Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Arms of Doom / Kiss of Doom!

Tentacled Tuesday (it rhymes with doomsday!) is here with a double header dose of wiggly, squiggly doom! One from Rudy Palais, and one from Joe Certa-- both from Harvey's Black Cat series! Our first story from the Dec '51 issue of Black Cat #32 almost looks comical at times with those big Mad eyeballs, but Palais, as always, handles the creepies nicely.













UPDATE: A few weeks after this post was uploaded I stumbled upon this pulp illustration from the February 1931 issue of Weird Tales Vol. 17 #2... look familiar?



And hey, while we're talkin' tentacles, if you need a really good monster movie, I highly recommend checking out GRABBERS! (2012.) Funny and scary-- just like today's posts!



And now for today's sexy, sushi scented sequel, from the February 1953 issue of Black Cat #42.













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6 comments:

  1. Grant3/19/2019

    This has a real "Shadow Over Innsmouth" feeling to it (except with cephalopod-people instead of fish-people). Not just the general idea but a few smaller parts. And in a way, "The Shadow Out Of Time" (with the traded bodies).

    In spite of him telling you that the change is permanent, at the last minute the story seems to be setting up some happy ending between poor Frank and the girl, but of course you don't get one.

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  2. Mestiere3/20/2019

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  3. Mr. Cavin3/20/2019

    Man, this Rudy Palais art is really wonderful. I like all the simian arm hair and even the goofy cartoon octopus head on the creature design. Although that seems like a really odd choice, it does make this Doc Ock look a lot like some spooky tarantula chimera from the back. Okay, I guess that more than "seems" like an odd choice.

    I am a big fan of the movie Grabbers, too. It goes on the shelf right between Tremors and Dagon.

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  4. Brian Barnes3/20/2019

    The art is pretty interesting in Arms of Doom. The saucer eyes on the octopus-man read as very Disney, while the rest of it reads very pre-code horror (down to the hairy arms.) It jarring, but at the same time, interesting. Almost like early manga with it's super hero and Disney influence.

    Page 4, final panel, is a great death scene with a good use of the monsters attributes.

    Kiss of Doom has a really fabulous sea creature; at first I thought it had snared some elephant and half-transformed but that's it's true look. It's got a lot of elements here, from the glamour transformations to the rule-based timing.

    It's also nice to see there didn't seem to be a world-conquering plan involved here, they just wanted to be humans, as far as I could tell.

    I like both of these. Wild tales that don't have a lot of logical consistency but are just "what's a cool thing to do next" plotting.

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  5. Guy Callaway3/21/2019

    "It's..a human octopus!"..with l'il shorts.
    Great tales, both!

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  6. Todd3/24/2019

    He is impervious to bullets, just like an octopus!

    That comment made my day.

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