Saturday, May 16, 2015
Curse of the Fire-Bird
THE HORRORS OF IT ALL rises from the ashes of a much needed vacation with a hot little curse to set your weird weekend on fire! The always slick, and exceptionally sexy bad girl art from Ace great, Lin Streeter, really turns up the hellacious heat on this one-- from the January 1953 issue of The Beyond #18. GCD says the cover art is by Gene Colan.
Lovely art.The story is a darn good one, too.
ReplyDeleteThe wife was a real bi... a really awful person (and a bodybuilder, to lift that mace), OK, but what if she was a decent girl and the Phoenix, intending to spare her life, agreed to grant her a regular divorce? would that be enough to avoid the Phoenix' curse? A case for Wolff and Byrd, maybe. Especially Byrd.
My, what a silly comment!
I wouldn't have guessed Colan did the cover.
I'm not convinced that's Colan either
ReplyDeleteI think this must be one of the few stories where the Phoenix is depicted as an evil or at least very sinister creature.
ReplyDeleteIf somebody ever tries to murder me, I'm going to try to say the same lines ol' Burnett said! I think most people would get second thoughts about murder considering how calming Burnett was about it!
ReplyDeleteThis is kind of a weird one. Certainly, Lydia went a long way for her fate. But, at the same time, Burnett married her knowing full well he wasn't going to die and what her eventually fate would be. There seems to be no small bit of entrapment in the story, even though Lydia could certainly be almost all to blame.
It's a cool story, because of all that.
Art's good, but I think the coloring is a bit too high contrast for it.
That's exactly what I was thinking, that it seems like Lydia was in for it with or without being a bad person.
ReplyDeleteOne thing about Lydia is that she's one of those characters you have a problem with not just for being bad, but for not thinking things through. After all, to get Professor Burnett's money, she burns down a house full of art (the item he mentions by name going back to the 11th Century!). Those must have been worth a huge amount of money by themselves.
J_D_La_Rue's bodybuilder reference makes me wonder if there have ever been all-out "FBB" (female bodybuilder) characters in horror comics. As far as I know, you don't even find them in sword and sorcery comics, although superhero ones played around with the idea for a time.
"There is nothing----nothing but a flame in the sky!" Oh well, never mind then. Go on back to bed. Floating sky flame is in no way as sinister as that cartoony looking bird you thought you saw.
ReplyDeleteI love the way Streeter draws the people, at least. I like that second-to-last panel best. It would rock and roll airbrushed on the side of some Mopar lowrider. I do think the cover is Colan--the figures at least. The flying cuff on that man's pants is a dead giveaway. Colan draws the best highwaters!
Going on vacation myself, day after tomorrow. See you all in June when I return from central Transylvania.