Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Carnival of Death / Whip of Death!
Due to the west coast seaport shut-down, Haunted Horror #15 will not be in stores today according to Previewsworld, --dead in the water, so to speak (along with everything else from IDW this week!) We will keep you informed on any new developments. In the meantime, we'll keep the death rolling along with a couple of screamers from the June 1952 issue of Black Cat Mystery #36.
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ReplyDelete"In fact, the god's power seemed limited to operating the Ferris wheel." Which makes Angor, the God of the Malformed, vastly more powerful by default than any other god! If some Bible thumper, priest, imam, whatever, would show me that his deity can operate a Ferris wheel, I'd be on my knees a believer!
ReplyDeleteThat second story sure could have withstood two or three more pages. A pretty good illustrator with lots of super horror comic material and it never got to fully spread its wings! Splash panel was terrific. Thanks for posting!
It's also interested that there's nothing remotely sad about the strongwoman's appearance - she's a very attractive "Amazon," period. I'll definitely take her over the character Mestiere mentions. In fact, even if she were a whole lot bigger, her "freakishness" would be news to a lot of female bodybuilding fans.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny how Zarus takes it for granted that Angor will disappear in the daylight. The story suggests that he's never heard of Angor till he sees him, but that line suggests that he knows the "theology" connected with him. Unless, as Mestiere mentions, he thinks the whole story is literally a nightmare.
It's comforting to know that there is a God of the malformed, and that He can work a ferris wheel. Anyway his name read backwards is "Rogna" (Italian for "mange"), which is quite fitting.
ReplyDeleteWho are those not-so-harmless freaks? Where do they come from? Attilan maybe?
Both enjoyable stories, Mr. Karswell....
ReplyDeleteSo do the "Freaks own the Circus now...???
and the poor cabin boy got his Revenge...
I want to see the freak show that features a tall, busty blonde in a miniskirt! Notice how much she resembles Wonder Woman, which had already been around for about 10 years. There's also a good bit of superhero imagery in there. Fun story, needs an editor, though.
ReplyDeleteThe second one is great. The splash with the rats on the heads seems like it's a lame initiation right for some bizarre cult.
There's a lot of mis-communication between the art & writer in it but it somewhat helps give it that fever dream state. That said, the last two panels really, really should not have existed. The guy seeing the skeleton lashed to the wheel from thousands of feet out and identifying it, and then "two skeletons" when the artist obviously drew a body!
These are very much your modern "popcorn movie" horror stories; not a lot of depth but just as much mayhem and strange visuals as you can pack into a few pages. Fun stuff!
Excellent stories! The latter has a marvelous AIEEEE-EEEE-EEEE! in the first panel. It's my favorite exclamation in horror comics, it serves almost as a HOME SWEET HOME sign, you know you're in the right place!
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't seem to have occurred to the freaks in the circus story that thanks to their god they're all out of work now. Angor needs to work a little on timing his interventions more helpfully!
Wonder Woman is the character I couldn't help thinking of too. Again, she's like a literal Amazon. As Brian Barnes says, how can you consider a show with her any kind of a "freak show"?
ReplyDeleteAnd as Aldi says, there's nothing like "AIEEEE!" to make you feel sentimental during one of these stories.
I guess I'll just chime in at the end here by lending my voice to those who are already citing the great art (and awesome splash!) of the second story as well as the oneiric oddity of that first one. I wish the art were a little more surreal in Carnival of Death, just to balance out the unnervingly psychotropic story. By turns I wish the writing in the pirate story weren't so by-the-numbers ("whaaat? He's become a revenge ghost, gasp choke!") because the art deserves much more.
ReplyDeleteGreat comments, thanks everyone! Another post up ASAP! That's "as scary as possible!"
ReplyDelete