Satanic Saturdays are back, and we're re-sellin' our souls for rock 'n roll with this darlin' lil ditty about makin' it big in the 'ol music biz! DC never stopped trying to make the most out of popular pop culture trends by putting spooky twists on everything the kids were currently into back then... and I guess things haven't really changed much with the rather out of touch way that things actually work / don't work in the industry. Still makes for 100% pure entertainment! From the December 1971 issue of The Unexpected #130.
Art Saaf definitely knows how to draw a hot female character, including a trendy early ' 70s one.
ReplyDeleteThis is a little like those horror several stories about the musicians who plagiarize voodoo music. and there's even a TWILIGHT ZONE episode where it's a rockabilly singer doing it with rural folk music.
It's not enough of a resemblance to be a deliberate joke, but the rock music fan at the bottom of Page 5 looks like Doris Day.
Since there often were crossovers between this series and The Witching Hour, I almost thought the blonde witch in the beginning was Cynthia. Melba and her groupies were pretty cute but Lemuel was a real jerk to begin with. I was actually surprised that despite the opening for this one with the witches watching in the bushes and Melba bringing Lemuel home to her coven to marry him, the story was actually pretty tame. I was waiting for Lemuel to murder Chad or for him to drop dead on stage, too many pre-code horror comics for me, I guess. Kind of cute that Chad became their new rock star idol since Lemuel was a real dick towards him the entire time. Maybe this time, Melba will have found her true love. She deserved better anyway.
ReplyDeleteI thought the "hundred slices of bread" referred to, you know, a hundred slices of bread.
ReplyDeleteWhich wouldn't be astonishing for that level of concert. Might even be a good thing, with band leaders less likely to skip town when it's only bread to share.
There was a comedy movie whose name I forgot, where a hotel bellhop has, among other things, an encounter with a coven of witches. Another character later misheard him: "You were ^*&%ed by an oven of witches?" Did anyone remember the name of this movie?
...musicians who plagiarize voodoo music, one of the stories from the anthology film "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors"
ReplyDeleteOne more detail, the comic cover is great, but nowadays instead of the couple in the foreground viewed as a threat they would be looked upon as a hard core Goth couple.
ReplyDeleteTimes sure have changed since then.
A lot of times on these horror tales the title is somewhat throw-away, we've seen a thousand "dooms" and "vampire!" and whatnot. This issue already has "murder spree" and "death mask." This one, though: "You Don't Dare Dig the Gruesome Groupies!" That's awesome!
ReplyDeleteThis is a fun deck stacker -- Lemuel isn't given a single moment where he isn't a heel but as has been said he doesn't exactly get it in a very horrible way, but you can sometimes expect that in DC post code.
The art is great. The scratchy quality, the witch/hippie/groupies, various bats and caves.
That said, I never get the character that does everything to step on others suddenly freaking out when the woman that will marry him is a witch -- who has already proven all that she'll do for him -- and can make him famous. It's not like he's got a soul to lose, I'm pretty sure he already signed that one away by his behavior!
Hah, this bunch of witch groupies had me expecting some kind of an Elvis type--but here they are going gaga over Fred from Scoobie Doo? That's pretty wild! I like the idea of a coven of feral, but totally mod, forest witches; a band of sorta reverse sirens, fatally attracted to the sweet, sweet nighttime call of the rockabilly.
ReplyDeleteThis is a breezy and fun story with some swell panels here and there--that snake frame at the bottom of page two is a standout, so is the middle of page three. And let me tell you, Fred from Scooby Doo: From the outside looking in, it always seems pretty strange when one religious group thinks the details of another group is oddball. Believe me, their feral witch wedding rites aren't any weirder than the usual, man. Just go with it.
Bill the Butcher: I think you may be talking about the Allison Anders segment of 1995 anthology film Four Rooms. Yeah?
Mr Cavin: possibly. I really don't remember the name at all.
ReplyDeleteBill, that film is �������� ����������.
ReplyDeleteThat was supposed to say Four Rooms, which Mr. Cavin already pointed out.
ReplyDelete