Time to head back into the ghastly cold grave of putrid precode, Golden Age era ghoulishness with a creepy Jon D'Agostino chiller from the October 1954 issue of Dark Mysteries #20. A perfect little tale to chatter your teeth on a weird wintery day such as this...
To be perfectly honest, anything involving the Nazis or their disgusting experiments is already a horror story--zombies don't even need to be added to create one. This story uses its supernatural elements well though to create a chilling tale of revenge that I sadly wish the real victims of such experiments were able to fulfill.
ReplyDeleteAlso,I love how quickly this story changes from a love story to a horror story filled with Nazis and zombies.
Also, stickler for grammar that I am,I noticed the third panel on the last page misspelled "monstor."
I love these stories in which an unassuming two-room log cabin on the outside is more like a antebellum plantation house on the inside. Hot property: narrow porch; beautiful two-story paneled piano ballroom gives onto to graceful curved staircase. 2BR; master bath. Dormers.
ReplyDeleteThe detail is great here--the trees, the EC spittle, the worry-lined faces. But I really dig D'Agostino's zombie treatment. Their pitted skin seems to be melting right off their face bones. Panel four of the last page is great. That haze of spooky mustard gas that's rising in the background is inspired.
This one is pretty creepy! Ivor kind of had a point, was he really responsible for his father's actions?
ReplyDeleteLike the others, I love the zombies, especially Vania's transformation into a zombie, becoming more ape like (???) at the end. The whole zombie attack is fantastic.
I can forgive the pretty unbelievable coincidence that drove the story.
One weird thing: The signature looks lettered. That's kind of weird, almost always these guys would have a pretty interesting way to work in the signature. One wonders if maybe the guy didn't think about signing it, but the publisher saw how that worked well for other publishers and added it in.
There's about three or four John L'Agostino pieces where they have a perfect style like this. His style changes around a bit maybe because of who he was working or collaborating with. A couple of the faces look a little Jack Davids like. He never really got the chance to do this style as much as it should've been used. There's a really tragic story where a jealous husband cremates his wife.
ReplyDeleteI think he went on to do Archie comics for the rest of his career. Never again anything as interesting, (in terms of individualistic) as these few horror stories he dd.