I mentioned earlier this month that we'd see 'Ol Scratch and his minions of evil again-- and here they come now, via the November 1971 issue of Psycho #5. (Oh my, how gorgeous is that Boris cover painting by the way?!) I suppose it's not really much of a spoiler to notify you all right now, --the closer we get to Halloween, the more wicked things will certainly get around here! You have been warned...
6 comments:
Poor Lorna got screwed over at every turn, by everyone. I can't even feel the usual satisfaction I have when the bad guy wins. In this case even Satan didn't return her husband in a form that would make her want to keep worshipping him.
And what happened to the poor horse in the carriage crash? Nobody asked about the horse. May its ghost haunt everyone in the story.
This is peak Hewetson and his "Horror Mood" writing. Speaking directly at the reader (without the horror host mouth piece, and foregoing the puns) the whole point of this is to setup horrible situations that you could imagine yourself in; the shambling corpse of a lover or being dead / undead and buried alive.
I don't get satan's game in this one, though, he got a new convert and starts right out with the gimmicks? I guess she still shows up at the meetings but it seems just ... rude! Not even evil, just .... being a prick.
I like the art in this, it's angular and a little messy in places (faces don't always work) but it's got a real sense of style and I like on how page 3, panel 3 they just go outright for a famous painting lift (what that painting is, I can't tell you, but I've seen it!)
It took until the 70s before we could get pantless satyr devils. Progress! Yes, I'm sure they existed before but devil underpants is now something I'm concerned with!
There's a lot to mine from Skywald. Eventually, my favorite so bad it's good story will hit!
I imagine a pair of tighty whities on that devil would make him look like an S. Clay Wilson character.
There is definitely something about this breezy, informal artwork. Something kind of self assured but unfinished about it, I feel like like I'm looking through Moren's sketchbook or something. The database says he inked it himself, but I can imagine someone else doing it, someone with a little too much fidelity to the pencil roughs. I like it--but I'm less happy with occasionally slapdash use of halftone applications here. I wonder if a colorist did it? Moren makes fabulous use of textured wiggly patterns in the witchiest parts of the story--beginning with that great panel at the bottom of page four--and I kind of wish he'd stuck to these techniques for all the rest of the shading, too.
Yeah, this isn’t even Lorna’s fault on this one. Lost her husband, a bunch of the undead want her to join a cult and she doesn’t get to say no to it and then Satan plays a game of be careful what you wish for. If you’re going to wish your husband back from the dead, ask for him to be alive and before the carriage accident. Be as specific as possible. I love the image of Lorna wishing for her husband while standing next to the head witch. I feel for poor Penbrooke. Poor boy lost both his parents in the worst way imaginable. Took me a second to realize that witch was smacking him and not giving him money or something for his troubles. I do like that the man coming home with his groceries immediately listened to the boy and even went to get his uncle, even though it was too late to save Lorna. Also, in the panel where Satan appears, on the far left corner, slightly above the witch with a wart, I love that happy little witch.
As other posters have mentioned, its a bit hard to classify this one. Is it a 'be careful what you wish for' tale or 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' story.
Lorna didn't deserve her fate, she didn't do anything evil except fall in with the wrong crowd, and even then, she was mesmerized into joining the cult.
This has the feel of an TV anthology episode from the UK, they tend to favor stories where darkness wins.
Thank you Kars! Enjoyed this one a lot. The story was not predictable to me and the B&W art was great. I sometimes think that the colorist detracts from the penciller's work. Mudding things up?
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