Monday, May 13, 2024

The Cobras

We've been looking at some deadly serious crime horror tales for a few posts now, and it's time for one more! But let's throw a little bit more fun on the fire and make it a Mr. and Mrs. Chase mystery in an old haunted mansion! Adding to the recipe: a gang of Bowery Boy wannabes who call themselves "The Cobras", sprinkled with some eye poppin' leggy / bondage good girl art, plus a few mad cap monsters mixed into the maniacal Lou Morales mayhem, and you have yourself one heckuva crazy wild ride from the Jan. '53 issue of Crime and Justice #11. This should've been turned into an old B-movie!

5 comments:

Grant said...

I've never known them well enough, but this is like watching one of those Dead End Kids / Bowery Boys type suspense films (only without Bela Lugosi).


For a second, though, I halfway expected a darker ending, with the villain (accidentally) getting thrown to the crocodiles.

Mr. Karswell said...

Hmmmm. You guys do read my introductions to these stories, right?

Anyway, the crime horror doesn't stop here, be sure o head over to AEET for one more Nightmare of Death!

https://andeverythingelsetoo.blogspot.com/2024/05/nightmare-of-death.html

Brian Barnes said...

Hey, I heard a fact about human hair! What should we illustrate it with in our crime comic? A sexy dead girl??? Genius! Ah, crime comics, never change (until the Senate asks, that is.)

Mr. and Mrs. Chase are next to useless. "I'm going to bed for the night" after somebody has been murdered, faints at the sight of a dude in a gorilla costume, and Mr. Chase evidently is wolverine as he survives a swung heavy chain to the head.

This really is a comic for kids: tough kids, alligators, guys dressed as monsters, the jalopy, and the kids just absolutely tear 3 toughened adult criminals to pieces. Completely overwhelming them! Page 8 is actually a really great piece of comic action art, though the backgrounds are a bit sparse. "Moider em!" Man I don't want to get on those kids bad side.

Artist props: There's a lot of different stuff here: cars, animals, manimals, kids, good girls, actions, all of it handled well. A great job.

JMR777 said...

Curtis Chase looks like the brother of J Jonah Jamison without the flat top haircut.

This was a fun little Old Dark House mystery, thanks for the post.

Mr. Cavin said...

Kinda delighted that the kids save the day at the end, instead of just being some kind of irritating comic relief guest stars. I should put kids in quotes, maybe. Though they are dismissed as children throughout the story--and drawn to be about fourteen--it's obvious they are at least driving age and we know they hit the gym regularly. I mean, I myself have been both seventeen and also an insufferable forty-year-old international jet-setting adventurer and I'll tell you quick I'd rather wade into a scrap as the teenage version, please.

Second panel of page three gets a real assist from the out-of-registration magenta. The hot highlights on Merry's skin is just great a collaboration between the pedestrian colorist and happenstance.