One more from the October 1973 issue of The Witching Hour #35 (see our previous post), and this time it's a spooky weird, lurid AF love triangle of terror, where the games people play most definitely come back to pay! Awesome Luis Dominguez art, especially that award winning splash of atmosphere...
5 comments:
My general take on the DC pre-code horror is the stories are usually pretty meh but DC just hit it out of the park with all the artist they found (and probably worked cheap) to churn out stories for these mags.
The story has holes you could drive a truck piloted by a guy in the old moon man costume in it, but the art saves the entire thing. As mentioned, the splash is awesome. The way there's a line between off-model Stretch Monster to Nina to Bridget, and Bridget's sly smile, and all the shadows, it's awesome work. The following panel is also good.
While the rest is mostly talking heads, there's good site lines and panel layouts, at the bottom on page 4 (the ol' Wally Wood kind of stuff) I like how the talking heads move around the panel, and the camera zooms in. It's that kind of work that elevates what would be a boring collection of panels.
There's one thing I'm a little unclear on. Bad heart or no bad heart, is Nina one of those countless people in suspense stories (and comedies about lawsuits) who don't really need the chair? Panel 4 of Page 6 kind of suggests it.
I agree with Brian: Hole-y Sheet! The art is terrific though, worthy of a better story.
Somehow seeing Bridget makes me see a horror story answer to Chili the model in Marvel.
You just have to replace Chili's farcical comedy schemes (usually against other women) with actual murder schemes.
I always have at least a little fun bouncing off the awkward pseudo-hip tone of these DC mags from what was arguably the Marvel Age™ of comics. The silly lingo, the sixties clothes, all the reactionary trim haphazardly crammed into the mixer in an effort to wrest back some of the market. By the end of the sixties, DC was desperate to find a little of that youthy energy Stan Lee's bullpen was channeling with seemingly little effort. It doesn't ever feel effortless (or particularly genuine) over here, though. It feels like stage props. So by the end of the seventies, DC was almost bankrupt and pretty much surviving on the popularity of the SUPERMAN movie alone.
That said, I feel like the fashion and the figure drawing here are just great, especially the character work on Bridget, though the pencils attract me more than the inks.
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