What happens when you go looking for love and beauty in all of the wrong places? And is this even a good Valentine's Day story? I'll leave that up to you. Smallish scans donated by one of the Tommys I believe, sorry I can't remember, --maybe I just need Satana's Fatal Brain Capacity to help remind me! From the August 1952 issue of The Beyond #14, and highlighted by some really fantastic art from Robert S. Pious.
5 comments:
So, the rainbow coloring -- I think the most standout one is 3rd panel, last page, but there's some great ones on page 5, too. I run so hot and cold about them -- but I really like them in this story. It's really overly complex and I think it fits that high color comic book concept.
The artist really attempts to draw an ugly woman in the first couple pages, frankly, she's not that bad at all! I guess most of these artists didn't have enough practice on drawing ugly women! I do love the Satana (if that isn't enough of a clue.). Just floating around being all catty.
This is a fun one but as an editor I'd probably the last row on the last page; sure it adds the "she actually got the last Kerr" trick ending but it didn't really add a lot to the story.
This one kind of hits a few surprises being that both the "cousin" and the "uncle" actually survive their attacks. Of course, the "uncle" has to survive. He needs to tell us the whole exposition on Satana and the Kerrs! Amelia really isn't that bad looking. Just trim out those bangs, really. Satana is a lot of fun although it's amusing how quickly Amelia agrees to brew that ghastly beauty spell from a random ghost with an ominous name that she just befriended a few seconds ago. Love the discussion about the dead lover whose arm will be used to stir the concoction.
Well you know I'm digging the colors. I am especially into those panels in which the coloring methodology leaves simple concept of defining shapes and planes behind and goes off into some kind of non-diegetic emotional tangent like the blue wave at the bottom of page four, the superimposed Californian sunset of page six panel two, or the two-toned backdrop at the top of page seven. I mean, everything was going pretty witchy and wild already, but this other stuff is extra keen. It's as if the colors are doing double duty as a soundtrack, too.
The windblown art on pages six and seven (that lightning bolt motion line when Amelia falls off the cliff!), every image with ghostly Satana, and page three (pick a panel!) are all my very favorites today.
I feel like it was concretely established in the story that Amelia wasn't a bad person, though perhaps embittered by the callous lookism of a shallow culture--and jealous of those around her who weren't. It's too bad she was so soundly punished for her manipulation at the hands of the vengeful ghost witch who happened to be her roommate, but that's horror!
"No! No! I won't do evil, well if its for beauty I'm all in."
I guess plastic surgery was not an option for her.
Cemetery caretaker- Wham! Cousin- Wham! Uncle- Wham! I wonder if the writer of this tale was a fan of The Three Stooges.
The spirits/monsters look like a swipe of Lou Cameron's work.
I could picture this as a Mexihorror film from the sixties, a wild plot that only works in its own universe with its own rules.
Thanks for digging this one up, Karswell.
I can't get enough Mexican horror films (especially from what could be called their Golden Age), so I really like that comparison.
Brian Barnes is very right. The artist hardly does the slightest thing to make her unattractive.
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