Tuesday, January 31, 2023

Death on Ice, or... Frigid Fear!

Let's finish up January 2023 with one more kooky Iger Shop classic. And if the wintery weather in your area is as shiver inducin' as it is here in mine, then extra bonus points apply today to your icy spinal chills! And along with todays kills and whatev ending, we have the usual, unintentional "ha-ha ho-ho hee-hee" Ajax / Farrell humor, and for some reason I find the "fur vault" dialog on page 4 with butler Higgins to be especially hilarious. So bundle up and dig in, we'll be back in Feb for lots more. From the April 1954 issue of Haunted Thrills #14.

3 comments:

Brian Barnes said...

The gold digging wives stories are always kind of fascinating. Obviously, these are quickly produced, thought of at the time disposable, comic stories, but they always have a weird "moral."

Sure, murdering is bad, and much worse than gold digging but at the same time, it's hard to feel sorry for the victims ... and then Hubert dies of completely unrelated mechanical failure! It's as if this is some kind of hell that all the bad people are locked away in so they torture each other for eternity!

Wanda's last thoughts are pretty creepy, though!

That said, "For Hubert had a way with women -- a way to do away with them, that is" is a pretty cliche line but a great way to start this little story!

Mr. Cavin said...

On one hand, I want to mention that weird, wicker basket style hatching filling the backgrounds here and there on page three (and only on that page). Or is that the wallpaper? Either way it's a strange aesthetic choice, with oddly chunky line widths. But then on the other hand I want to single out that middle row of panels--also on page three--that look for all the world like Joel and Wanda are striking up a screwball musical number. "Lights! Camera! And a star is born, Toots!" I guess they'll sing about driving around in a limo wearing pants that don't fit.

Like Karswell, I'm deeply moved by all those fur vault panels. Imagine how great that page would look if it were advanced two frames, so that the material at the top of page five actually appeared on the bottom of page four, instead. Instant classic!

Happy February Eve! (Hopefully a flake or two of snow will reach this location around around two this evening!)

Glowworm said...

This is the type of story where you immediately know that Hubert didn't simply send his wives away abroad with a fortune after finding out that they didn't love him.It's fun to watch it unfold though. Wanda trying to hire her own lover as a chauffeur so she can see him more often right under her husband's nose is downright diabolical, but Hubert planting a tape recorder under the couch was downright creepy. I wonder what industry the little guy was to get so much money in the first place. The creepiest part has to be that extra room in the fur vault. I mean, locking his wife inside and shoving the lover in there two days earlier is disturbing enough, but that little party he has going on with his four other dead wives? Damn. I wonder how often he'd come to visit?