Tuesday, November 28, 2017
The Broth Needs Some Body!
Another tasty Thanksgiving leftover straight from the fridge of fright-- just heat with the fires of Hell and serve! It's a fun little dish of toil and trouble from the May 1953 issue of Journey into Unknown Worlds #18, with Tony DiPreta story art and a super Russ Heath cover! *burp!
Oh, I love this one. I kind of saw the ending coming quite easily to be honest, but it's a lot of fun. I feel really sorry for that husband though.He thought he could finally get rid of what was eating him--but it turns out she'll be eating him tonight for sure!
ReplyDeleteThey went a little too far with the "out with my friends" which makes the ending pretty obvious, but I still love it. It's a bit goofy, it's not super-serious, and the scratchy comedic art is great. All the witches have good looks and the story is quick.
ReplyDeletePage 2, panel 2 is a particularly good one.
I'm not sold on the weird extra dark panel borders to denote a section that was back in time, I think comic readers don't need the extra help and it does draw out the eye.
Like this one, though would have liked it better if instead of mentioning never seeing her friends and giving it all away, the husband could have been strongly misdirected into thinking she was having an affair as the reason he never met her "friends" when she went out. Enjoyed the art and the cover. Thanks for posting!
ReplyDeleteI'm a real killjoy about this, but I've never gone in for the "bearded witch" cliche. For me, it's right up there with the "bearded ethnic woman" cliche!
ReplyDeleteBut that's about my only complaint.
Every time I read some line of the wife's, I hear June Foray playing one of those comical cartoon wives she played so many of!
Grant, I think I was giving the nasty wife Foray's voice myself--or a similar stereotypical nagging wife voice.
ReplyDeleteWhen the trio (or quartet) are not out cooking up mischief, I guess they star in the local Shakespeare production of Macbeth. What better way to hide in plain sight?
ReplyDeleteNone of this read to me like the witches were supposed to be bearded; to me, the chin hatching looked like a product of the same skin tone/shadow details being hatched-in on every other spot of these people's skin. Also, I'm going to have to read back a ways. I'm not sure I've ever noticed this cliche as it relates to witches (not that I'm arguing; I see it each and every time it turns up on hillbilly women). I'm frankly a little bit delighted by the prospect of politically incorrect depictions of witches. Hexism? Facial prejudice?
ReplyDeleteGlorious art here. Like old Italian political caricatures or illustrations from Alice in Wonderland. The whole last page is a gobsmacker. DiPreta's sense of light and shadow is just lovely, but YMMV when it comes to the chins.
Maybe I was mistaken in this case.
ReplyDeleteI'll be glad to find that out - as I said, maybe I sound "humorless" about it, but it's as if a story isn't allowed to picture a woman as unattractive WITHOUT that one bit. Including a lot of comical witches, because in the Archie comics, they even did it with Sabrina's two aunts. Heck, when it comes to non-supernatural unattractive women, they even did it with the "lunch lady" character!
So hopefully I was wrong this time, because again, the "bearded woman" cliche started to wear really thin for me very early.
Sorry, they definitely have beards... second page fourth panel....
ReplyDeleteOnly on THOIA would there be a discussion on witches' beards...
ReplyDeleteHaha... I LOVE witch beards!!! I'm also a fan of the weird dark panel flashback flourishes, but I'll leave it as is and move on
ReplyDeleteI guess Nequam could make us a new witch beard tag....
ReplyDelete