A few of you seemed to enjoy the Dracu-Cat kitten in our last post, so here's another frisky little feline transformation tale from the swampier sector of the April 1953 issue of Mystic #19. Dare I call today's post a "Werecat Wednesday" weirdy? Well, I guess I just did. And to be honest, even better than the story is that amazingly creepy cover art by Carl Burgos!
"amazingly creepy cover art" ... well, I have to respectfully disagree, as a skeleton, that's the sexiest cover art you've ever posted!
ReplyDeleteThe cover is fun because it reflects the Atlas way of just giving the titles out and everybody making stuff up. It's completely unrelated to the story inside, in type of sexy lady (skeleton vs cat lady) to time period (modern vs civil war) to number of participants (1 vs 2.) At least they both took place during night, in a swamp!
I love the art in this. That's a great war splash, and they remembered to make our hero thinner and thinner as the story went on. It's got a great pace to it and I love the realization that the cat-lady *was* actually leading him to safety!
I think it's neat that, while the protagonist is clearly a union soldier, he is totally coded southern and rural. I don't see that a lot.
ReplyDeleteLove Carrabota's art here. Like Mr. Barnes, I dig that splash (and the last panel on page one, too). I also think the transformation is pretty cunning--if her clothes are going to spring from nowhere, at least do it with some flourish! The well delineated and textured work here really supports the Flavor Aid coloring--page four is glorious. Also the fifth panel of that page really reminds me of my high school copy of The Red Badge of Courage. Which is probably just a coincidence.
Well on the bright side, at least Jeb doesn't have to do any actual fighting anymore and will be a better mascot than an actual soldier.
ReplyDeleteI LOVE the transformation sequence from cat to woman. Especially the part where she basically does a strip tease to take off her cat hide! Yet for story with a title like "Swamp Girl" we really don't get to see that much of her. The story picks up speed when she shows up, but immediately loses the excitement once she leaves.
I will admit it, I feel sorry catgirl was shot by that rouge Billy Yank. Hopefully she was just playing possum and still has eight lives left.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of stories that play around with the rules, it's nice to see a Civil War soldier on EITHER side who just wants out of it!
ReplyDeleteRight now, it seems like the only things people want to see in a Civil War story are Union soldiers who are devoted to it for the right reasons and Confederate ones who are devoted to it for the wrong reasons, and nothing else.