Saturday, September 7, 2019
Partners in Death
Another gruesome gem from the June 1954 issue of Mysterious Adventures #20, (see our last post too), highlighted by some truly revolting, ultra rotted zombie panels courtesy of the ever-deadly, Dick Beck. Story Comics really amped up the art (and writing) in these final issues of the series run, and were clearly making every attempt possible to give EC a run for their morbid money.
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7 comments:
Thank you Mr.K., This splash does have some great decomposition. I love the writer's idea of an underwater odor. Whatta concept. Glide slowly certainly paints a nice touch. I like the faces in the helmets, they are well done. The green eyed monster is the most deadly of all. The five year time jump seemed weird to me. So are the blue and green wavy snakes sea-weed or current? Whatever, I like it!
The Cars' "My Best Friend's Girl" rings in my ears for this one. "She's my best friend's girl, and she used to be mine. She's so fine."
What's not so fine is Harold--who's a slimy jerk from the very beginning. He lies about the treasure so he and Walter can have it for themselves, but of course he kills off Walter, more so because he "stole" the love of his life from him than to get the treasure all to himself, but might as well kill two birds with one stone.
If you ask me though, going for a swim on the anniversary of the night the murder was committed--in the exact place it happened is a really dumb idea, regardless of how long ago the incident took place. Chances are, Harold would have still been alive if he didn't take that deadly little dip that night.
We've seen a story with these same elements a number of times -- there's probably a text story out there that they are all lifted from -- but I always have the same technical question. Why the girlfriend? Isn't the money motivation enough? It's seems an extraneous element that doesn't really alter the trajectory of the story in any manner.
That's just a nitpick but it always bothered me at a construction level.
The art is just great. The final page could have been ruined if the colorist didn't pay attention, but s/he hits every bit of sea weed or "floating water reflection" (whatever you'd call it), perfectly wrapping out victim and his shambling corpse murderer.
Overall the underwater panels are really good, it is very easy to mess those up in a comic.
Forget Ellie, marry that secretary on page 5!
I agree about the secretary.
Maybe I'm exaggerating, but treacherous divers seem very popular in horror comics (or maybe crime stories in general), although the only one I can name right away is one called "Iron Head" (which I know as a reprint in Zombie # 1 from ' 73).
Man, I was dazzled by the art here. Especially the color-coded floating anxiety attack zombies in the splash and all those asphyxiation death panels on pages four and five. It's nice to see so much purple being used. Looking Back through the archives (thanks again for all the keywords Nequam!), I see that I've generally fawned over Dick Beck's artwork in the past (as well as whoever they had doing the color work over at Story Comics), so it's high time I committed his name to memory. Here he sort of evokes Bill Everett for me, but that's likely because good underwater stuff always does.
So the wrecked ship is just like....within jumping off distance of the pier? How come it *wasn't* ransacked already of all the loot?
Walter and the narrator are both a pair of crooks. They both more than deserve drowning.
What happened to Dead Walter's diving suit?
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