And a really lovely cover as well!
Saturday, September 14, 2019
Murder in the Mummy Room!
Saturday Matinee time again at THOIA, and here we have another story that didn't quite make it into my MUMMIES book (still available-- CLICK HERE!), mainly because it's pretty light on horror and much more a fun little 40's style private eye / murder mystery complete with a moody museum setting. Snappy dialog and pacing, plus a cartoony art approach that puts this one more in league with say, Dick Tracy. So enjoy today's slight deviation from the (ab)norm around here, and we'll be back shortly with more gruesome ghouls and terror! From the January 1948 issue of Captain Easy #11.
And a really lovely cover as well!
And a really lovely cover as well!
That cover is some great good girl art. She's posed in a line across the left side and the punch throws the bad guys out at the same angle against the right side. That's some really good illustrative work with eye lines.
ReplyDeleteThe story is a fun little who done it but the panel layout is so tight and claustrophobic, it makes it a really hard read. It's no wonder that around the fifties they began settling on the 9 panel layout. It's just too much and makes everything muddy. I appreciate the fund diversion, though!
I do like the juxtaposition of the good girl art (more realistic) and the heavily stylized men, some very comedic.
With a bit more humor this could have been one of those horror comedy movies of the thirties, such as Mummies Boys 1936.
ReplyDeleteA few parts of this comic made me laugh pretty hard such as Joe excitedly announcing to everyone that he found blood stains in the West African room. I also laughed when Eddie stated that he's never seen an ancient mummy wear shoes before. Also the bit where Dr.Felix gets freaked out by the Neanderthal and Joe apologizes for frightening him was hilarious.
ReplyDeleteI really liked the peeks at the other museum exhibits that are tucked into the backgrounds of these frames. Especially the dinosaurs that kept popping up. Neat stuff, good, exotic texture.
ReplyDeleteSo were these originally Sunday strips? The rigid paneling really does a lot to make this feel like this was reprinted from newspapers. Honestly, in comics, it deosn't get more matinee than that.
OK, so I want to know who is diverting mysterious monies to Mr. B.? Though I must agree this was a lot of fun. Not much research confirms Mr. C.'s Sunday strips suspicions. Thank you Mr.K. for posting this gem.
ReplyDeleteI don't find the number of panels per page any more difficult to read than usual. I guess being a fan of Chris Ware for the last few decades have prepared me for these types of stories. I actually love the tiny art in some of the panels-- especially on the last page with Cap and the girl hiding behind that shield as the spear plunks into it
ReplyDelete"I don't find the number of panels per page any more difficult to read than usual."
ReplyDeleteI have to admit that I kind of like it *more* than usual (at least more than the modern usual). Or... I guess I should actually say that I appreciate a measured progression in panels when it comes to storytelling--the sense that some thought has gone into the timing by which the story beats, as translated into frames reach the reader. The same sort of care that is put into lines of poetry and sentences in prose. I don't mind a lot of little things all over a page, or a cascade of strangely-shaped panes, just so long as there is some storytelling objective. But I find the latter to be an artsy affectation way more often that its good story-telling. Sometimes it feels like style over substance. I can sometimes become frustrated with the playful, psychedelic groove of many seventies pages, for example. So I kind of like the stuff in this post by default. In precode comics, we often see a pretty rigid format, but it's much more so in the(se) dailies. A rigid format is metronomic and keeps a beat I can dance to.
Reminds me a bit of Tintin! Sort of a budget version, I guess; rich, multicultural backdrops and men with dots for eyes. I seem to recall Bianca Castafiore having fully-illustrated eyes, but Tintin and Captain Haddock had dots.
ReplyDelete