Friday, February 27, 2015
Feast of the Ghouls / The Haunted Hotel
Not to be confused with A.C. Hollingsworth's Ghouls Feast at Midnight (click HERE for a second helping if you're still starving later), todays morbid mouthful from Sekowsky / Peppe first appeared in the March 1954 issue of Adventures into Darkness #13. Surprisingly, I haven't posted much from this issue here over the years, even though it's one of the oldest rags in my collection, so don't be surprised if we see a few more from it over the next few posts. Sound good? Yes, yes, you can stop smacking your lips now-- ugh! Included side order: an Ambrose Bierce, one-page quickie illustrated by Gene Fawcett... Standard was always good for interesting comic book filler such as this.
I guess this proves that if you wanna eat well, you have to come to Italy. Don't know if a place called "Scafato" actually exists. Best approx is "Scafati" near Salerno. "Scafato" neans "experienced" or "shrewd".
ReplyDeleteAwful menu, yet with the upcoming worsening of our crisis maybe we'll give it a try.
On the same subject, I remember a much subtler EC story concerning a "Grateful Hoboes Oucast and Unwanted Layaways Society".
I think Ghouls are evil spirits of Arabian lore, but I can't remember if humans can actually turn into Ghouls as they can become Vampires. H P Lovecraft, anyway, states his character Richard Upton Pickman becomes a Ghoul, but Lovecraft likes hybridizations.
The transformation of the old degenerate is cool, he and his friends become quite funny beasties, but remain greedy gluttons.
Lovely ghoulish pig in page 1 !
The cover is great. For no particular reason, reminded me of Weird Tales. A very nice piece of your collection Mr. Karswell.
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ReplyDeleteI like the way this guy draws faces. I also like that crazy magic sand scribble at the bottom of page five--especially since, on the very next page, the narrative is abbreviated for space twice in the top row. That's panache!
ReplyDeleteIn the first picture of him, Meadows actually looks like an angry FEMALE character, the "matronly" kind.
ReplyDeleteSince his eyes are open the last time you see him, I half expected Jamison to return at the end and have the big showdown with Meadows. That seems to be a popular idea in suspense stories, the betrayed helper getting rid of the villain (or trying to).
Either way, when it comes to being the villain and the helper, Jamison and Meadows have a kind of very short Barnabas Collins / Willie Loomis relationship, with Jamison being warned not to press his luck but doing it anyway.
The art here: It looks nothing Toth but I get a real Toth vibe from it. I'm not sure why. The woman maybe?
ReplyDeleteI love the pig creature on the splash!
One thing that's always interesting about some of these pre-codes is the willingness to forgot who's wearing clothes. I can get transforming into a lumpy gray monster, but what happens to the clothes? You could have cut one death and used those panels for some kind of transformation scene, but the pacing was problematic in this one.
The cover's great. Not spooky at all, but just a fun cover that would make a great poster.
Toth and Peppe did a considerate amount of work together, Alex on pencils and Mike on inks... seems natural his style would resemble it on other projects, though Toth did a number of stories for this publisher as well so maybe they were keen on maintaining that overall look
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