Let's finish out December 2022 with some more Bill Everett. And it's been quite a while since we've seen vivacious Venus va-va-va-voom her way across a half dozen precode pages of petrifyin' fun, so let's fix that pronto! This one's packed with all the scary stuff that makes Everett so effortlessly unequalled, I mean, there's a reason he's my absolute all time favorite artist ever-- just try to find a less-than-stellar panel in this one. It can't be done! He also created what is easily one of the most bone chilling precode horror covers ever--this, the classic April 1952 cover of Venus #19. So kick back and enjoy the ride, and afterwards check the archive for more Venus!
7 comments:
The vampire presumably posted himself to her, with the intentionof merging itse with her instead of, I don't know, just infesting any random person? This is as complicated a life cycle as that of one of the less common species of parasitic flukes.
The story isn't great, but the art is outstanding.
Something that doesn't get talked about a lot is paneling, and in comics, it's really important to "flow" the story. There's a lot of great Atlas 4-panel rows, but page 4 is the real winner here.
You get 4 panel sequences on the top and bottom, which are sort of reversed, opening and then "closing" when the ghost/whatever enters our poor victim, and in the middle, one giant whole row panel. The entire thing is super cinematic, and has a great feel for movement. It's really a masterpiece of movement.
The next page repeats this motif a bit.
It's hard to pick a favorite panel, but I guess I'd have to pick the vampire transform on page 5.
This is a crazy excellent piece of work, and Everett even manages to stick in a good girl leg shot during all the horror!
Yeah, this story gets weird when it's revealed that the thing in the box that possessed the messenger in the first place was a vampire. Since when do vampires walk through walls? I mean, if that was the case,they wouldn't even need to be invited inside first. My own nitpick is that the messenger is described as being a young man, but looks more like he's pushing at least 40. The art itself is fun! Love the various things the box offers up when mentioning powers,especially the transformation panel. The panels of Venus freaking out at the box-especially the ones cloaked in green are great. Also love those bottom panels of page 5 with the possessed guy just staring at Venus and drooling.
In fact, he has a sort of Vaudeville comedian look. A couple of times, even a sort of Groucho look (even at the bottom of Page 5 when he's changing completely).
I don't know this series, but after being horrified by everything that's happened, that line at the end - "And I had my story" - gives her a sort of no nonsense reporter sound, a "Kolchak" sound.
Fantastic Werewolf Wednesday this week. Whatta way to polish off the year! I love everything about pages four and five--that middle panel collage on the latter has so much boundless kinetic punch--and it's interesting to see how the bombastic, near slapstick inertia of those pages contrasts with the relatively dialed-back suspense of the chase on page six. Somehow it works, and after all the flash and thrills, I think my favorite panel is the understated number six on that last page--Venus turning with her steak cocked ready to fire.
Happy New Year.
You can get to know this series by checking out more Venus in the THOIA archive, as well as in our next post! That's right-- 2022 isn't quite over yet. As always, thanks for the comments! Stay tombed...
Doesn't Venus have some powers? She is a goddess. She's depicted as a normal human in this story.
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