We're still barrelin' along in bridal beast mode here at THOIA, and leave it to legendary Ace Magazines great, Lou Cameron (with an ink assist by Rocco Mastroserio) to concoct this tale of newlyweds and witchcraft with secret bush country head hunter shrinking techniques! This is a wild one that is as wonderfully goofy as it is weirdly deranged! From the May 1952 issue of Baffling Mysteries #8.
8 comments:
This one is absolutely insane, but it's also a very unique premise and I love it. I find it odd that our protagonist's name is first mentioned as Richard, but afterwards, he's mentioned as Dick throughout the story. No need to call him by his full name then. Also, that first tiny man that Dick throws against the wall bears a striking resemblance to Murdoc from the Gorillaz before he's released from the spell. I love the panels of Lucretia and her demons renewing her youth spell inside her killer doll house. The fourth panel of page 4 with her reflection in the brew is awesome. I also couldn't help but laugh at her trying so hard to gaslight Dick into believing that he fell down the stairs or that he only thought he saw her aging through a trick of the candlelight. My favorite excuse is that she felt ashamed about playing with dolls in a dollhouse at her age. If that's the case, then you're never too old for witchcraft! The ending's pretty insane too, with the shrunken husbands returning to full size and attacking her before reverting back to full sized corpses. That panel of Lucretia lying on the floor, fully decomposed is chilling. Also, I'm surprised that Lucretia actually is afraid of Dick calling the police on her. I figure she could easily hide the evidence like she did earlier with Dick and I doubt the police would easily believe such a story.
With the name Lucretia her hubby should have known she was up to no good, for all he knew she could have been a direct descendant of Lucrezia Borgia.
Lou snuck in good girl art of Lucretia, especially on page two bottom left panel and page three middle two panels.
These stories are getting nuttier. You're on a roll this month, Karswell!
One question: Are headhunters native to Australia? I thought it was a hobby exclusive to the Amazon. Maybe they had a cultural exchange program.
So we've seen -- or at least I have -- the storyline of shrunken down humans into zombie like dolls -- King Diamond even had a whole later period album about it (it's a great album!). I wonder what the origin of that one was, I suspect they are all pulling it from the same well or at least building off of one another.
Dick is completely useless in this one. He gets hit on the head, he gets lied to and then, by luck, Lucretia just happens to stab a doll.
I really like when the doll guy wakes up the other doll guys with the needle -- it's actually shown in his arm (where he pulls it out) and injecting it on the next page -- and for such a text heavy story it's surprising this wasn't pointed out. It's a cool background element.
Why the heck does Dick suddenly take her side at the end, and she calls him a fool? Come on, read the room, lady!
One of my least favorite horror cliches is making sure the witch is a BEARDED witch - does the artist think he hasn't made her ugly enough WITHOUT that? - and I notice that Lucretia isn't one.
This is more than a little like one of the less famous TWILIGHT ZONE episodes, "Queen of the Nile."
I feel like Richard is being a little bit too upbeat there at the end. Under the circumstances? I mean, when the police arrive to look for his missing wife, they are certainly going to find an awful lot of moldering bods there in his basement, people who have presumably been missing for a while now. The story indicates the local cops are pretty credulous when it comes to weird explanations, but the city's gonna have to pin all this on somebody.
I love all the crazy emphatic coronas radiating from people, like in the fifth panel of page two and the bottom of page six. But what I'm really digging on are those color coded demon dolls in the middle of page four. She's got the whole set!
Also, the cover if this ish is wonderful.
More bride brutality on the way in what can only be described as the worst honeymoons of horror we've ever featured here at THOIA! Thanks again for the continued great comments too, you guys are the best... I will certainly try my best to stay on a nutter roll! haha
Richard Cleverdon is my new favorite name.
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