While I'm working on a larger / weirder post arriving Wednesday, let's take a speedy quick trip into the supernatural with this frightening, 3 page "Uncanny Experiences" filler tale, via the April - May 1953 issue of Out of the Night #8. I have a "hunch" that you'll enjoy the visuals here by ever reliable ACG all-pro, Art Gates. Now buckle up for what's destined to be one helluva bumpy ride-- YAAGH!!
11 comments:
As someone who's only ever driven right hand drive vehicles, I like Dr Vanderholt's right hand drive car driving on the left of the street..........in France. Was this tale supposed to be set in England and it was changed after the artwork was done?
Good lord, why do I even bother with this blog anymore…
You keep up this blog because it is the best blog ever, period!
As to the story-
I like the art in this one, it reminded me of the art found in Gold Key ghost stories, well drawn, sort of like illustration type art.
The story itself is a one pager spread out into three so the story can 'breathe', so key details are not condensed into one panel.
In this story, it seems that four townspeople met their end at the hands, or stones, of the ghostly sorcerer, due to the four cries of agony in the night. If the sorcerer eliminates all of the descendants of those who stoned him, then the curse will have to end too, unless he starts taking the lives of newcomers to this town.
This story might have worked a little better if the ghostly sorcerer only struck once a decade or two, striking every year would lead Pont De Lussan to become deserted, or turn into a, ghost town.
A quick search on the net reveals there is a town named Lussan in France, but no Pont De Lussan
Most of us have heard of the term 'the last roundup', we never stop to consider the hearse to be 'the last car ride'----and you can't even ride shotgun (a little graveside humor).
Thanks as always for these spooky, chilling posts.
This reads like a twilight zone (comic) or gold key horror comic -- and it gets me thinking about something that I've mentioned before but I find interesting.
It's the "sins of the father" curses. I mean, what did any of these town folk do to the sorcerer? Nothing! Yet they get killed because of their linage. Is this really fair? It really sets up a universe where nothing but might makes right; this ghost gets to murder for eternity -- murder innocent people -- for something others did to him.
I think if I lived in that town I'd study to become a sorcerer I mean it's obviously a real thing, at least for protection!
I love that the ghost is like "dude, cut it out or you're on list!" to our doctor and he hot foots it out of town!
I don't know, maybe it's easier to think of the ghost's curse as a genetic marker rather than as a mechanism for revenge. I mean, revenge isn't really all that practical anyway, even if you want to argue that it's somehow "fair" it still represents endless violent escalation. But how about this: Instead of the ghostly hunchback coachman having some kind of moral license to even-up the cosmic-but-municipal score--at least vis-à-vis medieval police brutality--think of it instead as a metaphor for leukemia. Whole branches of the human genome picked at random to carry a fatal trait? Shudder. The universe that really sets up might not be fair, but at least it's realistic. It's also kind of realistic that people will concoct some crazy way to blame the victims for their own disease.
I also noted the car's right side drive. I kind of imagined it was sly character building: Here's a fancy doctor just in from the British Isles. Actually, the truth is that I really assumed it was just more evidence that Art Gates used photo references for most of this. Along with pictures of the actors playing the people's faces here, he probably had a Motor Trend with a 1935 Austin coupe (or the like) for a centerfold in his desk drawer. Ooh la la.
I do love the panel where the ghost horses are riding through that car. Why is the most effective ghost animal a horse? From Henry Fuseli's nightmare to the tombs of the blind dead, the horses are often way more spookier than the horsemen. No other dead animals have nearly the same terror magnitude.
I’ve seen some pretty spooky ghost cats in old Japanese film!
Thanks for the comments :)
Appreciate that, thank you :)
I was thinking that cats and bats both have a giant Halloween-style cachet. Sure, as undead stuff sometimes, but mostly as living breathing ornaments or maybe possessed creatures or shapes other monsters adopt. Cats and bats are *spooky animals*. There's often something magical and monstrous about them. But horses are not spooky animals. I sat and thought about this for nearly eight minutes, and I can't think of any other animal that becomes quite so terrifying and otherworldly just because it's dead.
Hell, the dead horse in THE GODFATHER is the scariest part of the movie.
Somebody talked me into horse riding once. My horse was enormous. It was an incredibly scary animal and it was alive! It was also incredibly lazy and so not very murderous, but when the thing has veins the size of 3/4 plumbing tubing I count that as scary!
After thinking it over a bit an idea came to mind, while the sorcerers spirit returns once a year, there is no mention in the story that he always claims a victim every year.
I suspect that, similar to what Mr. Cavin suggests, the sorcerers spirit acts as an assistant for the Grim Reaper, claiming victims when their time is up. Some years its several townsfolk claimed, some years none at all.
Just the threat that this might be the townspeople's night of reckoning, having them spend the night in paralyzing fear, that might be a form of satisfaction for the specter sorcerer, knowing he can claim them at his leisure, he has all eternity to claim them.
There is no telling how far the thirst for revenge can last, especially from beyond the grave.
Considering all that, this adds to the chilling factor to this tale.
"Sins of the Fathers" stories bother me too, with some exceptions, like the THRILLER episode "The Closed Cabinet."
I think that one handle the idea very well.
I also like the driver's "I have no quarrel with you!" attitude toward Josiah.
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