Doctor Graves is back for one more supernaturally creepy, Charlton encounter, and it's another petrifyin' pile-on of poltergeists to boot! From the February 1970 issue of The Many Ghosts of Doctor Graves #18, with diabolically damned art by Golden Age great, Don Perlin (plus a Ditko cover art assist as well!) Hope everyone enjoyed this mini-fest of Charlton chills 'n thrills, I promise we'll get back into the regular mix of things for the rest of the month-- stay tombed!
6 comments:
This could have been an episode from the TV show "The Sixth Sense".
Dr. Graves should have taken some amulet or magic charm to ward off evil instead of relying on just his own knowledge and physical strength.
Thanks for the Charlton posts.
Maybe this is the very thing most people would have a problem with, but I like the fact that Dr. Graves mentions "liking" his female client.
Did that happen with him very often?"
Speaking of men and women, I'm NOT so fond of "Be still, girl!" and "Do as I say!"
But, they're still in danger when he's saying those lines, so he can't be too careful about how they're phrased.
OK this one really works. There's been some nitpicking on the others, and some lost story points, but this story is tight, contains a single gimmick (closing of the eyes), and is very much a superhero story. It would have worked just as well if it was Dr. Strange instead.
Also greatly helping it is Don Perlin who knew his way around a superhero story and could draw spooky castle/houses (it changes here and there!) There's some wild panel layouts and instead of just trying to be different they are done for effect -- page 3 is a good example, the camera angle in the middle panel with the flames is a real good use of strange paneling.
One thing about the script that is slightly annoying is how much of an anchor the Elena is. Not that I demand strong females in every story but man is she a wet paper towel in this. Keep your eyes closed! Come on!
BTW, something only I care about, this is about 5 years before Werewolf By Night 34-37, Moench and Perlin's excellent Hell House lift, one of my favorite horror stories of all time. There is a lot in this story that is repeated in those 4 issues in the art. Kind of neat to see this.
I've read those 4 issue probably more than any other so I know it like the back of my shaggy werewolf hand.
I love the house in the splash; and I love the ad-art verve of the words on the stairway. I kind of wish they'd gone all-in on that look, actually: Started higher up and and put the word Poltergeist on that bottom riser. It would have let the sound effect stand out in the panel a bit more, and that may have had more punch maybe. But it's nice the way it is, too.
The art here seems Ditko influenced, by which I mean full of excellent ideas rendered in a brisk, almost fleeting way. To be fair, both of those artists might have just been reacting to the commercial necessity of turning in four times as much work for the same payday they were used to elsewhere. To state the obvious, both artists also managed to turn out excellent material regardless.
I feel like the art lulls just a little after the splash, though, before really firing up on page four, and then staying intense and wild all the through after that. Wow. The Dada quality of rendering some words as sound effects--TERRIFIED!--is really groovy and excellent.
I don't say this about everything, but I kind of wish that Elena were that much more of a late ' 60s / early ' 70s "stereotype" - apart from some of the clothing.
Charlton has some pretty entertaining characters of that kind (and not just female ones).
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