Monday, July 4, 2016
The Hanged Man
I didn't mean to leave you all "hanging" at the climax of our last post, so let's pick up where we sort of left off with a Steve Ditko request that I meant to get to a few weeks ago-- here ya go, Dave-- it's a spooky little tale from the Oct '69 issue of The Many Ghosts of Doctor Graves #16. Happy 4th of July, everyone!
Re-purposing internal art for a cover? BOO Charlton. BOO!
ReplyDeleteA fun tale with a scooby doo ending which doesn't actually distract at all. Good later period 60s Ditko work; some cool angles and good faces. Very expressive eyes (always a Ditko thing.) I like the skulls/noose that appear in the eyes of our comically evil villain.
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ReplyDeleteThe Judge knew from the beginning that this guy was the true culprit, I like that.
ReplyDeleteI also love the sad face the Judge makes on the last panel of the third page and the skulls and hanged man reflected in the doomed villain's eyes.
The start of Mestiere's first paragraph is interesting. This story is a little like the movie STORM WARNING, which is about the Ku Klux Klan in one town, but they're pictured as intimidating EVERYONE in the place, something you don't hear about so often in their case either.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that the character whose job it was to play the ghost regrets how well it worked, making him a sort of vigilante by accident. You'd think that with a character doing that to someone like Achbein, the story would "let that slide," so again, it's an interesting line.
Really loved the row of panels at the top of the last page. I like how the staircase leading to the top of the turret is somewhat subjectively fish-eyed to tally sympathetically with the closeup in the next panel (and, yeah, all the other reflections and eye-related things throughout the story). Man, I feel like Ditko's rather towering wattage would have been better spent on something else, but I'll take what I can get.
ReplyDeleteHope you had a great Fourth of July, Karswell!