I had another "Halfway to Halloween" post saved for ya, but then the wicked 'ol witches swooped in and took over! So apologies, here it is a few days late, one of Bill Black's brilliantly brief Captain Paragon back-up feature adventures from Tara on the Dark Continent #2 (1979.) Good stuff from an often overlooked series of very cool underground comics via Paragon Publications / AC Comics, one of the true leaders in the 70's indie scene, who produced a great mix of classic style good girl cheesecake art mixed with superhero / super heroine sexiness. And in this case, an added splash of titillatingly gory Hammer Horror-esque lesbian vampires which will of course always be a welcome addition to the THOIA Archive! (Cover art and pin-up page by Marc Hempel.)
I like to see some superhero cross horror work up here, especially post code stuff.
ReplyDeleteThat said, there's some great art (I suspect the screaming vampires on the last page were from a movie image, I sort of recognize it) and certainly the last panel is great; working titles into the scene is something I always liked ... but the story is a little threadbare. That's OK, but honestly, nothing very super-hero-ish happens or anything attached to a gimmick.
The shadows in this are very good. The "splash" is especially strong. It's one of the things that makes B&W so good for horror.
Whew. It is hot in here? [Fan's self.]
ReplyDeleteSo many gothic mood captions bring this to a humid simmer and then... "I got tired of watching and killed them both the end." Boom. Talk about a twist ending! It's the sort of thing you can only get away with in a four pager.
I vaguely remember Tara on the Dark Continent from back in the stacks when I was a teen. I wonder if anyone out there is dedicated to blogging the underground comix scene in the sixties and seventies?
>I like to see some superhero cross horror work up here
ReplyDeleteYou'll get your request this Friday!
> I wonder if anyone out there is dedicated to blogging the underground comix scene in the sixties and seventies?
Don't look at me! I can barely keep up with THOIA and AEET haha