One of the better posts you'll be reading here at THOIA this month is this superbly written tale of unleashed supernatural fury from the October 1951 issue of Weird Adventures #3. John Guinta does a damned fine job with the artwork as well, --I mean, just take a look at that demonically dazzling center panel on page four! I had originally planned on posting this a bit closer to Halloween, but after reading it again last night I just couldn't wait to get it uploaded. GCD believes the masterful cover design could be courtesy of Mike Esposito.
I'm always pleasantly surprised, and slightly amused, whenever a story features Pennsylvania in a horror comic. While there really are hex signs in Pennsylvania, they take the shape of a round disc with painted symbols on them with the occasional message in German, or Dutch since they originated with the Pennsylvanian Dutch.
ReplyDeletePennsylvania has its share of stories of ghosts, witchcraft and other strange phenomena. There is an author named Charles J Adams, (no, not related to the Addams family, I think) who wrote a series of books dealing with ghost stories in PA, Delaware and New Jersey.
In one of his books 'Ghost Stories of Berks County Volume One' Someone Adams interviewed told him the following-
..."My grandfather was a powwow doctor and once took us kids to a furnace where he worked. He said he'd show us the devil inside the furnace. He opened the door and damned if we didn't see a figure...crouched down...laughing at us! My grandfather slammed the door."
I myself prefer to leave the supernatural alone, I will let those who have a reckless streak fool with such things.
Wasn't there a tale somewhere in the THOIA archives of one such anti hex symbol? A young family buys or inherits a farm or old house, the husband, I think, removes the hex symbols, the expected happens, and the story closes with him painting them back on? I'm almost certain that I read it here, and I'm absolutely certain that I read it *somewhere*.
DeleteYes it’s called “The Hex!” and easily found in the 2020 archive here:
ReplyDeletehttps://thehorrorsofitall.blogspot.com/2020/07/the-hex.html?m=0
Looking forward to comments about The Witch’s Wound. Anybody?
'The Witch's Wound' is a variation of the tale 'The Cat's Paw' from More Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark by Alvin Schwartz.
DeleteIn Schwartz's tale, the cat in question had been stealing meat from a farmers smokehouse. The farmer ended up shooting off the paw of the cat, which changed from a paw into a foot. Later on he heard a neighbor's wife had her foot shot off and had been yowling like a cat when the doctor arrived to treat her wound.
The tale The Cat's Paw was traced to the Ozark mountain region.
Yeah, as JMR777 has mentioned, this tale is very similar to many an old folktale where a witch stalks around in cat form and loses a paw or is burned. Later on, in human form, she's outted by her wound or missing hand. Don't get me started on the version with the guy riding a witch as a horse and then getting her shoed. The next day, she has horseshoes nailed to her human hands and feet. Anyway, I love the scene of the witches' sabbath. I love the image on panel 7 of page 5 of the cat's shadow on the book. I love the rainbow kitty parade on panel 4 of page 6. I love that last panel on the same page of one of the kitties photobombing the page. Though I have to nitpick the bit about the big black book with gold letters--somebody didn't pay attention to the description!
ReplyDeleteThis is a great one, it's really cinematic and has that he-man adventure type hero and an actual death trap! The captions even label it as such.
ReplyDeleteI like the pack of were-witch-cats and I like that our hero never really wavers; I mean, he witnessed the devil himself (and some pretty sexy young-old witches) I think that might shake me, but no, a couple panels later he's hassling were-cats and getting out of death traps.
I'm not sure, though, why he's surprised by the housekeeper, as he founded the witch's dance by following her; obviously she was one of the witches. Which makes the whole bit about not covering the barn kind of ... weird? A double bluff? Might have needed some editing there.
Regardless, it's a good adventure story. You could slap Hourman of some other 40s hero in there and it'd work just as well.
It's always nice to see someone admit he's been wrong about things in one of these stories. Very often the hero just lets his attitude change slide, as if he hadn't spent three fourths of the story naysaying side characters who turned out to be right all along.
ReplyDeleteI love the panels here and there in which the colorist took the reins and produced interesting effects that were not indicated by the line art. First example is the floor in the splash, but my fave is page five, panel six. There are a few others. I also like the MEOW panes at the top of page six. So colorful and cartoony.
For an "evil" cat, the one on Panel 5 of Page 3 looks pretty cartoony, in a good way.
ReplyDelete