And if this wasn't enough humorous Howie Post horror for ya, head over to AEET today too and go WILD! CLICK HERE!
Sunday, June 28, 2020
ZOMBIE! / Aesop's Stables
After our last somber post, it's time to lighten the morbid mood and maybe even get a little crazy around here-- like, double header Atlas crazy, man! First up, a Bill Everett zombie kookball classic from the March ‘54 issue of Crazy #4, followed by even more MAD-esque poetic hilarity from Howie Post and the July ‘54 issue of Crazy #7. See ya's in July!
And if this wasn't enough humorous Howie Post horror for ya, head over to AEET today too and go WILD! CLICK HERE!
And if this wasn't enough humorous Howie Post horror for ya, head over to AEET today too and go WILD! CLICK HERE!
Oh man, these were fun. The Zombie story was great--I especially loved the splash page with a corpse casually out for a stroll in the background--while hold his head. I also loved this bit of dialogue: "Come,darling! Let's go find a preacher!" "Why? Did someone lose one?"
ReplyDeleteThe second one was tons of fun--loved the rhyming--top notch--especially the "This space for rent" part on page 2.
It's fun to see Everett being even more zany than usual, sort of giving Will Elder a run for his money here. And as great as all that is, I still think I was more wowed by Howie Post's stuff in the second story. That surprises me! But the bottom panel of every page was just wonderful. And frankly, the poem itself was a cut above, too.
ReplyDeleteI also like that Russ Heath cover. Man, that guy could do anything, and it's always nice to see him killing it in comedy mode.
My favorite part is the line about three Scrabble sets.
ReplyDeleteThis was far better than MAD Magazine. Especially MAD Magazine as it is today, when it's not even remotely funny. Everett is now officially my favourite pre code comics creator.
ReplyDeleteThe blonde zombie in flesh form was pretty, except for the last panel, unless of course you like Cinco De Mayo skull girls.
ReplyDeleteSkull/skeleton girls are not my thing, they're a little to bony for me.
A lot of the MAD rip offs didn't work because they just tried to imitate with a "turn it up to 11" kind of thing, which removed most of the charm.
ReplyDeleteZombie has enough charm to stuff a horse. And it's super funny, and the joke pacing is wonderful, and Everett's art is a hoot.
The solid lightning bolt, the mismatched captions whenever our hero was violent, the great Everett pin up, the slap stick and the comments like "Listen, baby ... you stay there in front of the gun where's it's safe!"
Highly enjoyed this and laughed many times.
Aesop's Stables is also great but the crazy rubber people of Zombie is hard to beat.
Wild and Riot were great Atlas humour comics too.
ReplyDeleteJoe Maneely and Bill Everrett were the stars of those comics to me.
Harvey's Mad rip off, FLIP was really good too.
Howard Nostrand did some great stuff in that.
I wonder, since you published the Jay Disbrow book, if you are able to get some of the Mad rip off Star comics did.
There's one story in the book The Sincerest Form of Parody, by Jay Disbrow and it's total nonsense but really good.
It's not even in the mold of Mad comics. I think he tried to do a Mad comic and instead did this really wild comic of nonsense stories.
Of course this is a horror comics site but
a lot of these Atlas Mad rip off comics were horror humour like this story by Everrett.
One of the titles, I think it was RIOT, had all horror humour stories in entire issues for a while... like an early PLOP I guess.
There's a PLOP story that would be great to put on the site.
I forgot the title but it was a Dennis the Menace parody story where the kid gets a mean looking doberman.
Dennis is a full on evil kid in the story.
The surprise ending is one of the creepiest horror endings ever... or at least I've always thought.
Anyway, this is another great post.
I wonder how many character had afros before they supposedly were invented, because that other male character certainly has one. Between it, the mustache and the glasses, he looks like Diana Rigg's male drag disguise in THEATRE OF BLOOD.
ReplyDelete