Friday, August 4, 2017
Upgrade!
Had a few requests for the one where ___________'s ________ gets a body parts updating (trying hard not to let loose with the spoilers!) and it's a freaky fun tale from the November 1991 issue of Dread of Night #1-- though if you're like me you'll be thinking it's going to end a bit differently than it actually does-- but it's all good. I dig the bold art style of Howard Bender and Brian Buniak too, and check out that cover by legendary precode cover master, L.B. Cole!
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11 comments:
This is rather endearingly old-fashioned, especially compared to some of the late-era pieces that have featured here and tend to ramp up the "adult" content (usually meaning swears and bare female breasts).
A great opening premise! I liked the strong, graphic art. Some very nice build up. Really got into this story. Then an ending which I saw coming started to appear and started wondering about the plausibility of it. And then the ending happened. How is he going to do the surgery on himself to replace his own hands?
I was actually thinking he was going to replace his own brain with the doctor's-- that would've been even more crazy to explain, but I was rootin' for it! haha
That is even more crazy, Karswell! The whole brain transplant thing is a vintage Frankenstein movie go-to, so I can see how that would have been something you thought of reading this one.
Yeah I was seriously ready to get to the end of the story and read how he was going to pull it off / out / put it in etc...
You know, if anyone in commenter land reading this can give us a plausible or at least the most entertaining explanation with the brain upgrade twist ending instead, I'll send them a FREE copy of Haunted Horror #29
Doing this surgery one handed is going to be a bit hard!
BTW, that splash of the surgery is great. There were a couple companion mags to this one (I think it probably made it issue or two) and I remember the stories weren't are that great but there was some fun art. Nothing against the Creepy/Eerie stuff that Dark Horse put out (and seems to have gone defunct) but this kind of writing/art was a much better fit (some story problems aside) for a continuation of that series.
Yeah, the other short lived Hamilton horror mags were Grave Tales, and Maggots... published out of AZ
Count Robespierre looks like a distant relative of Dr. Dee Munn, host of Creepy Things from Charlton Comics (man, have I read one too many Charlton Comics for my own good)
The Brain transplant story concept-
Elias wisely saved the notes concerning his creation from the surgeon who made him what he is today. After centuries of attaining wealth and comfort, Elias repeated the early experiments of his creator on rats and stray dogs to find out if the early techniques still worked and if he had the skill to do it himself. Finding that the experiments were successful, but realizing he lacked the finesse to operate on himself and leave no scars, he hired Dr. Boyd for the fine skills he possessed.
After the operations were completed, Elias realized that he needed not only skilled hands but the keen mind of a surgeon in the event he ever needed to perform operations on himself (just like computer software, Elias would need upgrading from time to time.)
A detail left out of the story which can be used for the brain transplant story-the surgeon who assembled Elias had hoped to transfer his own brain, or rather his mind, into the brute since the surgeon was suffering from an incurable ailment and planned to live on in Elias's body until a cure could be found. If no cure were available the surgeon planned to create a new body minus the scars and stitches and transfer his brain/mind once more. Unfortunately the surgeon's assistant pulled the wrong lever and the transference was only partly successful, giving Elias a keen mind rather than that of a brutish thug while leaving the surgeon with only half a mind, literally.
With the notes Elias saved and a new machine created for the transference, and a powerful computer as a substitute for a hunchback assistant, Elias transferred Dr Boyd's mind into his own, but also gained the mental speed of a computer (an unexpected benefit, even computers can err, Garbage In Garbage Out.) I can't decide if Elias gains a Mac or Windows computer brain, either way he finds himself internet ready.
This is amazing. I was giggling the whole time as the narrative is genius. I figured that Elias was going to eventually want something that belonged to the doctor--or at least want to operate on him at the end. I didn't quite expect it to be his hands, but I wasn't anticipating the classic "I want your brain" path either.
I think you guys have got it backwards. I think it would have been the Doctor himself who'd have forced the creature to have the brain transplant in the final act, his master plan being that he could then assume the perfect body he'd been making all along with Frankenstein's hopeful "assistance." Might as well go ahead and toss the creature's thinker right back into the practice monster he'd been slapping together himself, right? Then, once they were both resurrected, they would get into the predictable monster mash; but when the neighbors get pissed and call the cops they wouldn't be able to explain the brainless body of the doctor discarded on the basement slab, and they would both end up going to jail for a good long time. Fade out.
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