THE HORRORS OF IT ALL swoops back into epic action with a blood sucker yarn from the October-November 1950 issue of Adventures into the Unknown #13, featuring art by Leonard Starr, who sadly passed away last week on June 30th at the age of 89. RIP
We always hate to hear when one of the comic book greats has passed.... ... we grew up enjoying the works of these creative people... and even a few that we have even gotten to meet at comic conventions.... ... Had not heard of his death... thank you good Sir Karswell for this info...
Glad you are back, and with a real good one! the story is cleverly written. I like the unusual outlook of this peculiar green vampire. We should say Charron is a sort of Michael Morbius ante litteram, a "living vampire". The radar jamming gizmo used to confuse the bats is also acceptable as a plot device:
Anyway, I was a little disappointed by the happy ending. The "perfect arian guy" type hero and his bodacious female sidekick are more detestable than any vampire. It could have been improved by a twist ending with the townsfolk thanking the hero for having defeated Charron, and then slaying him, for they are traditional vampires, ghouls or other supernatural beings of the swamp. That would have been more E.C.
The art is fine. I really like Charron's visual rendition. Note that he's supposed to be French, but on Page 9 he yells "Diablo!" ... funny how one little vowel just makes the difference :-)
Hey, no spoilers, especially not on the very first caption!
I love this, it's a great little adventure story, would work well as a super hero story from Stan in the 60s. There's a mono-logging villain, a dubious scientific invention, a damsel in distress, scared victims, and a rugged hero.
Oh, the whole "bats are blind" is a myth, their eyes are about equal to a human, but more equipped for night vision, like a cat. So Charron was just nice enough to dunk himself in the quicksand for our hero!
I love how the artist constantly drew Charron with the open-mouth grin, can you imagine how uneasy that would make you in real life?
I don't pick on every euphemism or every similar kind of expression the way some people do, but "Thank Gosh!" is kind of a LOL moment in the story. If only they'd chosen "Thank heaven!" instead. But never mind.
"It's, I don't know, kind of like some kinda freakish 'sound radar.' Weird huh?"
Lovely art here. I never really knew much about Leonard Starr. I was always kind of attracted to his Little Orphan Annie stuff in the papers growing up, but I never really wanted to read it, so I didn't pay all that much attention to it. This stuff is super solid, though. Classying up the joint! (Though, Ogden Whitney does a good job of that on the cover, too.) You can tell he steps out of his comfort zone a little for the weird stuff, cool, I really dig all those stiff bat compositions, but the regular character work is phenomenal. I love the panel where the doctor is taking the nurse's pulse after her first attack.
Speaking of the nurse, holy cow, I wouldn't take that chick anywhere. Like, every snide judgmental thought that passes between her ears comes right out of her mouth.
I liked the throwaway paragraph on the splash better here than usual, too. Its turn of phrase has, rather against the odds, rotated back around to perfectly modern again. I certainly hope you turned the lights down low while you were scanning these pages, Karswell!
6 comments:
We always hate to hear when one of the comic book greats has passed....
... we grew up enjoying the works of these creative people... and even a few that we have even gotten to meet at comic conventions....
... Had not heard of his death... thank you good Sir Karswell for this info...
Glad you are back, and with a real good one!
the story is cleverly written. I like the unusual outlook of this peculiar green vampire. We should say Charron is a sort of Michael Morbius ante litteram, a "living vampire".
The radar jamming gizmo used to confuse the bats is also acceptable as a plot device:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_jamming_and_deception#Electronic_jamming
Anyway, I was a little disappointed by the happy ending. The "perfect arian guy" type hero and his bodacious female sidekick are more detestable than any vampire.
It could have been improved by a twist ending with the townsfolk thanking the hero for having defeated Charron, and then slaying him, for they are traditional vampires, ghouls or other supernatural beings of the swamp. That would have been more E.C.
The art is fine. I really like Charron's visual rendition. Note that he's supposed to be French, but on Page 9 he yells "Diablo!" ... funny how one little vowel just makes the difference :-)
Hey, no spoilers, especially not on the very first caption!
I love this, it's a great little adventure story, would work well as a super hero story from Stan in the 60s. There's a mono-logging villain, a dubious scientific invention, a damsel in distress, scared victims, and a rugged hero.
Oh, the whole "bats are blind" is a myth, their eyes are about equal to a human, but more equipped for night vision, like a cat. So Charron was just nice enough to dunk himself in the quicksand for our hero!
I love how the artist constantly drew Charron with the open-mouth grin, can you imagine how uneasy that would make you in real life?
I don't pick on every euphemism or every similar kind of expression the way some people do, but "Thank Gosh!" is kind of a LOL moment in the story. If only they'd chosen "Thank heaven!" instead. But never mind.
"It's, I don't know, kind of like some kinda freakish 'sound radar.' Weird huh?"
Lovely art here. I never really knew much about Leonard Starr. I was always kind of attracted to his Little Orphan Annie stuff in the papers growing up, but I never really wanted to read it, so I didn't pay all that much attention to it. This stuff is super solid, though. Classying up the joint! (Though, Ogden Whitney does a good job of that on the cover, too.) You can tell he steps out of his comfort zone a little for the weird stuff, cool, I really dig all those stiff bat compositions, but the regular character work is phenomenal. I love the panel where the doctor is taking the nurse's pulse after her first attack.
Speaking of the nurse, holy cow, I wouldn't take that chick anywhere. Like, every snide judgmental thought that passes between her ears comes right out of her mouth.
I liked the throwaway paragraph on the splash better here than usual, too. Its turn of phrase has, rather against the odds, rotated back around to perfectly modern again. I certainly hope you turned the lights down low while you were scanning these pages, Karswell!
A sad passing, indeed.
Such brilliant artwork ♥
Post a Comment