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Wednesday, December 2, 2015
HAUNTED HORROR #20 / The Witch of Death
HAUNTED HORROR #20 is in stores today, and as promised we have another FULL STORY preview to summon up your spirits with a little bit of that 'ol witchy black magic! This tale originally appeared in the May 1954 issue of Web of Evil #14, with highly atmospheric art by Charles Nicholas. As usual, drop us a line and let us know what you think, and don't forget to find us on Facebook too-- Mr. Karswell's HAUNTED HORROR group is just dying to have you!
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ReplyDeleteThis guy had every possible reason to kill off that family, huh? He was cursed as a kid and he was losing his job, and he really was an evil magic mirror witch. Did I miss a motive? Was he also an escaped psycho? Were there diamonds in the wall safe? Did a foreign power take out a hit? I like to think everybody has their reasons, but Dick had so many! In light of all that, his Romeo and Juliet affection for the cute Duncan lass was really pretty transgressive. I was shocked--I audibly gasped at my screen--when I got to the middle panels of page eight. I love that! "Marry you? I just met you. What are you, nuts?" I hate that the story moved along to reveal this excellent, and surprisingly likely, rejection as a ruse (if not Dick's awesomely bratty response, which was revealed as genuine). I kind of want to cut these panels out and then paste them into every precode story where the dude pops the question right before the fade.
ReplyDeleteOther charming parts of this post include those awesome Reed Crandal heads on the Web of Evil cover (though L.B. Cole's psychedelic poster art on the Haunted Horror cover is more my speed), and that excellent "YIIIIII!" panel at the bottom of page five, which the artist has already lovingly shaped for all my smart phone screen-saving needs.
Did Karswell by mistake scan a copy of a smurf's comic? I think they used the word "witchery" as much as the smurf's used "smurf!"
ReplyDeleteLengthy story -- I'm so used to these being 5-6 pages that it always throws me. It's a lot easier to get a good punchy story in a shorter span, but the writer did a decent job with this, though halfway through it started to reveal it's Scooby-Doo roots (spoilers!)
Which brings up a good point -- how the heck did he pull off the giant ghostly image that caused the car crash? Was it his "magic mirror?" I suppose that was the point, but it was a little confusing there.
Not to be too literal about it, but it's odd how many horror stories about New England witch trials have them burnt at the stake. Not only were New England ones hanged instead, but it's one fact about the subject that almost EVERYONE has heard, since it comes up in even the shortest descriptions of it. So it's a little odd that that's one of the liberties you can almost count on in a story about them.
ReplyDeleteI kept expecting Dick and Dora to become amateur detectives in the story - even their names sound of course like a play on "Nick and Nora" of the "Thin Man" stories. (In fact, the Nick and Nora parodies in the movie MURDER BY DEATH were called Dick and Dora.) So the writer almost had to be at least entertaining the idea at first.