Jess Jodloman became our spotlight artist for the month of May, so here on the final day of the month is our last post highlighted once more by his splendidly spooky illustrations. And say, if anyone's heading to the beach today to celebrate the holiday weekend, be sure to steer clear of the older area of the boardwalk, especially one particular coin-op mechanical fortune teller machine with the uncanny ability-- good or bad-- to see right through you! Please enjoy this atmospheric tale from the July 1976 issue of House of Mystery #243 and everyone have a very pleasant holiday, --we'll see you in June!
4 comments:
Wow, that's a great splash. And I am certainly aesthetically attracted to the way Jodloman has separated the floating-head host narration into a separate, and subordinated, space. It reminds me of Bodē's Purple Pictography stuff, only inverted. An excellent look. Also: Does anything in precode illustration creep more than a shallow grave? I doubt it.
It was an interesting choice to keep the vengeful automata off-screen for the climax. I mean, there's an impulse to preservie the twist denouement, sure; and then there's muting the only wow factor of your whole story. I've seen lots of bickering and gambling already, and I feel like I've earned the opportunity to see an arcade game murder a jerk on the beach. I mean come on.
I wonder what the original art looks like for this? I get the feeling that the printing is erasing some fine lines and only leaving us with the thicker ones. It's still awesome, but I feel like mechanically it's getting eaten a little.
The splash is excellent -- the look of the body in the sand and the shading of the sand is just great. I also love the very clown-ish look of the gypsy robot. Again, some great backgrounds, page 2, panel 4 is a piece of art on its own.
I like how the artist doesn't skimp anywhere. There's no reason to draw that many people in the casino, but it's absolutely packed!
If you guys like the idea of a "Spotlight Artist of the Month" let me know and I'll dig up another good one for June. Thanks for the comments
hah! I like every idea!
I like real rigid ones like laws and rules you feel like you have to faithfully follow. And I also like really vague guidelines and gimmicks that turn out to be inspired sometimes and unimportant others. I'd dig having a spotlight every now and then or all the time. Just as you like.
This last one was extra cool for me because it highlighted someone I really dig and didn't previously know anything about. He hails from a era of comics I don't always respond to as much as you guys do (the seventies, especially at DC), and so there's surely plenty more for me to learn to love there, too. Cruising around looking at Jess' art online, what mostly grabs me is his eye-popingly berserk sword-and-sorcery stuff, close enough to Corben to get me immediately intereted in seeing more, even though barbarian fantasy isn't really my cuppa cuppa, either. Never say never!
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