THOIA's Friday Freak-O-Meter has officially gone off the charts with this terrifically illustrated Joe Sinnott terrorama from the December 1952 issue of Suspense #25. And if the more observant of you out there are slowly starting to see a pattern with the posts developing here, well-- you may be on to something, finally... sheesh!
Rat a tat-tat
ReplyDeleteBring on the cat
The designs for the wererats are so absolutely ridiculous that I love them. So, I'm guessing that Ellen was always a wererat and this was just her weird little way of having Jim meet her family? The second to last page has an awesome fourth panel with this green lighted drooling rat dude! I also got a kick out of Jim overhearing two of these guys just casually discussing how to convert a human into one of them. Consent is apparently very important to wererats. That's good to know. Unfortunately, this was clearly forced concent for Jim.
ReplyDeleteI read through this a couple times and then just looked over the pages without reading.
ReplyDeleteI really don't know what to think of the art / coloring. It's super interesting. Everything is shaded, even panels that don't require it (like 2nd panel of first page, which should be in a lighted room.) The color is monochromatic on figures, backgrounds are substituted with hatching, and there's high color yellows/greens/blues on a couple panels (page 6, panel 2.)
Sinnott is an awesome artist. All the figures are great, the action works, the backgrounds are detailed, and the wererats are cool (and drool-y!)
But I just don't know about the art. I'm really torn! It's great, I'm not sure if it *works.* It's so weird, and, honestly, that makes it better. It's neat! It's dense. It's different.
Great closing panels!
It's maiden metamorphosis month!
These were-rats are a blend of Lovecraft's "The Rats in the Walls" and the creatures from the TV horror "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" 1973.
ReplyDeleteWere-rats, and I though were-crocodiles or were-alligators were the last word in horror.
The title somehow reminds me of those self-help books with the very trendy kind of title.
ReplyDeleteI keep wanting to say "Men With Fangs - And the Women Who Leave them."
I sure love this one. Sinnott is a fave of mine from way back, even before I knew anything about pre-code horror. Looking at his career, the man has been responsible for, or an ingredient of, much of my top ten picks. The work here is, to my mind, utterly phenomenal. I do feel like this is not Stan Goldberg's best work (or maybe it's not Stan at all?), but even the color on this is okay. But I'd imagine the original art boards of this one would blow me out of my socks. All that crafty detail! The stones, the drool, the rat hair! Especially the bottom two rows of page three are the cat's pajamas.
ReplyDeleteI love Atlas month!