Manny Stallman takes us out on a wild manny-quin murder spree with a truly madcap Harvey Horror classic from the February 1953 issue of Witches Tales #17. And for more mannequin madcappery, head over to AEET HERE for a sillier, saucier side of our still life subject matter this month! Hope everyone enjoyed this brief look at the darker side of department store doomies!
Lots of fun face close ups -- page 2 and 5 have some real winners.
ReplyDeleteOK, this tale has the real horror in them. First, the "victims," while they get their vengeance, will live on forever as murdering monsters. The real horror is in the unfairness of that fate!
Sure, there's a lot you could quibble about this story and things that make little sense, but it really works as a horror story that gives you the shivers; not the ending, but *that could happen to you!*
Also: I love that snake!
We all knew Stevens was off his rocker, smoking his pipe like that.
ReplyDeleteWhile some smoke their pipe upside down during a rainstorm there was no need to do that indoors.
On the right hand side panel of THOIA, under Fifties Horror, there can be found a mannequin horror tale by Steve Ditko titled 'The Night People'.
ReplyDeleteThat Ditko tale should get an honorable or horrible mention during March Mannequin Madness Month.
I didn't even know it was possible to smoke a pipe upside down, JMR777. Maybe Stevens was just trying to quit?
ReplyDeleteExcept for the fangs, the snake resembles a Tyrannosaurus drawing.
ReplyDeleteEven if it's reaching, I almost expected the attack by the HUMAN mannequins to end with the snake biting Stevens. Which would be fitting, since it was his first victim.
I kinda thought the same things as Grant. Because that snake has to be slinking slowly around at night too. I guess it's just a walking stick during the day.
ReplyDeleteI like this atmospheric story, but yearn to see the second half, in which the mannequins start serial killing all over the US ("Looking at the pattern of thumbtacks in this crime map, our killer must be operating out of Macy's!"). I don't know whether the newly murderous victims of Steven's mad science would be able to infect their own victims (or how: Their infectious dummy bite? They recreate the dummy serum in the department store lahbooritory?), but I really like the idea of mannequins as an epidemic: The increasingly lonesome Main Streets and silent coffee shops and commuter trains as the human population gives way to a crowd of clothes dummies filling all the seats and spaces of every place. The ghost town as diorama.