Wednesday, August 8, 2018
The Eyes of Madam Jahn
Another tale of vengeance from beyond the grave, and also from the April 1952 issue of Fantastic #9 (see our previous post as well), and while it's a bit uneven in both story and art, it does contain a few incredibly eerie moments for sure, not to mention possible use of Myrna Loy photo reference at the bottom of page three. Art by Vince Napoli.
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6 comments:
That's actually pretty creepy, it would be interesting to see that from a better artist, but I think it works with the art as is.
Top of page 5 looks like a photo reference, too.
I really like how the revenge was left up to the imagination. Did he just die? Did she stab him? Who wrote the note? And why did the artist forget to draw the arm of the chair in the second to last panel? Mysteries that will never be solved!
It seems the artist was very uneven in this tale, many images were poorly drawn, a few looked like the illustrations of a intermediate draftsman.
Even with the uneven work the art tells the tale quite effectively, I think in this one occasion, bad art adds to the surreal dreamlike quality of this story. Why didn't he leave the house saying it caused him too many upsetting memories? Why didn't he claim he heard screams at night or saw a ghost?
Trying to insert logic into horror comics is as successful as adding logic and reason to an Italian Gallio, just go with the flow and give in to the crazy.
This one's really weird. The best part is when Madame Jahn's corpse comes floating into the room--which is especially odd since all the other times her ghost visited Gustav, she would walk in and sit down like a normal human being. I guess she wanted to be really dramatic that night.
Enjoyable insane tale. I'd add that the bottom left panel of page five joins the other photo steals. Thank you Mr. K for posting.
There are a lot of elements to consider when thinking about illustration as it relates to comic book storytelling. Certainly one of those is draftsmanship, and this guy was a pretty unskillful draftsman. I think half of this story is traced, but I don't care about it too much. Gotta do what you gotta do. Another factor to consider is, of course, page construction and paneling, those artistic choices relating to the necessities of setting mood, conveying action, pacing, etc. This guy actually does all of that stuff really well. I'm very used to seeing an opposite set of failings, frankly: bad paneling and storytelling displayed by otherwise excellent draftsmen. Sometimes when that is the case, I feel like I'm the only one who notices.
Anyway, I liked that half of the art here. And I liked some of the coloring, to boot. Owing to the extra advantage of cheapie printing and age, I really dig the second-to-last panel on page five. That's a great image to be taken out of context and zoomed up really big.
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