We've so far survived an unusual amount of female vampire attacks this month at THOIA, --let's see how you fare with one more, via "The Ghoul of Death", from the June - July 1951 issue of Dark Mysteries #1! I really love that Evening News headline at the top of page 6, almost as much as I love that batty blonde bloodsuckin' ghoul girl gnashin' her nasty gnarly teeth-- RRRROOOWWW! One more Dark Mystery to go for this monstrous month of May-- and speaking of, you va-va-va-vampire vixens can DM me any 'ol time!
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This comic is discussed on TVTropes, oddly enough! I'll add a link to here for readers. It'll be interesting to see what that does for traffic...
This could have been the origin of an anti-hero in comics, with Celia being normal by day and turning into a ghoul/vampire after sunset, sort of a proto Morbious from Marvel's universe. The following tales would feature Dr. Hastings tracking down, capturing and trying to cure Celia, with her occasional escape and the mayhem that follows.
In the fifties, Celia is portrayed as a monster ghoul-vampire, leave it to the end of the sixties and early seventies to offer the world the sexy vamp Vampirella.
I like the art, it is sort of a proto-gold key type horror art seen in the sixties and later, at least it seems to look like that to me.
Great Vamp/ghoul tale to add to THOIA's archives.
If you're in any kind of horror story (drawn/written/filmed) there are two things you should never do:
1. Split up and
2. Say "What could possibly go wrong?" Finagle's Law proves that something *will*.
So the good doctor discovered......lobotomy?
This is the kind of horror story that always leaves me uneasy -- Barton's arrogance starts this in motion but the only people that pay are his fiancee and a ton of innocent victims and he pretty much gets off for his "tampering in gods domain" 50s nonsense.
It sucks. It also makes a good horror story because of how totally unfair it is.
Art is ... interesting. The artist never seems to nail down Celia (especially in her hair) and we get a transformation where she goes from clothes to naked (with convenient shadows) except for a cloak and shoes. That's a style choice!
Extra bonus for the great sound fx, especially on the last page.
I tend to like Ed Goldfarb better when he inks himself. In today's story, Bob Baer is employing a really dark, really contrast-heavy inking style that sort of flattens everything--somewhat of a shame, really, because you can see that Goldfarb has put a lot of effort into opening-up frame depth with foreshortened hand gestures, multiple fields of focus, and other visual tricks (see page two). I don't want to seem to down on Bob, though. I really like the way his deep blacks make strange lava lamp shapes around the contours of people's bodies and clothes here and there. It reminds me of Charles Burns or Tradd Moore, and adds an interesting meta detail that occasionally nudges the visuals into a new, strange space (see page four).
I like the fight with the nurse monster at the end of the story. Page seven has a great example of the Jeepers Girl. Usually she's a victim; is this the first time she's been the villain?
I kind of appreciate that this story doesn't really single the doctor out for blame. I don't feel like he was hubristic or ego-driven. I think he was a pretty decent guy with a desire to do good. He questioned himself all through the story. His hypothesis didn't work out is all, and lots of people died. Simple comics moralizing rarely leaves much room for accidents and unforeseen outcomes, and this one seems to. I'd like to acknowledge this rare specimen.
Speaking of comic book anti-heroes and so on, Page 6 gives Celia all-out female bodybuilder calves!
And 6 and 7 make her look pretty powerful in general.
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