Friday, March 6, 2020
This House is Haunted!
I was bettin' you guys 'n gals would all dig more Atlas tales this month, and I was correct! So let's keep it goin' with another gruesome one from the February 1953 issue of Mystery Tales #8 (see the previous two posts as well), highlighted by even more terrifyingly top notch artwork from eerie Ed Winiarski.
Didn't know being chained up in a basement, presumably without food, makes you go green and develop teeth like a piscivorous animal. Oh, well, live and learn!
ReplyDeleteAwesome.
ReplyDeleteIt makes next to no sense, but completely misleads you with some red herrings, and then makes you chuckle when it hits you with the final ending.
The art is great, the printing is not. This is the kind of thing I'd love to see in a reprint book with it all cleaned up and maybe (I know, many will disagree) new digital coloring. The flow is great in this thing, panel to panel it all works.
The use of yellow in the last couple pages is great.
Page 5, panel 7 is another ghastly panel. Those kind of things are more horrible than the upcoming sea-hag monsters.
A real winner today!
It did seem kind of suspicious on why the heck these guys were playing cards in a house that was deemed haunted--and didn't even seem half bothered by it. Although I do have a silly question: can your gallbladder still act up if you're a ghost?
ReplyDeleteI couldn't help wondering the same thing as Bill the Butcher. On Page 5 at least, they look like George Pal's version of the Morlocks, except that it didn't take them whole generations to get that way.
ReplyDeleteThank you Mr.K. for this wonderful cartooning. A fine story told well. I figured they must be ghosts but hadn't an inkling of the fate of the son.
ReplyDeleteA couple of tweaks here and there and the story would have flowed better, maybe with the card players being vampires or werewolves waiting for Sam Benson to show up for dinner, as the main course.
ReplyDeleteGreat ghoulish fun, Karswell, thanks!
Excellent, moody art, but the story kinda lost me.
ReplyDeleteI love the basement ghouls! We have a few similar in my apartment's storage/locker room.
I like Bill the Butcher's and Brian Barnes's comments better than the story itself, although it's a weird one for sure.
ReplyDeleteI have to admit that I'm not a fan at all of snarky, negative comments. Like my banner says, I started this blog as a celebration and appreciation of precode horror comics, and I find the endless bashing and trashing of these classic stories tiring and BORING. At this point in the blogging game, I'm much more interested in the positive things that people can find in these posts and discuss. So rather than just spouting junk like "this story is so stupid" or nit picking over things that couldn't really happen because blah blah blah-- jesus christ, these are COMIC BOOK STORIES-- try to have fun and at the same time try to discuss the things you enjoyed. If you feel like you have to rag on some "bad" aspect of one of my posts, please try to balance it out with something good... I've been doing this now for 13 years, and seriously, I'm just incredible weary sometimes of all the lame MST3000 wanna bees.
ReplyDeleteSorry if my comments come off as bashing, its not my intent to do so, I appreciate the hard work you do keeping alive the undead horror fun of the horror comic genre.
ReplyDeleteNever had a problem with you JMR, it's just some of the newer commentors possibly unintentionally (hopefully not intentionally) rubbing me the wrong way with what they think is funny or whatever, when to me it just comes off as snarky negativity which I've seriously just had enough of.
ReplyDeleteI also hope I don't seem like a basher. I legitimately have interest in older horror comics, but sometimes I can't help but make a somewhat silly comment just to make others laugh. I most likely have Asperger's syndrome and have a bit of trouble reading other people's emotions--although I have gotten better. It's especially hard to tell on the internet where there is no way to sense sarcasm except through emogis. I also tend to apologize and over apologize for things that may not actually be my fault.
ReplyDeleteHey people, you feast on human flesh, you become a ghoul. It's a pretty simple and straight forward business. We don't know what ghouls look like. Mr.K. I always try to be appreciative of the effort you make in preserving comicbook horror for the masses. The masses can be asses sometimes but..... I thank you!
ReplyDeleteI don't want to harp on this too much more, but all I'm asking is for comments to at least be constructive with your criticisms. Its fine to bag on stuff too, but to do it in some snark riddled superior sounding way just completely defeats the purpose of why I started this blog. I love these old stories, and obviously a lot of you do too. A big part of this blog for me is the comments, it's why I've always kept my intros short so that the deeper, interesting conversations develop in the comment section between you guys. But a handful of comments lately sound like interest in this blog is to just come on here and try to be an unfunny dickhead. And that's no fun for me, or anyone. These comments get DELETED. If anyone notices that their comments are not getting approved, you'll know who I'm talking about. My blog, my rules. Simply put: don't be a total dick to the stories here. I'd feel the same way if a commenter was being a bully dick to another commenter. Also as mentioned before, refrain from inserting links into your comments that lead to other sites. Blogger has a problem with this and your comment will go into a spam folder, and as I tried to explain to Mesterie a few months back before they needlessly took offense and abandoned ship (and psychotically deleted all of their comments in the archive!), I just do not have the time to dig around in my junk mail folder to find these comments. Copy / paste info. NO LINKS. And as always, keep comments relative to horror and horror comics.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure many of you reading this know everything I'm saying here doesn't even need to be said, but it feels like some might need the heads up, so, that's your heads up. Thanks for listening. --K
Uh... say, I liked the story. It was just the kind of thing I read Atlas for: A little wicked and kind of funny with some deeply upsetting overtones. Perhaps the overtones were even more upsetting before the ghost reveal. I was definitely wigged-out by the idea that this house was "haunted" by living, chained-up ghouls--and yet was also the best place in town for Friday Night Poker, the usual players completely unaware, or unconcerned, about the pitiful cellar dwellers.
ReplyDeleteBut yeah, the art was great in high Atlas style, and the coloring was great, and all that. Great splash! I came in late, and I don't have anything to say that other people haven't already said. But, uh, I didn't want anybody to think my post had been deleted. So here I am! :)
I think this has been confusing because the offending comments appear to have been deleted, leaving the impression the remaining comments by longtime visitors are responsible. I certainly hope I didn't cause offense by saying I liked Bill and Brian's comments even better than the story; I've read so many of the stories by now that I often enjoy new comments by longtime visitors as the something new to go with the something old. I've been gun-shy about saying anything that sounds unflattering for a long time here, and I try to go out of my way to post praise where applicable. If it's not far enough, though, I can go back to lurking.
ReplyDelete'I don't want to harp on this too much more, but all I'm asking is for comments to at least be constructive with your criticisms.'
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, Mr.K, you're feeling this way.
MY take is: We're all here because we LOVE these crazy stories, but, I don't have an issue with folks pointing out story flaws.
I think what isn't mentioned enough is what joy the effort you put into presenting these gems gives.
Just my lame (Canadian) opinion!
Okay, just to clarify so we can move on to some more posts: if your comments are approved you will see them here in the comments section. So now those of you questioning know you're good and you are clearly being constructive and participating in a POSITIVE manner. But if you suddenly notice that your comments are NOT visible it is because I did not approve them for a variety of reasons mentioned in the previous comments above. Don't be rude. Don't be an annoying dick. I know that most social media outlets can be a tough place for some people to fit in, but these are basic kindergarten rules that everyone should know by now, so please abide by them because after all, this is my house. You know you'd want the same in your house.
ReplyDeleteMy goal, as always intended for THOIA, is to be a POSITIVE experience for everyone to enjoy, not some place for someone to vent their own possible failures in life and take it out on my posts with endless negativity and pointless snarkasm. I've been doing this too long to put up with some people coming on here and just taking a big boring dump all over everything. Nuff said.