You can't deny that when we have an Atlas Fest here at THOIA, it's always a damn good time! And because a few of you axed for it, we'll close out the month with another double header (or is that a beheader?!) Bill LaCava proves that hate is stronger than blood, with a very cleaver, errr, a very clever classic from the August 1952 issue of Marvel Tales #108. But first up, a rather dividing tale of divorce and doom from the May 1953 issue of Marvel Tales #114. The Atlas Tales site thinks this is a team-up art attack from Jack Hearne and Bill Savage, and that sounds savagely good to me too-- either way that you slice it! Hope everyone enjoyed this month of Atlas, you can look forward to another mix of macabre stories from some of the other finer precode publishers, and maybe even a surprise or two as we slide into super September already (?!!), inching closer and closer to Halloween!! Stay tombed...
6 comments:
One thing I can say about the first story is that Ricky has an extremely punchable face so I'm pretty glad the little turd got an axe to the head at the end of it. Mind you, Verna was the main problem here, but this was the best way for Steve to get back at her--and again Ricky wasn't helping much. I honestly do love how absolutely rubbering Ricky's face looks--like he's some sort of grotesque caricature of a ventriloquist's dummy. How old is this kid anyway? He's still living at home with his mother yet he's apparently old enough to drive. The second story is just really mean. Agnes is just awful gaslighting her poor sister like that. So much like Ricky, good riddance to bad rubbish. Though to be fair, I'm surprised Ellen didn't see those chains Agnes was rattling during bedtime. I do love panels 5 and 6 on the final page of Ellen finally snapping.
Yes, it's GASLIGHT with sisters instead of a married couple.
But if you didn't see them together, you'd think it was like "Therese" by Richard Matheson (one of the TRILOGY OF TERROR stories).
Some years ago I read about a divorcing couple where the husband took a chainsaw to the house and cut it in half to comply with the court order. I don't think he divided the child/ren, though.
Hey, Verna! At least have the class to remove the price tag from your new fur coat, you!.
Second story was all too predictable. Hope Crazy Sister gets away with her Temporary Insanity please.
In the splash page of Fifty-Fifty, the side view of Steve's head have nuanced colors that must have been hard to pull off back then. Considering how many thousands of pages had to be printed to go into thousands of copies of a monthly comic book, the ability to turn out so many pages with so few flaws is an impressive feat, something modern comic book fans might overlook.
All this was done with printing presses that had basically not changed much since the 1930's or earlier. Have to give props to the print crew back then.
In the story Hate, on the fourth page middle row of panels, we see Ellen's descent onto madness, the art really shows the build up to insanity and its breaking point.
Atlas/Marvel didn't need gore to portray horror, their writers and artists knew how to build a suspenseful tale until its shocking reveal at the end.
This was a great way to say Adios August, and hello to Spooky September.
In both these stories, we get some talented artist who storytelling through, I'm not sure if you could say they are tropes but the faces and bodies they draw.
Steve looks like a guy who'd flip his lid -- and does -- Verna looks like a gold digger and Ricky looks like a guy who wouldn't stop making the jokes until they finally caught up with him.
In the second story, Ellen looks mousey, and Agnes looks like a schemer.
Sometimes that can be distracting but in short, 4 page horror stories it's great because it sign posts the characters and announces things about them that you don't necessarily have to get out of the text.
I like Fifty-Fifty's art a bit better. It's busy, dark lined, full of shadow and deft touches. And the coloring is excellent.
Hate is also great (har) but it's more clean. It's more like a Craig job at EC, where 50-50 is more like a Davis job.
I love the happy skeleton in the ad. Atlas published a LOT of books!
I have to agree about Fifty-Fifty!, the art and coloring are just dynamite all the way through. I dearly love the work in the splash and the last panel on both pages two and three (especially that last one, which has a Kurtzman verve that really sends me). Not least do I love the title treatment here. I don't know who did it (Artie Simek?), but it's a beaut.
Artwise, I especially love the attention to both the umbra and the penumbra on that shadow that keeps hassling Ellen throughout the second story. I especially like the row of panels at the bottom of the first page, where that menacing blob is pictured with a nearly rainbow aura. While that shadow is plenty surreal--detached from physical reality, lumpen and strange--the illustrator does a neat job of solving its mystery visually in the final panel. While most of this story has nobody throwing any kind of shade on any surface (there's one panel on page two, but that's about it), you finally do see Agnes herself casting that weirdness on the wall behind her at the very end. And then you know whodunit! Even if you haven't bothered to read one word of the story.
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