Tuesday, May 1, 2018

Trick or Treat

Whenever it's Mr. Karswell's birthday, you can safely scream "May Day! May Day!" while also knowing deep down in your evil little black hearts that we're at the half-way point in the year to Halloween! And if you're not too exhausted from unsafely Walpurgising your brains out last night, let us now further celebrate all ominous occasions mentioned (because every day is Halloween around here) with an overlooked Sterling Comics gem by Mike Sekowsky, from the May 1955 issue of Surprise Adventures #4.











10 comments:

Brian Barnes said...

OK, this one is hard to unpack for me. It's excellent, and has a real "whats going to happen" read that kept me turning digital pages. It's creepy and well paced.

That is, until the last 3 panels, and it falls down.

This one built up a ton of menace, but the ending was unfair and frankly could have had a lot more impact. There was a ton of scary places that could go, but it ended up a bit more like a nursery rhyme.

It's still great, though, the botched (IMHO) ending doesn't make up for the great art and great (almost) story.

Happy Birthday Karswell! And thanks for all the great material you bring us!

Mestiere said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Guy Callaway said...

Happy Birthday, Mr.K (we're both May babies)!!
My short posts don't reflect the enjoyment I get from your kind shares.

JMR777 said...

Happy Birthday Karswell. Did you get birthday cake or a Fathers Day Cake (It's Fathers Day and I got my own cake...Happy Father's Day to me!)

Mr. Karswell said...

I did get some cake but it was just of the regular chocolate variety and not the torn off head of an ungrateful relative, unfortunately. Thanks for the comments and bday wishes :)

Morbid said...

One year closer to the night you rise from a-mouldering in the grave for your revenge! Happy Countdown Day, Karswell!

Todd said...

This reminds me of "Nice Kids from Hell" on SCTV.

Guy Callaway said...

Exactly,Todd! SCTV was always brilliant (I'm Canadian, but I think most agree).

Mr. Cavin said...

I agree!

Fabulous blocky line work in the art here, though I wish it had seemed a bit darker in most of the panels. The mood was great throughout--nighttime adventure!--but the art only really catches up to that mood in the ducks-n-geese attack panel, and the bottom row of page five. The splash is panel really gorgeous, though.

My what a stick-in-the-mud town! This serves them right for their nine pm curfew. I think the would make a great movie. Like, once the kids all go home but not to sleep, there would be a crazy amount of dread worked up as neighbors called one another up with the escalating gossip, and all weird noises coming from outside. A lot of the movie would be kids peering though windows when they are supposed to be asleep--always an excellent formula!

I'm really delighted to see another Halloween story here, I thought you'd exhausted those long ago. Happy Birthday!

Mr. Karswell said...

I thought I had too!

Thanks for the comments!