From Starstream #4, (1976) with atmospheric art by Nevio Zaccara, and a freaky painted cover from Kees Romer.
Monday, August 3, 2015
And the Blood Ran Green
One more scary sci-fi story for you guys, and also from the cool 'n creepy, and somewhat overlooked 70's Spacestream series by Whitman. And like our last tale, we find yet another eerie alien infection turning a routine exploration mission into a total freakin' nightmare-- this one adapted from "The Fear Planet", a really great story originally written by horror legend Robert Bloch.
From Starstream #4, (1976) with atmospheric art by Nevio Zaccara, and a freaky painted cover from Kees Romer.
From Starstream #4, (1976) with atmospheric art by Nevio Zaccara, and a freaky painted cover from Kees Romer.
We have these comics...
ReplyDeleteeven used to do sketches of the "plant-monster" as a kid...
Cool post ... had nearly forgotten about these...
Man there are some really great funky visualizations here. Way better than a green giant with leaf hair. And another super cool cover, too. Is this series always this good?
ReplyDeleteI get to come into this one fresh because I never read the story, but this would make a pretty good movie, though the dour ending would probably have to be changed a bit (nothing wrong with a dour ending but it's more an EC short story ending than a movie ending.)
ReplyDeleteFunny thing about this -- the Hawks version of The Thing has a mixture of the last two stories, the plant like creature that acts as man and then the basic bones of Who Goes There.
These are fun ... and from Whitman!
Ouch! I must confess I’m really surprised, almost shocked.
ReplyDeleteI remember a sci-fi series called “Kriss Boyd” drawn by Zeccara, more or less in the same years (early 70's). May have been the first sci-fi comic I read.
It appeared on a catholic comic magazine for kids called “Il Giornalino”, owned by the San Paolo publishing group (fun fact: it was sold every week… in your local parish, and still is). Obviously, it was a very “mild” kind of sci-fi, and the stories were too short.
Funny, this story is like an “adult” version of an average Kriss Boyd episode, with a better art.
They would never have published it, though is not particularly gory or disturbing. No happy ending, you know.
For the same mag, Zeccara did another sci-fi series called “The Astro Hitch-Hikers”, more light hearted and comedic.
Is really weird to see such familiar art in a horror story (sort of).
This would have made a good episode on the new Twilight Zone series or Tales From the Darkside or the TV show Monsters (1988-1990). This was a great Sci Fi tale!
ReplyDeleteGreat find Karswell.
Nevio Zeccara is a very underrated artist. I always liked his art, so here are some old stories from "Astro Hitch-Hikers" (I found no Kriss Boyd).
ReplyDeleteBear in mind that this is "classic" Sci-Fi, published on a catholic magazine for kids in the 70's. Text is probably more important than visual rendering. In the first story, for instance, The loss of a capsule from a bottle of Space Cola, and the fight for its possession, influences progress and warfare on a primitive world (obvious inspiration from Carl Barks).
http://corrierino-giornalino.blogspot.it/2011/07/il-pianeta-degli-uomini-sapiens.html
http://corrierino-giornalino.blogspot.it/2008/08/tutto-e-relativo.html
http://corrierino-giornalino.blogspot.it/2011/04/i-diabolici-sosia.html
http://corrierino-giornalino.blogspot.it/2011/11/un-semplice-calcolo-mentale.html
http://corrierino-giornalino.blogspot.it/2011/12/il-giorno-che-rapirono-lanno-nuovo.html
And here's a Manfred von Richtofen's biography from Zeccara (a typical "educational" story):
http://corrierino-giornalino.blogspot.it/2012/04/il-barone-rosso.html
For more of his non-Sci-Fi check this index page of the same wonderful blog:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1G-pgGDp5zLWLQ91Yz10An3VPb50t8Nu9IEDw7b6eKWQ/edit?f=0&rm=full&pli=1#gid=0
Whew! Thank you and good bye! :-)
I've never read WHO GOES THERE? or really seen the ' 82 version of THE THING, but this story reminds me more than a little of the Italian film PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES.
ReplyDeleteGrant: Both the story and the various movie versions are worth your time. I've just discovered that you can read the whole thing online here (you'll have to page forward through each chapter). And now that I've discovered that, I'm going to have to read it again, myself.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
ReplyDeleteThe reason it reminds me of PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES is that "Any member of the crew might be an imposter" feeling. I don't know how much of that is in WHO GOES THERE? or the ' 82 version of THE THING, but I guess it's part of them too.
This was one of the stories in the Hungarian periodical anthology Metagalaktika (Dec.1982) As a 10-11 years old boy I was frightened yet fascinated by this story. It was good to see it again on your blog. Thanks!
ReplyDelete