Lots more on the way-- stay tombed!
Friday, December 1, 2017
Dugan and the Dummy / If I Breathe... I Die!
We're picking up where we left off last month with two more tales from the May 1953 issue of Journey into Unknown Worlds #18. And since it's that giving time of the year, I thought I'd do something around here that I haven't done in a long long time and deliver a Double Header December! Yep, two stories every time I post this month-- that's an early xmas present to everyone who continues coming back, commenting, and basically just contributing to this blog in a civil, useful, positive manner. And first up, a super slick Larry Woromay / Matt Fox team-up of terror, followed by a jittery jailbird jolter with awesome art courtesy of our good pal, Hy Fleischman, who coincidentally enough, just turned 90 years young last month-- HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HY!!
Lots more on the way-- stay tombed!
Lots more on the way-- stay tombed!
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11 comments:
These are great!
"Dugan and the Dummy" has a fun ending because there's a ton of ways this story could go, which sets up a good con from a story-telling perspective. The art is great, it's speedy and fun.
"If I Breathe...I Die" is even faster, and pre-announces the ending, so it's fair. Good art like the story before it. Little gems, for sure. Nothing super new or original, just tightly wound stories.
"I killed that Cop!" Kars, is this your way of confessing? Of course, confessing that you are actually a hot scandal-hungry brunette with a smoking habit?
Don't overlook my Samhain Initium!
The first story is hilarious--especially how Dungan keeps insisting that he's caught the male dummies hitting on Isabella. That twist ending does change things a bit when we realize that Dungan isn't just a sad, lonely old man, but actually a sad, lonely old dummy. Also, how'd they figure out that Dungan was actually a dummy--did his "corpse" fall apart when being handled at the end?
I honestly didn't see the ending of the second story coming-I figured Joe would wind up down a sewer pipe or eaten by some piranhas or something--not that rather simple yet clever conclusion.
The first story is a dark mini-masterpiece of 1950's horror comics! It's really great -- worthy of a Twilight Zone adaptation which never happened. And the second is pretty darn good and worth a read. Two pretty original stories. So this overall is a really good post. My discovery of Hy Fleischman was completely through THOIA (The Vampire with the Iron Teeth is MUST READ post on THOIA! Look it up!) and was one of the keys that inspired me to pursue my childhood dream of being a horror comics artist! Which has just recently resulted in an upcoming graphic novel which is getting some publicity on some big horror media sites and a story in an anthology comic for Halloween that just came out and a bunch of other projects I'm knee deep in. So he is one of my faves! Thanks, THOIA! Happy birthday, Hy!
Best of luck to you Morbid, or should I say 'break a leg' so bad luck doesn't jinx you.
In 'Dugan and the Dummy', nest to the last panel, I noticed the dummy's head looking at Dugan and smirking as if to say "who's the dummy now?"
I also didn't see the ending coming in 'If I breathe I Die', I thought the pipe led to a septic tank where the warden kept fish or alligators. Neat twist endings from Atlas, thanks for the posts Karswell.
Someone beating up a full-sized dummy automatically makes me think of THE WORLD, THE FLESH AND THE DEVIL, where Harry Belafonte is (supposedly) the last man on earth, and he keeps from cracking up partly by talking to store mannequins. The smile on the male mannequin's face finally gets to Harry (like a smug smile instead of a friendly one), and he throws him out a window!
That Woromay/Fox splash is dynamite. They make a great illustration team, both artist's styles coming right through work that is maybe a little slicker than some of their stuff with other collaborators.
Happy Birthday, Hy Fleischman! My favorite of Hy's work reminds me Soviet propaganda posters, or perhaps the sketchy, emotional energy of George Bellows drawings. His splash doesn't disappoint, either.
Great site. I only found it recently. I had scanned a few Atlas issues years ago. I have no idea at the moment where I backed them up. I actually even scanned some issues that were VG quality very carefully. Your cans are much nicer with the extra cleaning up work you do. Many people might not realize that what you used as a source likely doesn't look as nice as what appears in the blog. Keep up he great work.
I'm a fan all precode horror titles as well as some early code issues (imagination can be good and a good writer also helps.)
I recently sold Men's Adventures 26. I think that the one that was copied later with almost exactly the same plot in Strange Suspense Stories
Any chance of scanning the later horror issues of Venus? Especially the last few.
Thanks for the kind words Vortexx
All of the Venus scans were donated years ago by someone else, sorry
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