We had a request last month for more King Ward, and I am of course more than happy to oblige, --I mean, he is The King, after all! It's also quite the convenient request since the 'ol ACG long boxes were already still resurrected for our previous post! And I feel like we haven't featured a "True Ghosts of History" quickie in a while either, so please try not to shriek too loudly at the horrifically stern visage of "The Grim Lady of Raynham Hall" from the December - January 1949 issue of Adventures into the Unknown #2. But first up, it's time to turn the tables on a supernatural faker with some honest-to-badness REAL supernatural, from the September - October 1951 issue of Forbidden Worlds #2. Ward is certainly in fine form on both entries in this post, each swirling with spooky, drippy atmosphere, and maybe like me, you'll learn some deadly new terminology for fine lobster dining and seaweed!
8 comments:
Thank you for posting more of King Ward! I love this guy's art, and his Howling Hunters is one of the best horror comic yarns I've ever read!
I’ll be posting more all week as well —so get ready!
This one has a fun reverse of your normal ghost story; in your normal ghost story something happens, and then later the only explanation is a ghost. Think Resurrection Mary and the missing sweater.
Here, though, the tar footprints are thought of as a ghost but the end of the story proves it to have a natural explanation -- though that natural explanation is explained by a supernatural entity!
This story is hard to get your head around! And then all the "dead man" stuff with natural explanations, and finally our hero, who seems to have magical powers (mesmerism, summoning spirits) get his ... at that hands of those same powers. Yet he didn't believe in ghosts? I love this one it's all sorts of weird.
Good 2-pager on the "brown lady" (which they renamed the grim lady because that makes a better comic.) She's a lot more visible in this one then the famous picture, and they pretty much changed around parts of the story.
I do like how they found a portrait (its up on wikipedia) and gave her the same head scarf she wears in that, though a lot meaner face! Poor Dorothy, still suffering even after all these years!
How to be a spiritualist-wear a turban on your head and fill your room with a dark spooky atmosphere. Bonus points if any actual spirits get summoned! I love the close up of Phanto’s victim’s Tae drenched hand in panel 3 of page 4. If you’re going to kill your client, first make sure you know of their identity. Those newspaper headlines gave me a good clue throughout the story, although let’s be honest, the client in question was dressed up like some sort of gangster so I already knew he wasn’t anyone innocent to begin with either. Turns out dead man’s fingers also refers to a type of seaweed. The one I’m most familiar with that goes by that name is a fungus. Those actually do look like fingers.
Yes, it's so strange to see the fake medium become the killer, and the victim of his scam - let alone a dangerous-acting one - become the victim.
Even though these two are pre code tales, many of the images look like bronze age artwork, especially the splash on Dead Man's Doom. They would not be out of place in a 1970's DC horror comic.
Dead Man's Doom could have been turned into a psychological horror tale if the spiritual narrator had been left out.
These are great tales for Post Halloween spooky fun.
I'd love to know more about the man with a tablecloth over his head and sniffing a deformed egg in Page 5 Panel 2. Maybe he's casting a spell to save the two sailors from having all their money stolen by the hookers.
Second story, middle panel lower row: I'm glad to see that even in a situation of stress, Marryatt stays gramatically correct. Rules, you know!
Man, I love King ward (thanks a zillion to whoever it was made this request), I'm totally stoked for a whole week of this stuff.
Normally I would be a little annoyed at whatever editorial monkey-wrenching ended up placing the story's title treatment over the gnarly, Tarman fingers menacing Phanto in the splash. But you know, the obliteration of that important detail reduces those hands to surreal background shapes (see also Hawkman's wings, as conceived by Sheldon Moldoff), and that really ups the spook factor for me. Until reading the story I was pretty haunted by what it was I was supposed to be seeing up there.
And the rest of the story is full of these kinds of disturbing shapes, too. The creepy seance panels on the second page--especially the next-to-last one--are even more lovable than the splash. Also the newspapers and the raging water later on. And the Tarman's tarbody itself, of course, when that finally pops up. Other favorite panels include that hairy hand on page one, and the hypnotic eyes at the top of three.
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