Welcome back for another Double Feature Matinee style installment of Madam Satan Saturday! You thrilled last weekend to the first two astounding appearances of Lady Skullface, and now here we go with Parts 3 and 4 from the August 1941 issue of Pep Comics #18, followed by the September 1941 issue of Pep Comics #19! Lots more satanic shenanigans and gorgeous good girl artwork, some superb splash panels, and this time around we even have a vampiric frame-up! *GASP! But first, can Madam Satan be captured like a genie in a bottle? Read on, dear friends-- until your own eyes turn to bone, --errr stone! And then come back next Saturday for the final two tales... you know, before the Madam was cancelled and the Archies suddenly rolled into Pep Town!
Amazing work!! The combo platter of scary, sexy, and satanic is so prescient of heavy metal LP and T-shirt art still 40 years in the future at this point. There's been at least one rock band that called themselves Madam Satan, but that might've been inspired by the 1930 C.B. Demille film of the same name. The lead actress in that movie wore a pretty wild/hot/fanciful costume herself, BTW...
ReplyDeleteBrother Sunbeam is quite possibly the strangest foil I've seen to a villain. I'm not sure who came up the the idea of a kindly old monk riding a donkey as the literal embodiment of human goodness, but I love it. Also, I love the second panel of page 4 of the second story with Madam Satan's leering skull face hanging in the blazing red sky like the full moon. Truth be told, Madam Satan's role in this two parter reminds me a lot of Lilith, who basically lured men astray and killed children. What doesn't surprise me in the least is that the live action version of Madam Satan in The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is actually Lilith herself.
ReplyDeleteI think Brother Sunbeam's shapely witch bottle is a cool idea and a creepy visual. I guess fighting the forces of darkness is like some supernatural game of hangman? Or maybe a two-player game of Operation, in which player one tries to collect all of player two's body parts, all while preserving his (or her) own pieces. I want to play!
ReplyDeleteDefinitely the vampire rumor mill story is my favorite one yet. It's got a wonderful splash, and is the first really clever villainy I've seen out of Madam Satan, who usually just goes around trying to smooch dudes to death. I think I would like a darker series better, in which the Madam wins some of the time. Having read four of these in close quarters, what really stands out is how ineffective she is.
Well, the excellent art stands out, too, of course. And the by-the-numbers forties storytelling vibe. I can't believe that the last panel of page two--first story--hasn't already turned up as a meme somewhere.
"... has given me, Brother Sunbeam ..." Ah, comic exposition!
ReplyDeleteThe artwork is wild in this one, the figures are great, but the very rigid early 40s panels makes it pretty static. You have a splash with a great Satan and Madam Satan, but then on the next page, panel 2, you have the strange shorting of the boat and then the coloring mistake that makes it look like its full of water!
I find the 40s comics so fascinating there so much learning going on, from panel to panel, page to page. Brother Sunbeam's appearances aren't driven by the story but drive the story -- this is really something you'd see a lot in 40s super hero comics, which, while there are horror elements, this fits pretty squarely into.
I guess I'm not closing my eyes anymore when I kiss anything or anybody, I need to check for skulls!
Apparently brother sunbeam completely gave up on trapping get in a bottle after the head escaped. They had to be doing a lot of drugs when they made this comic.
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