Swoopin' in with more wild, winged wonders on a frightfully fine Wednesday, this time from the February 1950 issue of Captain America's Weird Tales #75! And with those excellent, arching eyebrows, Dolores would've been a perfect film role for Maila Nurmi, --the greatest vampire gal of all time!
Well, that sucks for the Duke! This kind of stories always leave me a bit off -- did the Duke deserve this eternal punishment? Yes, he killed his friend but honor was important and while not excusing it, his friend even died forgiving him. By the comic, he was a good and loved ruler.
ReplyDeleteNow for all eternity he fights as a giant bat for blood? Yikes!
I like the countess, page 4, panel 1 is very Roger Corman-ish, and page 5, panel 5 is some fun good girl art though I don't think this artist has seen to many flames!
Captain America had Baron Blood to content with, he didn't need these extra vampires in his mag!
I kind of love that nothing really happens in the modern part of the story, just that it's basically set up to tell a horror story from long ago and ends on the note that it may very possibly be true. I like how Phillipe is honest about the story not being a relaxing one and the line "Say your prayers, Senor Boar!" amused me. That first panel of page four, Delores has an absolutely evil look on her face for no apparent reason and I love it. I also love panel four of page 7 for some reason. It just gives me the giggles even though it's supposed to be terrifying.Look,he's getting bat kisses!
ReplyDeletePoor boar, at least he was avenged.
ReplyDeleteBoar Lives Matter.
The duel between the Duke and his best friend is a little like that duel between Barnabas and Jeremiah in the 1795 timeline of DARK SHADOWS, even though a lot of the circumstances are different. Either way, a "femme fatale" causes one of them to murder the other.
ReplyDeleteI find these origami bats really compelling. I mean, this comic does a much better job than usual at getting animal anatomy right, and still... the more I look at the bat wings here, the harder it is for me to grasp what the illustrator intended to convey. Sometimes the limb is very accurate near the body, but evolves into fractal geometry near the wingtips. Sometimes the whole wing looks like an inflating bellows. So cool.
ReplyDeleteI also really like the big faces panel at the top of page seven. See that skin tone? See the teeth tone? I'll never know the order of operations here, but the illustrator, the colorist, and the caption writer were all purring like a well-oiled machine!