It's February and wedding bells are a'ringin'! And what's a good present to give to the lovely couple after all is said, dead, and completely, utterly done for? Nice art throughout from Louis Zansky, and an equally cool cover here by Dick Beck. From the April 1953 issue of Hand of Fate #17, oh, and we'll be seeing more Ace atrocities all next month as well, --that's your head's off, errr, UP I mean, to always remember to stay eternally tombed and terrified...
9 comments:
There is a LOT of innocent victims in this one!
Sure, we have to have a victim to bring the story to life, but after that fate -- hanging around and pleading -- watches over him kill at least 3 workers (that we see), tortures his new wife, burns down her factory, burns down her house, costs her most of her money, and then outright kills her.
Fate ... come on man. Wrap this up without all the innocent victims, please!
I love Steve's slow transformation. He starts out as a zombie like guy but literally, at least art wise, turns into some kind of zombie yeti, and then just disappears at the end of the tale.
Nice ending. This whole comic is a giant construction just for that image.
Note a fan of coloring, though. You can do this coloring and have it work right but here ... it just doesn't grab me.
So, does Wallace set up the foundry fire with that damaged cable?
Indirectly at least, he certainly sets up the house fire, and (more indirectly) even Lucille's murder.
A lot of stories have ghosts of wronged characters who turn a lot of people and things into "collateral damage," but if so, Wallace really takes the prize for it!
I'm not familiar with Hand of Fate, but judging by this story, it certainly has a "gabby" host, who keeps underlining what's in store for Victor when about half that many times would do!
This one is insane. As usual in these "Hand of Fate" comics, the Fate character continuously speaks to the main character and mentions how he can't escape his fate. And it's not until the very last page that Fate is actually seen interacting with Victor, telling him to give himself up to the police. Up until then, Fate has been monologuing unnoticed by everyone else in this story. Lucille doesn't deserve any of this. She's an innocent bystander and I don't like how Victor gets to survive his little foundry accident while everyone else perishes from him trying so hard to cover up Steve's murder. I do love the design of Steve after he takes on that melted zombie form inside the mirror. That final shot of Victor with his head sticking out of the mirror is sick yet awesome. I couldn't help but laugh at Victor saying goodbye to Steve, who is basically just a mirror at this point and Lucille, who is already dead as he tries to push them off a cliff in a car to make it look like an accident! 🤣🤣
One of the odd side effects of Leroy lettering are those heavy, tilted exclamation points. I've noticed this before. If the cheap plastic printing plates are at all smudgy, and they always are, those take on the look of slash marks, as they do here. I mention this because, confronted by words punctuated by slashes, my head automatically starts reading the text--the narration, the dialog--like blank verse poetry. And that really throws a strange light all over an already bizarre story vibe.
A-a hospital
I-I am not dead
I came out of it alright
(I went ahead and added a syllable to it would be a proper haiku.)
I like the art too. Clearly Zansky is not afraid to go from tool to tool when laying down inks. There are at least two brush sizes and one technical pen at work here. Some of the fattest black marks, like those in the splash panel, look like they were applied by magic marker. It's a cool look. I'm also delighted to see a depiction of an honest-to-god classic Anglo-Saxon hellmouth at the top of page six. That's so erudite!
@Grant: I'm not familiar with Hand of Fate, but judging by this story, it certainly has a "gabby" host, who keeps underlining what's in store for Victor when about half that many times would do!
I have read a few of these stories and the host is CONSTANTLY walking around in the story mentioning how the main character has done something terrible and will pay for their crimes. Sometimes, he actually shows up and talks directly to the main character, but a lot of times, he just talks to the audience and the main character can't see or hear him rambling on in the background.
Nearly two dozen Hand of Fate posts in the THOIA Archive, —get digging folks, it’s great stuff:
https://thehorrorsofitall.blogspot.com/search/label/Hand%20of%20Fate?m=0
And nobody lived happily ever after.
And here I thought the decade of the seventies dominated downbeat endings, comics and movies wise. I could imagine this being turned into a downbeat euro-horror/euro-trash film, or an Andy Milligan flick.
Hey Fate, how about warning Lucille of Her own dreaded fate if she goes to the country home, or if she marries Victor in the first place. Seems like Fate just wanted to toy with everyone's live just to tell a story, or maybe their fates were sealed before they were ever born.
Like I said, downbeat ending for all.
Vat of molten mercury?
But....mercury is molten at room temperature......
I love the 1950s foundry: no safety equipment, no failsafe, not even gas masks to stop the workers from getting poisoned. Wouldn't be surprised if it was really like that then.
"Sometimes, he actually shows up and talks to the main character, but a lot of times, he just talks to the audience, and the main character can't see or hear him rambling on in the background."
That makes him a little like "Winnie the Witch" in x amount of Ghost Manor stories. Except that she does less of it. And when she does, they're partly "cheesecake" pictures, fortunately.
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