I was just talking about The Mephisto Waltz with a co-worker the other day, --it's an eerie, early satano 70's, Quinn Martin Production starring Alan Alda, Jacqueline Bisset, and Barbara Perkins. As many of you know, demonic films were pretty hot during this time period thanks to 60's classics like Rosemary's Baby, --with The Exorcist and The Omen loomin' on the doomin' horizon! But the thing that made The Mephisto Waltz so creepy wasn't even the devil stuff-- it was the dog with the human head! Those of you that have seen this film know exactly what I'm talking about. Which leads me to todays unusual THOIA post, via the blonde bombshell adventures of WW2 air hostess, Kay McKay. This is a nicely done back-up entry from the March 1942 issue of Captain Courageous Comics #6 and features some truly freaky-deaky, nightmarish K-9s! So if action adventure horror is your cup of tea, --then today your cups 'n mugs runneth over, chums!
7 comments:
Interesting that you didn't mention the dog/man fusion from the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which definitely left its mark on a lot of people...
I find it interesting when people make a point to just ignore the actual story post and instead throw comments at me like I’m supposed to know everything.
I always get a kick out of these 40s adventure yarns.
The art is pretty stilted here and the bright blue suits sometime overwhelm the page (like page 3.). But that's a minor complaint, it's all gung-ho action and the bright colors and the good backgrounds and props make a breezy read.
The dogs are a bit Scooby-doo (it's a mask, those are some well trained dogs!) and it's a bit strange that they didn't work in a mad scientist plot, as those dogs are great images.
I love Kay McKay (there's a Stan Lee type name!). In the 40s, during the war, you just could find somebody at any occupation and they are suddenly recruited by the government and they are spies! She's punching people out! Go Kay!
BTW: I like how *she* saves the day and Ned is a next to useless lump of flesh.
The human heads on the dog's bodies had a Fletcher Hanks look to them, weirdly menacing, though I wonder if the masks would make it hard for the dogs to bite their victims.
I agree with Brian on how Kay McKay goes from air hostess to spy smasher in this tale. Did they teach anti-espionage techniques in air hostess school back then?
The thirties and forties were a wild time in the golden age of comics, but we comics fans are all the better rewarded for it.
I love that Kay is the heroine here and Ned is reduced to the “damsel in distress” role. It’s pretty refreshing actually. The reveal that the human headed dogs used to threaten Ned are actually just regular old dogs wearing people masks makes this story pretty silly. Weird hybrid experiments, sure. Dogs walking around trained to wear scary masks though?🤣🤣🤣🤣 I also feel sorry for the dog who wound up shot. Regardless of being a Nazi’s pet, the poor guy was just doing what he was trained to do— which was scare people.
Yeah, pretty much the dogs were wearing muzzles that looked like faces. That's not gonna make a particularly effective guard dog, what with them not being able to bark or bite. And even if the Nazis cut their eye holes really carefully, sight isn't a dog's primary sense. Even Dr. Moreau would tell you that a human head, with its square teeth and skimpy nasal cavity, can't compete with a dog's head. Supposedly, only the brain is better.
But that's not the point. The point is it's effing creepy. I remember the first time I saw a man-headed dog in a movie was Nightmare on Elm St. 2: Freddy's Revenge. And no matter what else happened in that movie, that dog was the thing we were all talking about later. Shudder. There's nothing like an animal perverted nonsensically to trigger frissons of fascinated disgust. Nothing that actually makes sense would be weird enough to come off so freaky. And man, this is definitely my favorite splash panel since forever. Wow. It really doesn't matter what else happens in this story.
Honestly, I love pages like number three, too. The only time I really see them is in precode stories like this, where everybody is in some kind of uniform (well, and also those seventies Ross Andru Spider-Mans in which he's depicted multiple times per panel, describing his route around the Manhattan skyline). I love the replication of shapes and colors that turns a page into some kind of wild pattern. It's formal and interesting.
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