One more Chilling Alcazar Adventure into Sorcery for you this month, and it's a gorgeous tale containing verified proof that monsters walk among us! Don't believe me? Just put on these glasses and you will indeed see that --THEY LIVE! From issue #5, via Februrary 1974, and this story also holds an extra special place in my heart because not only did it introduce me to the amazing work of Alcazar, but beautifully groovy blonde babe Esme' in the big round glasses here always reminded me of my very first neighborhood babysitter, who also became Kid Karwell's very first 70's krush! This one goes out to you, Janet --where ever you may be! Stay tombed for something cinematic and different, coming up next...
5 comments:
Someone read Daphne du Maurier's "The Blue Lenses". Oh well, it's not a bad rip-off....I mean, adaptation. Not bad at all.
The art is great in this one. Page 2 is a real treat; the glasses being flung to the forefront is a great bit of setup; and the panel layout (especially the first two panels, which shows the street then introduces the car) is great, with the glasses again making an appearance, foreshadowing the "twist" ending.
Some good monster images and the last page has a really good flow to it. That said, I don't like the coloring, it's good but it's a bit too pastel for a horror story, but could just be the printing or the age of the book, and if anything, it's a slight complaint.
The story is interesting. Was everybody normal and our host had an awful face, and the glasses inverted that? Or was everybody really horrible? There's a bunch of other explanations, it's a bit in the air, but I'll stick with the first one, in a kind of reverse hunchback story.
I hope Janet is doing OK!
Neat art by Vicente Alcazar for sure. He was quite adept at getting groovy with the look without messing with the readability. He was also really sophisticated with those tiny little shading lines. Illustrators love to use that original art board to show their stuff, but many, many great illustrators misunderstand what will still work once reduced by fifty percent and stamped onto porous newsprint via acid etched plastic plates. This is one of the reasons highly detailed art can look "scratchy"--those fine lines break down under all the manipulation between the original art and the final book. These here are still quite clear and intact, though. That seems more impressive the more I think about it.
I don't know when I first ran across Alcazar, but I see that he also worked on Space 1999 in the seventies. At first blush that seems strange to me. He seems far more suited to fantasy than sci-fi. But Space 1999 was so trippy that Vicente's hallucinogenic warp worked out very well so far as I can tell looking it up online. I might have to track some of those down.
Maybe its me, but I am getting a Beauty and The Beast vibe from this story, with the beast manipulating the beauty to win her heart.
I am no expert when it comes to art styles in comics or illustrations, but I do know what I like, and this artist's work I do like.
Thanks as always for the post, Karswell.
Glad everyone enjoyed this chilling adventure, --as well as our brief glimpse into the stories that shaped Kid Karswell's mind during my... errr... his earliest days of comic book collecting. Maybe we'll take a look at a few more a year from now on the big 20th Anniversary of THOIA!
UP NEXT: FRANKENSTEIN!!!!
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