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Wednesday, March 18, 2020
Genuine Alligator
If you thought Roger and Karen were a hoot in our last post, wait'll you get a load of Elmer and Bertha in today's story! Another gem from the October '53 issue of Mystery Tales #16, and with art by Myron Fass, this is one 3 page quickie that will surely get your day off with a rousing start *burp!
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lol... thanks for the Smile... enjoyable "ending"
ReplyDeleteHere we go again with that one classic name for overbearing, ugly, nagging wives--Bertha! I love the narration for this one--especially the opening line "Bertha wanted everything she laid her big, bloodshot eyes on." I also laughed pretty hard at that first panel on the second page where the narrator describes how long it took for Bertha to get her pearl necklace and Elmer repeats the description word for word.
ReplyDeleteWonder why he was so surprised his wife didn't come out of the water after she went down. I mean, I would have been pretty happy that the old battleaxe went down--hopefully for good.
The last panel is hilarious. I guess Elmer was right, all Bertha would ever be was a big bag.
Thank you Mr.K. for this super fun post. Just perfect! Bertha sure had oomph!
ReplyDeleteIf the Germans had only unleashed Big Bertha instead of their actual artillery piece called Big Bertha on the French they'd have won WWI. No alligators in France.
ReplyDeleteDid Bertha beat Elmer until he agreed to marry her?
It's so easy to imagine an animated Bertha voiced by June Foray, in that "Marjorie Main" type voice she did so often.
ReplyDeleteAh the old battle-ax and skinny dude story, but this time I can forgive it all because it's for the broad strokes of comedy, and the whole thing works really well for the wind up.
ReplyDeleteThe ending caught me completely by surprise. I wonder how many times that poor alligator got beaten by the other one until she finally got the genuine human bag!
There's a lot to like in the art, page 2, panel 1 is just a great look of greed, and Fass gets in at least one pin-up in the very net panel.
You are on fire this week. This one is nearly perfectly paced and would have worked just as well in a comedy magazine as a horror mag.
I love the way Bertha's face is drawn. She's such a complete character that I would not be at all surprised is she was modeled on someone. Somebody who looked a little like a Screaming Mad George mutation, that is. The range of well articulated emotions in panels both at the top and the bottom of page two is very impressive to me. I think Fass put a lot of thought into the "acting" in this one.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to see a sequel in which she comes back from hell as a latex-bound cenobite.
Ha ha. I think this was just the right length for what it is, almost more comic strip than comic book! Fun to see a fictional character with no redeeming qualities get her comeuppance.
ReplyDeleteGrant, I've seen so many cartoons with Foray voicing nagging housewives with that voice that I can practically hear it coming out of Bertha's mouth.
ReplyDeleteLuv how the boat just cruises along. "No time to stop our touring just for an overboard woman!"
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