Tuesday, August 23, 2016
To Wake the Dead
We've seen this type of story around here before: a rich asshole schemer ignores eerie warnings and awakens the vengeful supernatural-- but Ernie Chua delivers a really petrifying panel of pissed off dead at the top of page 5 (it's somehow even creepier than Nick Cardy's awesome cover art), plus a really cool, freak-out splash too, and that my friends makes this post essential for the THOIA Archive! From the August 1973 issue of The Unexpected #149. FYI: Fans of The Spectre should keep their eyes peeled for a certain police officer guest star possibly implied in today's tale as well...
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ReplyDeleteAs Mestiere said, this one mixes up ghosts/zombies, possible because of the code, though pre-code did that a lot (walking corpses were many times referred to as ghosts.) This story even mixes it up further; they seem physical as they leave the group, but immaterial, or half-immaterial, at other times.
ReplyDeleteGreat art in this (as usual for the 70s DC stuff.)
The cop book-ending raises the bar on this story.
This is another one where I don't get the skepticism. I don't believe in ghosts, but I believe whole heartily in evidence. Something -- supernatural or not -- has a lot of power and is sabotaging everything, and seems to be unstoppable. When it actually warns you with the mock gravestone, how about you don't get anywhere near it? You don't have to let go of your skepticism!
Steven Carson sounded and looked a little bit like J Jonah Jameson, especially on the last panel on the right on page six. The haircut was different but the angry arrogant attitude was identical to the editor of the Daily Bugle. Maybe Carson was a late relative of J Jonah?
ReplyDeleteI dig how they were laying the cornerstone nearly at the end of construction. Talk about doing things the hard way. I think every ghost and construction worker in this story is probably really crappy at Jenga.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, when you start to see your own grave being marked, you should start believing and run!
ReplyDeleteI live in an area where the land developers won't stop till they've plowed up EVERYTHING IN SIGHT. Maybe I'm awful, but I wouldn't be sorry to hear about a few local developers and the "accidents" that befell them, even IF it included the kind that finally got Steven Carson himself.
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