If you're still exhausted from all that trompin' around the swamp with a cat girl in our last post-- too bad! Cuz today it's time to traipes around a fen-- with a thing! It's also been a while since we're seen joltin' Jay Disbrow around these parts, so let him lead the weird way, from the July 1954 issue of Beware #10. And while I don't believe this story made the final cut for our Jay Disbrow Chilling Archives collection, this freakin' awesome Frank Frazetta / Sid Check art did grace my Return of the Zombies hardcover, which still seems to be available through Barnes and Noble HERE! (Psst, you cooler ghouls will remember this book as the one with the bite taken out of the front cover corner!)
Wild and wacky tale featuring a WICKED Disbrow zombie! He likes to howl like a wolf, but can also be quite the gifted orator when the mood strikes. This one genuinely has that slapdash making-it-up-as-we-go-along feeling-- that zombie-into-fetus ending had me scratching my head until it was raw and bleeding! WTF?!?
ReplyDeleteThis story is absolutely bonkers--in a good way. Rule one, if you're going to be conducting science experiments out in the swamp, make sure it's away from all graveyards, abandoned or currently in use. Rule 2, don't pour your failed experiments on the graves. You never know who or what will pop out due to it. This is the only comic I know of where the zombie is defeated by being brought back to life in reverse! After all that, our protagonists haven't even learned their lesson not to mess with things beyond man's control and are going to continue to work on perfecting their formula. Just, don't dump the failures on any more graves, guys!
ReplyDeleteA living skeleton with hair and eyeballs, as seen on page two left middle row, a horror kids dream/nightmare come true.
ReplyDeleteI will just dump the chemical solution into the ground, nothing bad could come of it- thought every mad experimenter and/or their assistant in every horror story ever written.
I will say this much, Jay Disbrow could draw good girl art.
This thing looks like it was inked with a wallpaper glue brush ... and I like it! It's very dark and very "separate", everything stands out like it was a cut out. It's a really interesting art job!
ReplyDeleteThe zombies got a great look and I like the actual scientific explanation. The regression panel is a real winner and super out of left field (like Unknown said, it feels as we go along.) Page 2, panel 6 is a great zombie image, with the mist and the weeds, even though I think the colorist messed up in parts.
The zombie kind of had a point. Why are they disposing of chemicals right over a grave? They kind of deserved this. I will say, I like that the woman -- who became a victim anyway -- at least showed some gumption and outright went out to re-murder the thing!
Right on. Another Jay Disbrow. I have your Jay Disbrow book too.
ReplyDeleteIf you ever feel like showing some of his humour book Insane that would be incredible... I mean if you have a copy.
It's really rare.
It was an unsuccessful Mad copy-cat that didn't really copy Mad.
It isn't horror but it isn't really humour either...more like Lewis Carrol maybe, but it does have some horror elements.
They have a story in 'The Sincerest Form of Parody" and it's really interesting to anyone that likes Jay Disbrow because it's just stream of consciousness weirdness.
Very interesting artist.
Nice to see any 'new' story of his.
Any story I haven't seen is a new story to me.
Perfect Disbrow splash. All those pointy leaves and veiny trees. Tendrils of mist like falling party streamers. And folds. So many folds in all the clothing and skin. It's a flat, busy meal of stacked textures and emotional figure drawing, blocky and brawny just like the metal plate that stamped it into the newsprint in the first place. I love it. The farther I get down this precode K-hole, the more I like this kind of thing better than the studied commercial realism you see out of slicker artists.
ReplyDeleteThe super thing about this story is that half the other panels are just as great as the splash. A particular fave is the third frame on page three. I'm hardly a pushover for floating heads (or even those time-elapsing montage scenes in movies), but this one here is solid gold. I want somebody to make wrapping paper out of that before my birthday. Thanks in advance.
The reverse aging panel is great. "Help me!" "Wah!"
ReplyDelete>that zombie-into-fetus ending had me scratching my head until it was raw and bleeding!
ReplyDeleteYour head or the fetus?
>This story is absolutely bonkers--in a good way
Thinkin' about doing a book now just called BONKERS and this story will be in it for sure.
>Jay Disbrow could draw good girl art.
AGREED!
>showed some gumption and outright went out to re-murder the thing!
Nothing finer than a nice re-murder!
>Any story I haven't seen is a new story to me.
Uhhhh, yeeeeahhhhh... funny how that works, eh? lol
> I want somebody to make wrapping paper out of that before my birthday.
Man that would rule... don't be surprised if I actually do this someday
>"Help me!" "Wah!"
Except it was weirdly spelled, "WHA!" instead, --as if things weren't bonkers enough haha... thanks for the comments everyone!