Saturday, June 6, 2020
Over My Dead Body
The fun(eral) is about to being, with another attempt at the 'ol burial for bucks routine, courtesy of the September 1954 issue of Baffling Mysteries #22. And as always with the great Lou Cameron, we get lots of superb visual moments and odd angles to really liven up the perspective, giving aid to this swingin' wakes' slow descent into one Hell of a party! We liked this luridly lousy love triangle so much, we made sure to include it in our chilling Lou Cameron's Unsleeping Dead hardcover collection-- go and get yourself a copy HERE!
Gertie was certainly not the lovingest of wives, was she? What would Matthew have done if she had rejected his advances?
ReplyDeleteThis one's pretty insane. Glad the Devil actually took a name this time that wasn't simply "Satan" spelled backwards or something really obvious to begin with. Yet we still know right away that the shopkeeper is the devil from the way he talks about deals and signing to his beard and horn-like hair tufts--heck, even the guy the couple asks for directions to his shop may be him as well--love the little detail of his skull ring in the last panel of the first page.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, Ben and Gertrude aren't bad people to begin with,just set under bad circumstances to take a dangerous chance to play with Death and deal with the Devil himself. Heck, Gertrude doesn't even immediately jump at Matt's suggestion to ditch her husband and actually hesitates at first before finally being convinced--and yet she's still not without remorse at it all. I'm surprised that Ben doesn't even realize when he's unconscious and dealing with Death, that the shopkeeper is actually the Devil at that point--he's not even hiding his guise anymore. There's some really great art here too, such as the last panel of page 3 with Ben literally in Death's grasp and the fourth panel of page 5 with the Devil is awesome. I also love the first panel of page 6 with the dead coming to visit Ben--a detail not necessarily needed per say as they don't figure into this story--but it's a great image nonetheless and their dialogue is hilarious.
The story is one of those fun later period pre-code stories where they try to put new twists onto an older, oft-used story. This one goes all over the place, adding in the devil, the ghosts (one panel!) and death traveling through the cosmos.
ReplyDeleteI love the devil in humanoid form. honestly, somebody offers you a deal while rubbing their hands together like page 2, panel 2 then leave now!
The couple wide panels Cameron gives it his all, the body in the foreground on page 3, the coffin on page 4, and the graveyard on the last page. The 3 panel sequence with the devil, especially the doll-like size difference, is also a real winner.
Uncommonly great three-panel sequence there at the end, with the full body carnage of the victims laid out over the first two panels, and only the color change indicates the worsening effect of the fire. Followed by that startling sunrise Satan there at the end, of course. Bam.
ReplyDeleteI'm also digging the heck out of that mythically trippy cover.
I think I drew ire once before by saying Baffling Mysteries wasn't one of my favorite titles, but it sure is better here than I remember it. I agree Gertrude didn't immediately cave to Matt like some pre-Code cheating wives, but Ben doesn't exactly give her time to explain; he's in too much of a hurry to fly to Paris! For somebody who just magically avoided suffocation, he certainly is a bit of an ingrate! My only real question is how cushy a relationship Matt had with Mr. Moloch. He said he'd done the same thing for other clients—yikes!
ReplyDeleteHey, I wonder if the three of them together in Hell is like the play No Exit.
@Todd:
ReplyDeleteI wonder why Mr Moloch had to have Matthew killed. Wouldn't it have been more economical to let him keep bringing in victims?
On page two where Ben and Gertrude are signing the book, the signatures above were Lou Cameron (Lou was poking fun at himself in this tale) Benedict Arnold and possibly Marquis De Sade, I could only make out the Sade part.
ReplyDeleteThe world of comics was all the poorer when Lou Cameron stopped doing comic books. He was one of the greats.
That's a darn good question, Bill! Best I can tell you is, nobody seems to benefit from a deal with the devil in pre-Code comics.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of one episode of the "Grade-Z" anthology film "Gallery of Horrors" (not DR. TERROR'S HOUSE of Horrors), called "Monster Raid."
ReplyDeleteIt's also one episode of that film with a little deliberate humor in it.
I know it's a horror story, but Ben should've demanded his share (or more) from Matthew and Gertrude instead. "Success is the best revenge."
ReplyDeleteAfter all, maybe Mr. Moloch exaggerated when he said that Ben's soul was his from the moment he signed the book. Maybe the murder was what it took.
Grant, I feel like a conceit of devil stories is that characters always think they have free will but already are damned. It would be interesting to make a list of pre-Code stories where somebody actually does outsmart the devil and live to tell!
ReplyDeleteYes.
ReplyDelete