Here's a Hank Chapman horror hit from the terrific April 1951 issue of Adventures into Terror #3, and aside from the spooky fun illustrations, the tough guy dialog here is especially hysterical. I honestly can't think of another story that I've ever posted where the main guy was such an unmitigated a-hole...
My my, this was almost perfect. I really enjoyed this one. A story that drove the pace 'til the terminal. Not great art in every panel, but nice touches like the tree branch shadow on his back. A comic that makes you want the next one. Thank you Karswell!
ReplyDeleteI once dated a load of sugar. They don't let me back into grocery store anymore.
ReplyDeleteThis is a lot of fun. The careful constructed house of cards is about 10 stories tall, I'm surprised they didn't make him kick a puppy! One thing that gets me about this tale of revenge is -- WHY? The women should have killed him, but why did all three of them -- together -- sharing him -- want to spend eternity with him? He's not going to get any better! They just trapped themselves with this ass!
The art isn't great, but the artist has a good bit of fun. The giant hands coming out of the ground, all three women coming from the same grave (hunh?) the skeleton lady, getting dragged into the grave. It's not perfect, often times it's not even good, but it's certainly fun.
I like this one. It's typical but has this really mean edge to it.
Willie certainly couldn't have had a more apt name as he certainly was a real dick!
ReplyDeleteThe art here is pretty interesting, at least to me. Chapman's almost uniformly flat, side-on panels read more like newspaper gag strips than comics. And for me, that works out okay with his about halfway-to-cartoon figure drawing. I especially love the second panel of course. All swirling vortexes of panic are pretty amazing, but here--owing to the art and the colors--things have been literalized into an actual whirlpool. Fabulous!
ReplyDeleteAlso, the caption is that panel is amazing. If I'd run into this back in the mid-nighties, I would have for certain make that my answering machine message.
It's funny how quickly the story marks Willie as a GENERALLY bad character, but not enough of one to hate yet. Maybe I'm the only one, but I managed to be surprised when I read about all those suicides. He goes from being a just an irresponsible character to being Bluebeard!
ReplyDeleteAnd this story really goes all-out with the slang. The paragraph on Page 2 starting with "Hey, you peasants!" is a great one.
Yeah for me the dialog here is the big highlight, glad everyone enjoyed it!
ReplyDeleteWe'll be sticking with Atlas for a few more posts. And up next-- a trip into the swamp o'supernatural!
Stay tombed...