Wednesday, July 8, 2020
The Spider!
It's been spider overload here lately in my neck of the woods this summer, so I thought I'd share the frighteningly fuzzy fun and give everyone else the creepy crawlies as well. And wallopin' web snappers, it sure is nice to see some early work from Larry Woromay around here too, even though his sinister spider looks more like a bloated blood tick about to pop. And I'm not sure if I've ever seen laudatory editor blurbs in an Atlas splash like this before, it's pretty funny when you think about it because, well... nuff said. No wait, --one more thing, if you have a thing about innocent animal death 'n torture you may want to just entirely skip this post today. Fair warning. From the juicy June 1951 issue of Marvel Tales #101.
There's a lot to like in this one, if, as you said, you can get over the animal violence in it.
ReplyDeleteThe splash is really interesting -- first the author has a pretty prominent signature ... Stan must have been furious! :) Next the totally unnecessary and obviously fake ballyhoo, though I love how it mentions the other mags in the line. And the splash with the weird camera lens distortion is unique.
Extra points for pre-announcing the transformation, lesser publishers would just spring that kind of stuff on you at the end.
Favorite panel -- page 5, panel 5, with the little spider leg poking out!
This was pretty funny. I never understood this idea of mid 20th century horror fiction that spiders are scary; I have several around my house, including a male Huntsman spider called Nyarlathotep. My own near laugh out loud moments were three: first, the doctor's bedside manner "thank goodness.... your parents will both be dead within the hour!"
ReplyDeleteSecond, when the narrator calls Taranta a cannibal (uh, no, he's only an anthropophage);
And, third, his spider-beard after being bitten. Hilarious all round.
Love the jazzy and impressionistic environmental effects as the storm kicks in at the top of page five. Those are some energetic panels. From that point on, the work looks like dynamic poster art, every frame chock full of stuff happening, and layered with color and value contrasts. The cow page, too. It's all pretty damn attention getting.
ReplyDeleteThis could've almost inspired WILLARD, except that there's a whole string of killings, as opposed to Ernest Borgnine's. And of course "Buggy" is such a nasty character to begin with, unlike Willard.
ReplyDeleteIt's also a little like STANLEY.
Glad everyone's enjoying the July tales so far, in case you haven't figured it out we'll be doing another month of Atlas awesomeness, so hang on tight!
ReplyDelete