Tuesday, August 25, 2015
HAUNTED HORROR #18 / Murder Mansion
We initially had a release date of August 26th for HAUNTED HORROR #18, but over at the Previews New Release site we've noticed that it's unfortunately not listed --so cross your fingers (and don't forget to invert them too) for next week! In the meantime, we still have a perfectly spooky preview of our own from HH18 for you to scream about-- it's an awesomely illustrated terror tale by the great Lee Elias, originally featured in the Nov. '51 issue of Witches Tales #6.
This is another of the fun type of pre-code where the story is an excuse for a couple clever kills (almost like some of the more silly b-slasher movies in the 80s.) Like so many evil spirits, they really need to learn to put out candles! How many at this point have gotten their earthly abode burned down by candles?
ReplyDeleteElias turns in a great piece of work here. I love the muddy, dark line line work, every ghost and spirit that appears in the frame (I especially like the skeletal hand, it's like an Abbott and Costello movie!)
Can't wait for Issue #18 if this is the quality of the stories!
Man, this is great! Love the clean, stripey ink marks! Everything's so emphatic and lively. I'm always a sucker for a cameo from the ol' death bed, too. I was just talking about the crushing canopy bed in a conversation yesterday, and this reminded me to look it up: Wilkie Collins. I should have remembered that.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.online-literature.com/wilkie-collins/2114/
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ReplyDeleteThis is the second story in a row where someone's attractive daughter in bedclothes doesn't get rescued. That's the kind of character you usually EXPECT to get rescued. But of course these pre-Code comics are always playing around with the rules.
ReplyDeleteAn innocent young woman becomes A CORRUPTED EVIL OLD HAG, who murders her newlywed husband, who becomes her demon slave and then they RANDOMLY MURDER another family BECAUSE REASONS? This is one of my pre code favorites because it has absolutely no point to make about its horrors. Even EC at their most gruesome had some kind of moral cause and effect.
ReplyDeleteLoved the art!....loved the captions! All sorts o' spooky stuff, in each panel.....the beckoning hand, to the cellar, the spirits, etc.....but what IS it with white people??! .....ANY black person would've ran the HELL outta there!! I thought this only happened in MOVIES!! Served the guy right, gettin' himself tenderized with the spiked bed.....
ReplyDeletedo you have subscriptions to your mags? my local comics shop never seems to order me a copy of haunted horror...so I miss out...thnx
ReplyDeleteThis crazy comic story Murder Mansion makes me think it was a proto-Giallo, twisted irrational plot, killings without rhyme or reason, a logic that exists only in the locale that the story takes place, all the elements of Giallo without the hand of Bava or Argento to take it to a weird unexplainable level.
ReplyDeleteWOW, that was so creepy! Gave me chills!
ReplyDelete