One more ghastly ghost story for your haunted holiday pleasure, and one unpleasantly unearthed from the claustrophobic, coffiny confines of the October 1954 issue of Journey into Unknown Worlds #31. Paul Reinman definitely knew a thing or two about great lighting in a story, and how to put you, the reader, right into the rotten thick of things. So grab a shovel and get diggin' --ya dig? CREEEAK!
6 comments:
This is another one where a change to 2 or 3 panels makes it a true crime comic. Skip the ghost part, they just shot each other, "now he's really dead" and ... crime comic!
Which makes some of the best horror comics and crime comics. So many elements are the same -- you need to be able to scan characters and instantly see their type -- both Doc and O'Brian read gangster from the movement you see them.
I love the lighting and even the more bright coloring works on the first 3 pages; the highlighted greens and pinks all work well with the yellows. It's some fabulous art.
I'm not exactly sure where Doc got his wired crossed and it's a little confusing but I still like this one. It's weirdly fun to watch Doc have to keep digging! Frustrated people is the basis for black comedy!
This was an odd one, a ghost who doesn't know he is a ghost but can physically interact with the living, namely shooting the doc. If O'Brien had been a vampire or a zombie it might have made sense, but horror comics have their own rules to follow and break.
Here's to the end of this year and may the only horrors in our lives come from horror comics.
The beginning of this one confused me a little. It took me some time to realize that Evans came up with the scheme to begin with and wasn't just randomly looking for someone buried with stolen money on him that he heard about on the news. It would have been really funny if the corpses were all swapped around in each other's graves. The plot gets weird though when it's revealed who's in O' Brian's grave and that both seemed to have a different idea of how this scheme would end. I like the reveal that O' Brian became a ghost simply because he got shot while shooting Evans at the same time. It's not because he was actually dead all along like other stories would have gone with.
Before I forget, again, I wanted to mention to you Karswell of the following detail, there is a youtube channel titled HorrorBabble that offers tales from Weird Tales Magazine and horror authors such as Lovecraft, Bloch, M R James, along with many authors whose works have become obscure over time.
You of course don't have to post this comment if you don't want to, I just wanted to mention this detail to you since some of the tales on HorrorBabble were seeds for many fifties horror comics.
Thanks again for all you do in keeping horror comics available for all horror fans to enjoy.
That doctor just up and forgot that he was an instrumental part of a faked death scam? To the point where, when he found a stranger in the box he presumably expected to find his living partner in, he went on to dig up two more graves on some cockamamie hunch? Meanwhile, the resurrected partner in this scheme--planning his own double-cross with weeks of head start and all the money at his disposal--stuck around his own crime scene to gloat when he was inevitably caught? What a bunch of of slapstick crooks. This story should have ended with the doctor discovering--oh my god--that O'Brian had been cremated alive in his two hundred thousand dollar suit; learning that he'll be haunted by paranoid guilt over that forever. Meanwhile, the real O'Brian is enjoying his retirement in Maui. But probably haunted by the undertaker.
I loved every single bespectacled orange or green closeup throughout this story, though. And all the rays of lantern beam flashing in every direction makes for great page composition. It's a beautiful bit of illustration for sure. It's an interesting choice that this thing looks so supercharged for the first three and a half pages, only to sort of flatten out for the big finale. But no matter. It's still a humdinger.
I’ll definitely check out HorrorBabble! Thanks!!
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