We ended August with a burial scheme money grab failure fiasco, so let's kick off September with another phony baloney buffoon trying his damnedest to rake in some serious blood bucks! Long-time THOIA followers might remember "The Real McCoy!" when we first presented it HERE back in 2009, but it was the black 'n white repo version. Well, here it comes again, only this time we can finally view it in all of its pleading, limb hacked gory glory! From the July - August 1954 one-shot debut issue of The Clutching Hand #1 via ACG, and featuring some outstanding artwork by the ever underrated Paul Gustavson. And not to be outdone there, I've also included two hysterical Harry Lazarus one page fillers featuring even more "smart" guys getting their brutal, just desserts. (NOTE: If anyone feels the need to point out the obvious plot hole in "The Trainer!" though, please don't. We all see it. We all know it. Don't be that guy. Please.)
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Ollie deserved his fate for that moustache alone.
re: Death at the Carnival. Seriously WTF? I am amazed that they crammed that much nonsense into a one page story.
I liked this original version of The Real McCoy, sometimes coloring can raise a story's impact, and in this instance it did. The black and white reprint was good, but the original in color version makes this story A plus.
"What's $100,000 to you? Money my boy---money!" Not much has really changed in seventy years time, I have a feeling many millionaires and billionaires think the same thing today.
Nowadays, instead of Oliver getting a haircut-
-at the shoulder, he would have paid off his debt with a little black market surgery. A man can live with only one lung and one kidney (talk about taking a pound of flesh to pay off a debt).
Death at the carnival was good enough as a one pager, though it could have been stretched out to at least two pages to let the story flow a bit better.
Thanks for posting the original McCoy story in all its gory glory.
I like the one pagers -- I like the concept that the writer had to write within a very limited number of panels; there's a lot of weird economy stuff in there (like first panels that have to explain the setup, or even have the murder.)
Doing that actually makes scripting harder, and the artist has to do a lot of work to sell it to, especially the flying William Castle skeletons.
It makes it a challenge, which is fun in itself. These are both decent workable stories.
The Real McCoy is great -- it has a real kind of dark humor to it you might see out of Atlas; I love the uptight parents and the pretty spot on "money my boy" bit.
That gangster sure has a lot of patience, BTW!
I love how much comedy is put in the art, from Oliver's frantic face as every scheme fails to the parent's "oh what is that boy up to now." This is a great story!
Try not to forget that Oliver is kind of fat you guys; not even for one effing panel, okay?
I dearly love Gustavson's art here. It's breezy and comical, with big flamboyant characteristics and deep dynamic panels--and I dig it just the same way as I like Jacks Cole and even Davis. So I think the black and white version of this story still looks pretty respectable.
But man, the color here is dynamite. And I'm glad I finally got to see it. That last panel on page three with its groovy explosion of yellow and green anxiety miasma is an absolute gift! And the final panel of the whole thing, in which this barking mad colorist scraped red flames over the whole caption box, is a real delight, too.
And while we're on final frames, I liked the end of the plot holy dog story, too. I don't understand how they managed to avoid naming this thing "THE HAND THAT FEEDS HIM!" But I do think the solid yeller finale was an unexpectedly good choice.
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