Friday, July 11, 2014
Wheel of Fortune
The final supernatural story from the September 1954 issue of Forbidden Worlds #33, (artwork by Emil Gershwin) --check the last few posts if you're collecting entire issues cuz we've just presented another one here for ya! We'll take a look at some black and white precode horror reprints in the next few posts, featuring guaranteed decapitations, and blood suckins!
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7 comments:
That different! Very Ditko like in areas (especially the spirits, which look at lot like his later work in Dr. Strange.)
Boy, Vanna White went downhill!
A fun story, but only works if a woman (who knows her spinning wheel has powers) doesn't hide it when she asks an antique dealer to look at her stuff, the one guy who might recognize what it is!
Also, the concept of spinning off your body into thread is actually very interesting, though the art doesn't necessary do it justice. This could have made a really good Eerie reprint.
"Keening their grief" is a pretty colorful phrase.
Here is a folklore story of a witch who spun her skin off...
http://americanfolklore.net/folklore/2010/05/boo_hag.html
This tale would have been favored by Eerie or Creepy as far as the skinless witch's appearance was concerned.
I feel like the pedestrian art was kind of a disservice to what would have been a knockout story if the illustrator had mustered the vision of a Ditko or a Davis. None of the magic and disembodied spirits and weird old trinkets really resonated here, drawn by an artist way more likely to thrive on Crime Does Not Pay-type stories than anything with a surreal or spooky-doo mood.
I always liked the way this story hinges on such a simple pun. It's easy to imagine how the concept occurred to someone. I'd have loved to know what happened when the husband came back home and rconstituted himself with the wrong skein, putting on the veneer of his wife instead. In the loony-loco world of fifties comiclandia, would that have finally turned this murderer and thief into the emotional heavy of the tale? Once he's actually wrapped-up in his suspicious--but otherwise blameless--wife?
Interesting comments and thanks for the links, dudes! But yeah, I'm a little bit on the fence about the art too though I do like the story enough... it all just sort of feels more like a 70's Charlton story to me.
Something a lot more gruesome coming right up!
Boy, poker-bludgeoning sure was a popular murder method in these comics.
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