Did everyone have a pleasant Thanksgiving? I know I ate way too much, as usual. Still, there are plenty of leftovers to go around, like this steamy little morsel from the August 1954 issue of Strange Suspense Stories #20. Don't gobble it all down too quickly now...
That splash made me expect another love triangle story (not that I mind those), with a wife and boyfriend (not a wife and husband) coming back for revenge. And of course the next panel really sets Doris up as one more wife wanting to lose her nerdy scientist husband.
ReplyDeleteSome of the slang is a little odd. Leonard might be one thing, but "fogey" definitely doesn't fit Doris.
Pity Doc didn't think of slipping his unwelcome "guest" a couple of the toadstools right away on the first day.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I don't know a whole lot about Charlton staple Bill Molno yet. Mostly because he looks to have mostly worked on the kind of war and cowboy titles I never read. Looking back though your archives, I see that he's responsible for drawing some of my favorite stories here (and that I often singled out art elements for comment at the time). A lot of those stories were early in his career, though, or hurried, or both. But with this one it finally becomes clear to me that I need to be paying more attention, putting this guy's career together in my head. I love his clear marks, dark but gestural, self assured but experimental, sometimes going from a crisply delineated woodcut look to breezy caricature--sometimes in the same panel--and making it work. His (mostly) even line widths and chunky shadows remind me of what I love about Kirby, without in any meaningful way imitating the man.
ReplyDeleteI love the second panel of page four. I love that foliage. I also really like all of page five--the breezy cartooning and filled-up frames. This is great stuff.
As pointed out, this one deviates from the expected. Right off the bat you expect (1) pathetic scientist (2) scheming wife (3) love triangle but ... it's not! It's a devoted wife, and frankly, the scientist does not get revenge, it's just down to how dumb the brother is. It's interesting!
ReplyDeleteThe chocking panel on the last page is aces, especially as it spends the entire previous page with the brother reveling in cooking said mushrooms. I also like that it was just poisonous mushrooms instead of something more exotic (like he turns into a giant mushroom or whatever.). Frankly, this is more of a 50s crime comic than a horror one.
This is a really nice one.
@Brian Barnes:
ReplyDelete> "Frankly, this is more of a 50s crime comic than a horror one."
During its pre-code years (1952-1955), "Strange Stories of Suspense" advertised itself as a horror comic (with covers showing animated skeletons, evil demons, etc.), but in each issue, about half the stories were gory but straightforward crime tales with no supernatural elements in the plot.
The magazine's post-Comics Code issues dropped the crime completely, and switched to tame supernatural fantasy/ science-fiction themes until ceasing publication in 1969.