Like our previous post, here's another story that already slumbers eternally in the THOIA Archive (since 2010 HERE!), but alas, it was also a black and white, Eerie Pub repo version from the 60's. So, time now to re-Earth this little gem as it originally appeared in the May - June 1954 issue of Fantastic Fears # #7, and pry it wide open in all of its full, gasping, casketty colors, (as well as giving some of you long time followers a chance to finally comment on it as well.)
I remember reading it before and noticing the first page bottom right panel, where everyone, including the woman being "savagely" killed, looks at best mildly annoyed. All in a day's work, I suppose.
ReplyDeleteThere's a horror story by LP Hartley called The Travelling Grave about a coffin that makes its victims disappear...and the coffin collector (!) who acquires it and plans to try it out by using it on the protagonist.
So I really enjoy this one. One thing that is hard in the "thoughts of a inanimate object" stories is giving them a real voice; and here the coffin (or tree or wood, etc) has a really good follow through line.
ReplyDeleteIt starts calm, just watching history (we'll ignore that scalping was actually an invention of the settlers!) then angry when chopped down, and then happy in revenge, but slowly going calm and then anticipation in it's next life as a coffin. It's actually a complete evolution of a "life." It's really well written, and it bookends with a complete circle.
I also like "IT" when describing a corpse. It makes it feel less like a corpse and instead the be-all-end-all of the coffin. The most important thing in it's life. IT. All that it desires.
Again, this is a well written story.
Old post mentions "The Craving Grave" from EC and yeah, this feels like it was lifted from it, but this one is actually better than the EC one, which predictably becomes another zombies kill. The EC one is awesome, for sure. I think this is a much better story, though.
Agree
DeleteThe art is clear and well drawn in this one, though the comment about oak coffins are hardly ever seen these days isn't quite accurate. Oak caskets are still made and sold today, though maybe they fell out of favor during the fifties.
ReplyDeleteThe last page, bottom right panel " Better cut out reading so many of them horror stories." seems like the writer was poking fun at himself and possibly the reader.
I love it. Pairs nicely with the Giving Tree. I wonder if Silverstein ever read it.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it interesting that the tree eventually begins to identify as a coffin? Seems analogous to one of Ed Gein's victims appearing as the ghost of a lamp shade. But for me, it's most interesting to imagine the (roughly) ten other coffins, six book shelves, one mantelpiece and fifty walking sticks this large tree was likely able to have produced. Are they all diarists, now? Individual spirits narrating their new identities (the notion of the job equaling one's ultimate identity strikes me as stark US cultural programming, but I'll let that go), or is the community of items derived from this tree a collective consciousness, like an ant hill? And what happens when this guy runs out, and one of his forest friends is incorporated into the makeup of come final coffin? Is some hybrid personality created by the carpenters? Or are they, like, roommates? Like the Odd Couple?
I have a cane umbrella made out of oak. I'd like to think that I am that creature's it.
I dig the detailed art here. I expect any story sporting so much wood to really push those textures and grains, and Bob Webb really brings it. Page two has more texture than free space!
>this large tree was likely able to have produced. Are they all diarists, now?
ReplyDeleteUP NEXT:
I, the Box of Toothpicks! by Lou Cameron