And say, do you need an example of what's to be found this time around? Click HERE and HERE for a taste!
And in the meantime, I thought I'd share some other swamp horror tales that didn't quite make the cut for the book... this doesn't mean they were unworthy or lacked a certain sort of foggy boggy woggy woo-- they mostly just didn't fit in our newly formatted / limited page count. So put your ear to the peat moss and listen closely... can you hear it? Can you?! It's coming! Yes, this soggy scream dream doggy paddles into your lives from the July 1953 issue of Haunted Thrills #10.
This entire story is almost as dreamy as David's constant state after being called by the mysterious spirit of the swamp. We never discover for certain who she is or who David once was 200 years ago, only that this spirit had once been David's love in another life and killed herself in the swamp after thinking he had left her behind for good.
ReplyDeleteThe spirit almost acts more like a siren if anything--luring David with her voice only to drown him in the swamp in the end.
We also don't know how David really feels. Is he impacted by a spell making him think that he once knew this departed woman from long ago,or does he truly believe that he knew her once in a former life? While it looks like her spell is wearing off near the end as he wants to return to his wife--he doesn't look terrified as she drags him back to the swamp to be with him--he almost looks peaceful.
So yeah, a strange vague story with an eerie, mysterious atmosphere with a rather gloomy ending. At least the spirit is happy. I think.
Also, I could be wrong, but did David strangle Sylvia to death at the end of the story? Again, it seems rather vague, but I think he did because we don't see her attempting to stop David again, and the narration at the top of the last page in the first panel darkly hints that "It was the last night Sylvia and David would spend in the house of dread, but their exit was to be far different than either had ever dreamed... She also isn't seen again after the page where David strangles her. Again, the entire story is really vague.
ReplyDeleteThis should be handed out to women as a reason to never get married!
ReplyDeletePoor Sylvia, really didn't deserve the crap that happened to her. As was pointed out, there's a lot of nebulous plot points in this story. My interpretation is that he was in fact a reincarnation of her long dead lover just because the splash text (with is omniscient) says so .. but even that is a bit confusing!
I like the smile on David on the last panel, and some of the more pin-up ghost drawings. The art's workman like but not anything great. A good story just for its pitch black ending.
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ReplyDeleteReally enjoyed this. Good art and polished production. The splash made me think of "The Beckoning Fair One". Did comic books of the 50's have to have separate beds like Lucy and Ricky? The old drawn willingly to your eventual doom story is well done. I'd like to think that Sylvia survived, albeit with some bruising both physical and spiritual. Everything here worx for me. Thank you Mr. K., hope you have great day.
ReplyDeleteI think I would have liked to have an extra panel or two of David dreamily sinking into the bottom of a swamp littered with two hundred years worth of other happily seduced strangers this ghost had mistaken for her missing lover. But oh well, that's why I have an imagination.
ReplyDeleteLovely story. That first page is surprisingly well-preserved. The details of the four-color technique are rarely this clear.
I'm really looking forward to reading the Swamp Monsters book.