Saturday, August 26, 2017
The Awful Mr. Ishveli
I've been awfully tardy getting this blog updated in the last week, and I'm awfully sorry-- so let's turn that negative 'ol spotlight off of me and onto someone REALLY awful instead-- as seen in this demonically doomed classic from the October - November 1953 issue of Out of the Night #11.
We would Never view you in any way "negative" , good Mr. Karswell...
ReplyDelete.. we really enjoy "getting lost" in reading from your Archives... doing so helps us forget about "troubles" and we just spend time reading old horror comics... Thank you for All these wonderful posts of (many of which we would never see) older Horror comics.... reading these (and bits from my own collection) are one of our few Favorite things these days...
a very pleasant weekend to you and yours
This is a weird and interesting one. There are some plot points and possible holes, but those can be ignored because the story has a narrative that leaves a lot of questions. Ishveli rescued the boy, but his own inactions damned the boy. Yes, he gave him a second chance, but a second chance after a life of crime? Nobody changes that fast! And who is to say that the initial accident -- caused by Ishveli's action -- was a driver of that life of crime?
ReplyDeleteIt's got some entertaining art, and I love the splash (especially his hand breaking through the scroll.). Why his methods (when he has such vast supernatural powers) change so much I don't know!
I enjoyed reading about the origin of DC's Spectre! :)
There's a dreamlike quality to the first several pages of this, before the story finally settles into a more recognizable narrative, where it really feels like the authors are making it up as they go along. It's like an exquisite corpse: Here's the character! Here he is murdering folks a number of different ways! Here he is hitchhiking! Meet his butler! I really kind of like this style of onslaught storytelling. It's really unpredictable; literally anything could have happened in the third panel of page four. The boy could have found a locked room. Mr. Ishveli might have disappeared only to return with another child next week. The butler might have descended into the lab to tune-up the ol' mind control device. Halfway through the story and literally anything might have happened.
ReplyDeleteAmusingly enough, I was recently thinking of this story. It's definitely memorable. It also has my absolute favorite story beginning with the first panel introducing us to Mr. Ishveli by showing him sniping a man from the roof. His reaction to what he has just done? "Excellent! I'm getting better all the time!" How nice to see a man who really loves his job!
ReplyDeleteThe rest of the story is fun too, although if you ask me, Mr. Ishveli is only truly "awful" if you don't behave properly in life.
I love how the amulet was actually a test, and Robert failed it.
Wow, a surprisingly deterministic narrative......
ReplyDeleteI think of it more as entrapment than a test, but that's a fine line.
ReplyDeleteThe scene with the golddigger character is like that TWILIGHT ZONE episode "The Masks," which of course also has a vain female character getting "punished." That story always leaves a funny taste in my mouth, because the character you're supposed to identify with is "playing God" (at least to me). At least Mr. Ishveli doesn't seem like as much of an "I.D." character as that one.