Even as we enter into the month of November, there are many macabre ways to keep the spirit of Halloween alive! For one, how about another spooky story set on Halloween! I actually had this Al Williamson horror adventure gem planned for last night, (could you have even handled a triple terror feature, though?!), but thought everyone would appreciate a little bit more All Hallows evil today too, what with the 'ol mundane, new month boos blues settin' in. From the gnarly November - December 1951 issue of Forbidden Worlds #3.
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I always enjoy ACG's horror comics because they usually come up with some creative spin on a common theme-in this case, revenge, skulls and robbery. It's fun how what begins as an innocent kid touching something of his dad's that he shouldn't be playing around with to begin with is what sets off the events of this one. Oddly enough, the part about Davey's mother marrying Robert for his money really isn't necessary. They could have gone with any woman at that party to decide to dance with the mysterious chap in the robes. I can't help but laugh at the term "Dalai Rama" here. They were obviously going off of the Dalai Lama but didn't want to offend anyone by using the actual title. Also Kali is an actual Hidu goddess but the statue here is clearly male.
I like the art and story in this one, and the fact the doomed adventurer knew what he should have done, namely keep the skull in a fireproof safe. We don't usually see someone in a horror/adventure tale do some critical thinking.
I don't know why, but I have a feeling this tale was lifted or modified from Weird Tales Magazine, it has that extra something that elevates this story from many horror comics tales.
Oh dear, the first two panels of Page 4 have aged like milk left in a car in Florida in the summer.
Darn, I forgot to mention that November First is All Souls Day. Think of it as New Years Day for Halloween, the day after but still worth celebrating as Halloween part two.
So at EC Williamson didn't do a lot of horror work (maybe a handful of stories?) he was mostly relegated to the sci-fi comics which was good while he could draw horror great, I think the other horror artist at EC were better suited for it.
The art here is great, from the walls of the temples to suburban homes, manly man art (I mean shooting a poor defenseless monk is as manly man as we get) -- excellent. It never screamed horror to me, though. I know I'm probably in a minority here but Williamson -- dinosaurs, space ships, aliens, great. Horror, just good.
That said, this is a fun little tale. There's a whole lot of rules to this revenge and they all get checked off and then our jerk gets his well deserved fate. I feel sorry for the kid! He's stuck with a gold digging mother and he knows that he sealed his father's fate!
As an "oriental" myself, this is so hilariously bad that it became awesome. I didn't know we had "elongated eye sockets", I laughed aloud at the "Dalai Rama", and as for Kali, she's a Hindu goddess. I'm still grinning at it all.
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