let me repeat what is said above: This blog is a jem, and it's worth whatever wait there is.

Karswell: good luck with your projects. I hope they will all be successful!

Mr. Karswell said...

Thanks everyone! I appreciate the kind words and comments-- hopefully soon I'll be able to reveal a few of these top secret projects-- until then though keep dropping by and I'll keep serving up the free horror dishes! :)

Mr. Cavin said...

Meh, duty comes first. I can't wait to hear all about these irons you have in the fire! As for the blog, hell, I hardly have time to get online simply because it's spring--that plus big projects totally seems like the kind of thing that would get in the way of all the work you do to provide us this blog for free all the time. So I second those above: It's no problem to wait for the good stuff. Not that you haven't been posting anyway, natch.

Loved every line and word of this, by the way. The art and writing were all totally marvelous. Frequently, in a six- or seven-page precode story, I forgive a certain two-D archetypical quality to the ciphers on the page; but this time the story spent a graceful amount of time actually filling-out robust characters and telling the story from their point of view. Even if the story was somewhat typical in and of itself--ghost gets revenge!--the attack was so novel for the medium that I ate it up. God find!

JMR777 said...

After re-reading this tale I imagined it would have made a pretty good episode on either Night Gallery or Tales From the Darkside.

Grant said...

It would probably surprise some people during the past year to hear the expression "Wolf of Wall Street" in a story from the ' 50s. But that's just it, it's an expression.

With the two characters' pretty precise way of speaking, it sounds like the writer was going for one of those Damon Runyon imitations, except the he never goes COMPLETELY in that direction, with the really OUT-THERE colorful talk.

Mr. Karswell said...

Glad you all liked this one-- how about some more Black Magic then? COMING UP!