From the May 1951 issue of The Beyond #4.
Thursday, June 19, 2014
Cult of the Undead
According to the great Ace Horror website, this is Jim McLaughlin's first of many appearances at Ace Magazines. It's kind of a mixed bag visually, but the story is fast paced and fun, and the zombies are quite spooky. Today's post is rounded out with a True Tales of the Supernatural one-pager.
From the May 1951 issue of The Beyond #4.
From the May 1951 issue of The Beyond #4.
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8 comments:
Cool story! Love 'The Beyond' logo and it's covers were usually real nice!
It does crack me up though at how text heavy horror comics are in general, especially the ECs.
BUT I will say you got a ton more bang for your money back then. (How many stories in 1 issue?) Most of today's comics stretch out a story way too long to end up 6 issues long, which amazingly is the usual size of a trade. Yikes!
Oh well at least we have so many of these gems!
Thanks again!
Rich
Ace horror comics typically contained 4 stories each and were padded out with one page fillers and text stories. All of the issue info is right there in my post intro, just click the highlighted links to take you to either GCD, Atlas Tales, etc...
Ha! Somebody finally figured out a way to turn celebrity impressions into a super power. Or at least they've come up with the one possible heroic application of that power. What's next, a stand-up comic who incapacitates the heavies through the paralyzing rictus of hysteria? Oh wait, that's already a Batman villain.
I agree with you about the spooky zombies here, Karswell. They look like Dick Smith Halloween party kids come back to creepy life. I can just imagine them each cutting-up Styrofoam egg cartons to make their googly eyes.
I'm curious about that cover story. Is it safe to assume it's one of those HANDS OF ORLAC variations?
The cover story is called The Spell of the Hypnotic Chord, I'll post it next... I might as well just post this entire issue-- it's got some interesting stuff including a Valentine's story that I posted back in 2010 here:
http://thehorrorsofitall.blogspot.com/2010/02/dear-valentine-it-happened-on.html
This has the same problem a lot of Ace horror stories always had for me -- there still seems to be a super-hero/adventure mindset to the story telling.
There's none of the EC ironic morality or Atlas' goofy "as it turns out" endings. You could have easily put Captain America in this and have him fight off the zombies with his various super-powers.
It's a fun read, regardless, as much as Mestiere picked it to pieces!
There's some interesting stuff in the artwork. The panels are pretty static and don't lead to each other well, but it's definitely workman like and certainly good by Ace standards.
One thing Mestiere missed was the avalanche scene. Look at it again, they are on the scariest of ledges, one that extends that way for what must be hundreds of feet, and giant rocks are nearly 1 foot from their heads, yet they somehow survive!
I like the zombies and their plate sized eyes. Disney zombies!
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