Spooky month is now in session (see all previous months as well because it's ALWAYS spooky month at THOIA!) --and let's roll out a real batso-wacko blood sucker weirdie fluttering all the way back to the June - July 1951 debut issue of Dark Mysteries #1! You freakier fans of Haunted Horror might remember we put this gruesome gem in the October 2013 issue of HH #7! And get a load of that Orlando / Wood cover art!
This one's a weird case of bait and switch. We're shown a splash page promising an adventure in an Egyptian tomb with a vampire Pharaoh--but it's actually a flashback and the real story takes place 2 years afterwards when the wife of the dead archaeologist returns back home. It's obvious who the vampire is that's plaguing the town, but it's confusing too as Mrs. Marvin is clearly a vampire even before she "dies" getting hit by that truck. I like panel five of page three of her leering outside the window. Yet what the heck is going on in page 4 with an unrelated monster in the middle of it chewing the page?We get another unrelated image of a hand with a dagger thrust into it on page 5!
ReplyDeleteI really like the truck driver on page 5; trying to make sure somebody saw that it was an accident is actually a interesting little side note that makes the story feel a bit more real, that is, until a weird vampire eats its way through the page!
ReplyDeleteI don't think I'd want to see this all the time but I love the random nonsense; the vampire eating the page, the hand with the dagger, the bat panelling. It's a lot of fun, and breaks up any chunks of talking heads comics.
There's also some good regular art in this, the last panel on page 6 is a really nice horror comic panel, and the artist gets in some of the old see-through clothes in the previous page. I also love the action panel of the vampire getting ... er ... pick-axed? It really caries a lot of violent action!
What's the balding winged skeleton Egyptian pharaoh vampire? I was promised a balding winged skeleton Egyptian pharaoh vampire!
ReplyDeleteThis is great. I really love the creative brio of these monsters coming right out of the book at me. I know this was early days, and the rules of just how to deliver scary stuff via the comics page were still be solidified. On some pages the panels seem so shuffled they're like a puzzle I had to put together after reading them all (still working on page two). But I'm not sure I've ever seen anything as fresh as this direct attack on the reader, on the books itself, over and above the diegesis. Early days or not, that's some next-level ish.
ReplyDeleteBut really, don't you think that "THE NAMELESS TERROR OF TWIN DINES" is a tad too long to be used for a title two different times at the top of panel one? And is it snarky of me to point out that that The Terror then gets named in very the first damn word balloon? I mean, assuming I'm reading them in the correct order....
Brian Barnes is right about the realistic moment of the driver defending himself. But there's also an accidentally funny moment, because the way it's drawn, he starts doing that before the accident is even finished happening!
ReplyDeleteI've only read it twice, but this seems to be based on a short story called "Mrs. Amworth" by E.F. Benson. Including the female vampire being very attractive, but without being a full-on seductive one.
Speaking of that, since she is an attractive female vampire, I wish they'd pushed the envelope a little more with Mrs. Marvin's clothing.