Tuesday, June 23, 2015
HAUNTED HORROR #17 / A Pound of Flesh
HAUNTED HORROR #17 creeps into stores this week, and as usual, here's your full FREE preview of one of the more superbly sick stories contained within! Originally presented in the October 1953 issue of Mysterious Adventures #16 --art by Ross Andru! The rest of the issue is nicely carved-out with a scream-worthy assortment of monsters, madness, and murder! Enjoy!
A funny story. So the little prick gets away with it? Where's Doc Wertham?
ReplyDeleteI don't sympathize with Herb. Matter of fact, maybe he is the one to blame for his wife's excesses (food as a compensation for lack of attention or sexual activity).
Second person narrative is alway kinda weird....
There's a good number of "wife gets obese" stories -- is there one where the husband gets obese? I don't seem to remember that.
ReplyDeleteI always loved the Andru art, it's a more sketchy Johnny Craig and it works perfectly for this little tale. There's no real shock ending, it's not telegraphed, it's just obvious, which refreshing from the usual trying to hard EC ending.
There's a lot of deck stacking here. She's not just gotten fat, but she's also being obnoxious about it.
Andre really used a couple interesting angles to make her look as big as possible, especially in the face. I also love the expression on the rubber face, Andru was ahead of the game on creepy sex doll faces by a couple decades!
I agree with JD about second person narrative, which always comes across like an accusation to me. I spend half the story going "oh no I didn't!" I love Andru's art in this, plus the frequent use of foreground orange. Don't see a lot of straight orange in comics, do you? Mostly just for fire. Strange.
ReplyDeleteThe first time you posted this one, it was difficult for the gallery here to swallow a story without clear moral boundaries--as if the burden of the author is to highlight right versus wrong by illustrating a comeuppance. Any less, it was intimated, was tantamount to an endorsement of the acts the story presented. I think that's hooey. I love stumbling across the occasional completely amoral tale.
Course, I'd be open to a sequel called the Haunted Skin, too.
[now, off to click "I'm not a robot" so I can post this gem!]
I love it. I love it.
ReplyDeleteToo bad Herb was not caught and sent to the electric chair for murdering woman who had done absolutely nothing.
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ReplyDelete@Mestiere: I don't wanna see THAT story!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I just realized that THIS story is almost an horror version of "The Long Years" by Feldstein/Orlando.
That great Bradbury adaptation appeared on "Weird Science" just a few months before.
Now I wonder how the stranded professor solved the "skin problem" for his beloved robotic family...
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ReplyDeleteIf this had been written now, there would probably be squeezed-in-edgewise gross-out humor, and I don't mean the kind about obesity! I'm sure there was SOME bathroom humor in ' 50s comics (and other ' 50s entertainment), but people didn't get hit over the head with it the way you do now.
ReplyDeleteOne story I remember in which the husband was the obese one was in one of the E.C. horror comics. I think Joe Orlando was the artist. I'll have to check my Russ Cochran hardbacks.
ReplyDeleteThis story is heavy with fat shaming.
ReplyDeleteLoved the artwok, by Andru....loved the grunts, chomps,slurps, n' other disgusting sounds comin' from Hilda's piehole....story was way obvious, but I liked it anyway.....I would have really LOVED if Herbert was even SMARTER, n' made TWO beautiful "Hildas", n' when his friends came over, he could've said, "Yes, Hilda is Back, n' she brought her twin sister, who owns a gym, n' Nutritionalist..... n' THAT'S how Hilda #1 lost allllll that weight......I am NOT a robot! { click, whrrrrrrrrr, ka- chuck!}
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