Everyone was so smitten by the uplifting spirt and happy ending of the previous post, I've gone way way out of my way to find another tale that was just as positively sweet and full of family friendly fun. So, tell me if I've chosen wisely, dearest THOIA followers, for your pleasure is my one great desire. From the December 1972 issue of Skywald's Nightmare #10.
7 comments:
Huh? Now there's a twist I didn't see coming.
The police in this city obviously have nothing better to do than get warrants on the rantings of some busybody woman about bad meat. Crime must be in holiday!
Whoa, that was out of the creepy left field for sure. I think the monsters here were very effective. But I think the spookiest thing in the whole story has got to be panel two, when the daughter admits she really likes the meat. Shudder.
I've never really read much Skywald. I'm interested in the production/printing process here. While other mags were shooting halftone screens to support gray washes, these guys seemed to be going for textured pencil (or charcoal?) shading. I'm intrigued by the look, but I'm also predisposed to think it looks kind of unfinished. Are they often like this?
This could have turned into a sequel to Pickman's Model if the writer hadn't gone for cheap scares and gore. A Sweeny Todd/Lovecraft mashup, so to speak.
Louis Hokay should have told his customers that he received a bad shipment from the slaughterhouse, apologized for the bad meat, and refunded their money then made sure only beef was sold to his human customers.
So I'm guessing your idea of a "happy ending" is a "Karen" getting fed to hungry mutant monsters? This story kind of confuses me. Are the human body parts for the monsters in the cellar to prevent them from coming out? Is that why the butcher has human flesh to begin with? Are the body parts from anyone in town? Has anyone gone missing? Also when the butcher mentioned that he was pretty certain that lady's husband didn't know where she was, I thought it was going to be because he had murdered him.
After a happy story, time for some good old fashioned nihilism from Skywald!
This story may be very gritty, but it's funny how she practically turns into Phyllis Diller at the last minute!
Skywald has an interesting history, guys from Marvel and guys from Warren made it (Warren *really* felt betrayed by Skywald.). Their editor claimed Marvel getting into the B&W business put them out of business; they didn't last very long and actually forgot to copyright anything, which is why their stuff gets reprinted here and there.
They were really trying to be the "literate" Warren but a lot of the times I think they missed the mark.
That said, on of my favorite horror stories came from Skywald, just because of the absolutely bonkers left field ending. I've told Kars about it we will see if he ever publishes it (I might have actually sent him the issue with it!)
Let's hope he hasn't already published it and I somehow missed it :)
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