Is everyone enjoying these Atlas Suspense stories? I guess it had been a while since we had ourselves an Atlas Fest around here, and you guys definitely let me know it! And we have a few more to go, including one starring this glamour puss who thinks she's the be all / end all in beauty! Boy, does she ever have a thing or two to learn... from the October 1952 issue of Suspense #23, and featuring some real nice art from Syd Shores.
6 comments:
The Amazon natives look like Deep Ones from Lovecraft. Is Innsmouth in South America?
"Eye of the Beholder" was 1960. This was 52. Now, in no way am I saying Serling might have seen this, and his version was definitely less leering and a lot more clever ... but it's not hard to see this tale as an antecedent. Obviously, more than one person can have this idea.
I love all the monologuing in this one. It really pounds home the desire to see vengeance wrecked on Joy, and she is literally making the case for it in every panel. I love the absolute over confidence on the back half of the story even though (unlike the zone episode) it's pretty obvious where this is going.
I love the fur bikinis on the native women, almost enough to overlook the frog face! I was wondering why Joy only talks about her face when the artist makes sure to let you know the rest of her is stunning, too, but it's basically to make the ending work, and I like the open ended nature of it.
I'm wondering if Stan wrote this, because it seems a bit like him, but I'm no expert. The part where the director "escaped the fate" is a clever bit of text and seems like Stan but he's not guessed as the author and people have a pretty complete list so probably not.
The green faced guy on page six middle right panel, this is the first glimpse of The Incredible Hulk.
Joy never learned the lesson "Be nice to people on the way up because you will see them on your way down".
Sometimes it's reaching to see connections to actual people in these stories, but could Joy's first name be from Joi Lansing, or is this story a little too early?
And could the "jungle queen" part be a reference to the actress Irish McCalla?
I couldn't be the only one, but when I read that the most beautiful wins, I expected one of those countless human sacrifice stories, the kind that are also contests where the most beautiful "wins" and the others "lose."
It's easy to imagine Joy gloating over winning, followed by the other part being sprung on her.
Yeah, we all knew where this one was going but it’s still fun nonetheless. I love how the narrator’s idea of the director escaping his fate as another sucker for Joy to play with is dying in a freak fire accident!🤣🤣 The word play of how he “escaped Joy” is excellent. One thing Joy kind of forgot though besides the fact that beauty is in the eye of the beholder is that apparently she won all her contests by seducing and sweet talking men into fixing them for her. There wasn’t anyone to sweet talk in the jungle for her to win this one.
Hey, a whole society of folks with Don Post masks for heads! Mostly they look like gill men, but that contest judge definitely opted for Glenn Strange.
I'm not sure why they didn't make Joy just a little bit likeable, possibly hip to the idea she didn't have much to trade on besides her looks. That would have made the horror that much wickeder, I think.
As it is, I really like page two. It starts with "Ah! Another sucker!" and goes on to show Joy deftly, and without rancor, telling some cad where to get off. I know it's my modern sensibility--transactional relationships between people trading on power and those trading on youth and beauty tend to favor the latter now--but that guy totally had it coming. Both of them were willing to conspire in the illicit promotion of their own interests. The victim here isn't that man, it's the other contestants.
I'd like to think each and every one of those losers ran right out and bought latex masks....
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