Thursday, November 3, 2016

Raise the Devil

Hope everyone had a great Halloween! Unfortunately mine was a little too low key for my tastes, it was so low key in fact, that I completely biffed on the annual THOIA Halloween post --and I'm only just now getting around to it 3 days later! Apologies to all! And I promised another tale from the Jan-Feb 1978 issue of House of Mystery #256, because after all, as the awesome Bernie Wrightson cover art clearly shows, this one is indeed a Halloween issue! And what better way to celebrate than to don an 'Ol Scratch costume and raise a little Hell too! It may be November, but everyone who comes around here knows that EVERYDAY IS HALLOWEEN, so keep the fires burning, the candy buckets overflowing, and the dead bodies hanging from poles-- as we once again enter into the horrifying House of Mystery!

















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5 comments:

Glowworm said...

This one is pretty fun actually. I like the upgrade to the old phony medium scheme where the con-artists not only claim to summon up "spirits of the past" but also "The Devil." I also love that dated 70's lingo Harold Thatcher uses.
I do find the ending to be rather amusing in regards that the "real" devil is merely an agent of Hell himself and not actually Satan. However, he is real enough to give these two jokers what they deserve.

Mr. Cavin said...

I, too, spent Halloween night as a devil in a ridiculous outfit! What're the odds?

Happy Halloween (every day)!

Grant said...

I'll bet that by ' 78, a lot of that language was ALREADY being considered dated. (Not that I'm not STILL fine with those expressions!)

Guy Callaway said...

In the first panel, it's interesting how Rubeny draws Gaston as a buff super-devil, like he wasn't able to break out of his DC box.
Heavy tale, man. Stay Cool!

Brian Barnes said...

So, I guess, Happy Halloween again? :)

Good tale -- it's a twist on the regular fake medium/real spirits, but has enough originality in it to raise it above the crowd. The art is great, but a little static in places. The end demon has a interesting visage!

Let's talk about that cover. It's a beautiful piece of framing, the door behind Cain (that's Cain, right, I always got them mixed up!), framing Cain, and then framing the jack o latern, and then framed by the kids (and the piece of architecture on the left.) And the lighting! Great work.