A way better than average Star tale from the September 1953 issue of Ghostly Weird Tales #120. Typically poor publication printing and badly aged, yellowed paper aside, Lee Loeb's art still shines through and is wildly imaginative at times, always supernaturally spooky, and with some downright terrifying panels scattered throughout, --of special note that incredible splash and nearly most of page six.
I love it! The art can be a bit wild in parts, but man could this guy draw a spook! The splash and the last page (as mentioned) are just full of great hideous skull ghosts, and let's not forgot the squirt right in the face panel!
ReplyDeleteHere's where scratchy art can really work wonders. Last panel on page 3 is a great nuts face, as is the next panel on page 4.
I suspect panel 6 on page 2 is a color error but boy is that creepy. Also love the foreground gardening shears, that's a cool image. Though, I don't know why our doctor wasn't using shears, frankly, that's what killed her, not the roses!
Wow. That was a good one. I was kind of hoping he would get away and there would be a bit about "Do you know where you got your roses?" But I guess at the time you couldn't have evil win.
ReplyDeleteWhoa. Gnarly splash! I like the second and third panel, too--even though that sure looks a lot like Ronnie Reagan at the bottom of page one. You know, I really love that dance panel in the middle of page four--except that it looks like the editor or somebody scribbled dizzy lines all over it. It's the sort of thing I should really love (I mean, the buzzer bolts on the next page thrill me! And so do the panic rings two panels later. And so does the melting crazy-vision town three more panels down), but this one feels defaced somehow. It's a beautiful bit of work otherwise.
ReplyDeleteWhat a kooky story! My dead wife loved roses so I'll kill everybody. (Oh, I dig that scissors frame, too.) I guess crazy is as crazy does; I can't exactly apply logic to nuts. So I will leave this comment with my usual refrain, something I've certainly said here before: Mad horticulture is for sure on my top-five list when it comes to the psychotic sciences.
Lovely cover by L.B. Cole, too.
Without being a copy, it's like THE CORPSE VANISHES with Bela Lugosi - he poisons other women with flowers, and does it for his wife (except that in that story it's a LIVE wife).
ReplyDeleteSomehow I halfway expected Angela herself to confront him at the end instead of the others, so she could tell him very sadly how misguided he is.