I think we'll stick with these golden age Toby stories for a few more posts, and this time it's another one from good 'ol Myron Fass again, and from the June 1952 debut issue of Tales of Horror #1. This entry also contains an unnamed, high-collared horror host (resembling Ditko's "Mysterious Traveler" just a bit) who is possibly making his debut here at THOIA, --does anyone know for sure? So okay, with rats inheriting the Earth in our previous post (HERE!), it's now time to find out what happens when demons blow us! Wait, that's not right...
4 comments:
The sucking up of the water is a great gag; I'm surprised I've never seen that before or have and just forgot.
I know a lot of pre-code horror stories loved the "sexy women = death" and this outright calls them demons but at the same time ... it's not really that demonic, as far as I can tell. Sure, you are stuck down there but most people of that time didn't really travel (and even now) and frankly I could think of worst places to get stuck.
Also, immortal, you have a lot of time to figure out a way out!
There's so much fun art in this. Yes, 99% of the reason for this is the good girl art and it doesn't disappoint, but I love all the architecture. You have very Aztec-y / Mayan type art, then sci-fi corridors, then more type of Mediterranean statues, it's wildly all over the place and well drawn. Bravo!
Page 5, panel 1, woman with the fan: This feels traced, some movie star of the day, maybe? I always like to see the one face that stands out.
Fass is one of those artists who will occasionally choose to pencil a story without any light and shadow, articulating just the relative shapes and textures, leaving it to the color process to add the temperature and highlights, delineate the depth of the frame, etc. With a good colorist--like in these last two tales--the technique works out well. Myron really helps sell it with all these careful details. I loved the city backgrounds and the texture of all the rat hair in the last post. I love the wood grains and rough rock walls here. And all those radiating lines (of architecture, of light, of anxiety?). Every panel on page two is a great example, but my fave is the collapsed mine at the top of seven. What a kaleidoscope of layered patterns.
Frankly, this thing reminds me of an origin story. Like, build that guy a spacesuit full of water and keep him around for flood relief. He'd be the swaggering hero of every basement in the southeast.
Some legends of Europe considered vampires to be spirits, they couldn't cast reflections or shadows. In this story, the people are sometimes transparent and sometimes solid looking, similar to the idea the undead were neither solid or spirit but somewhere in between.
Trapped underground with beautiful women, forever-
So how is this a punishment again?
As you mentioned in the introduction, Karswell, the host reminds me of the Dracula/Lugosi stand-in from Plan 9 From Outer Space, the host is trying his darndest to be The Mysterious Traveler but ends up as a knock off of the original. More like a Mysterious Passerby or Mysterious Witness.
This could have been a post code tale since the only terror is being turned into dust, but even that isn't portrayed in an over the top way as was sometimes shown in some other horror comics.
Kind of reminds me of the Lovecraft story "The Transition of Juan Romero" but I think that it must be just using a cool story idea. And HPL never had sexy girls in his stories.
Post a Comment