Let's get June 2024 a'rockin' and a'rollin' with a hero vs. horror leftover that I had scheduled to post a few months back-- it's Plastic Man and his pudgy pal Woozy vs. a deadly voodoo doll dabblin, va-va-va-voom vvitch in a haunted house of fist pummelin' hilarity! Plus: bats, cats, a brutal goon duo, and even a couple of werewolves (which I guarantee you are not pronouncing correctly!) Great writing and wonderful, wild art, --I mean, it's not Jack Cole but it's pretty dang close thanks to the superb team-up of Alex Kotzky and Chuck Cuidera on pencils and inks! Guaranteed action-packed plasticity and fright-filled fun from the July 1953 issue of Plastic Man #42.
6 comments:
That was awesome!
Sure, it's not Cole, but the more realistic art really works for Plastic Man and the script is light and breezy (Woozy taking his vacation is a good joke, and even the pretty cliche at that point scared of the woods gags are good) and the big fight at the end is excellent.
Mono colors are used for effect instead of speed (page 3, panel 2) and a pretty witch and the ironic ending are all on point. I love the two gruesomes (the panel they appear is another great piece of art), all the heavy shadows, Woozy saving the day, etc, there's the kind of tales you'd expect from Plastic Man.
The only slight thing I'll complain about is a guy who is made of rubber thinking witches can't exist with all the evidence is pretty silly, but that's comics!
Page 9, panel 5 is great with all the elements framing Woozy. That's a really, really good comics 101 panel layout.
An evil force with unlimited power going up against the F.B.I. -
I know there's a straight line in there somewhere.
So if Plastic Man is working for the FBI, does that make Zelda the long cool woman in a black dress? Hollies joke aside, this comic has a fun mix of laughs (love the werewolves joke) and some gruesome imagery, such as Plastic Man melting, that image of the one goon tearing Plastic Man's mouth on the second panel of the last page and Zelda getting her own neck broken thanks to one of her goons doing the same thing to Plastic Man. Also, Zelda is pretty hot and I loved her crack about riding around in a dead guy's convertible.
This might be saying the obvious, but if you concentrate on that center one, the spider web strands give Zelda what looks like very dramatic cleavage.
Outside of a few kinds of story, I want almost every femme fatale to not only survive but not even get in very big trouble. I know she's almost unstoppable WITHOUT getting killed, but still, why couldn't Zelda get arrested and keep escaping, like some Batman character?
I'm glad someone finally mentioned Zelda's fabricadabra outfit --I was beginning to wonder what was wrong with everyone! ;)
More wicked witchery coming up next-- stay tombed!
Man, the body count in this thing. Three people and two dogs in ten pages. That's more like crime comics than horror.
The action on the last three (or so) pages of this thing is pretty magnificent. I gotta hand it to Kotzky and Cuidera, the snappy dynamism and physicality of that stuff is right up there with Kirby or Everett.
I love Elvira's so-called witch duds quite a lot, but I'm not so sure about the wrestling belt. I think maybe wrapping her middle with a punky silver dog chain or Derek Jarman-designed Swarovski-encrusted fishnet would take that spider queen ensemble to a hauter level.
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