Friday, June 13, 2008

The Night of Friday the 13th

Finishing off the work week with a superstitiously appropriate tale of terror from the great Lou Cameron. Happy Friday the 13th!
From the March 1954 issue of Hand of Fate #22







Want another dose of great pre-code horror today? Head over to Golden Age Comic Book Stories blog now for a terrific Harry Lazarus tale presented in "TRUE VISION!" Plus a cool tribute to Zacherly!

19 comments:

Mr. Karswell said...

The last time we had a Friday the 13th around here was July 2007, which also just so happened to be the 2nd THOIA post ever! If I’d been more poetic I would have started this blog one day later, right on the 13th but then maybe things wouldn’t have turned out so lucky for all of us. Anyway, as real luck would have it, I discovered today’s Lou Cameron classic in my collection on the 14th of that same month which, as you can imagine, drove me absolutely BONKERS. (Missed it by that much!) Quickly checking to see when the next Friday the 13th would arrive for an appropriate posting, I realized I only need wait another 11 goddamn months. So here ya go people, nearly one year in the waiting… but hey, my luck’s improving!

Anonymous said...

GOOD STORY AND CAMERON'S ART IS SO GREAT, BOTH BEAUTIFUL AND FRIGHTENING. THE NON-PANELED VAMPIRE ILLUSTRATIONS ON PAGES 4 AND 7 ARE JUST AMAZING!

THE SILHOUETTED FIGURE IN THE SPLASH MADE ME THINK THIS WAS A PHANTOM STRANGER STORY AT FIRST........HAVE YOU EVER POSTED A GOLDEN AGE PHANTOM STRANGER STORY?

silvano said...

I never heard of Lou Cameron , but his artwork is AMAZING , stands tot to toe with Al Williamson's Lou Fine's and other classics !

Mr. Cavin said...

The art is amazing, but I don't want to let the persistently jaw-dropping color work in this one to slip by, uncommented. The scene where the dead wife attempts to call the police on Death is just book-cover superb, some exemplary pulp magic, and far and away the best, most tempered color rendering I've seen here yet.

At the risk of ruffling feathers, I also found the first two or three pages to have the most mature and artful narrative exposure I've seen here, too. Far more literary than the standard in comics shorts. I was sad that the story rather devolved into the usual, hurried voice-over thing in its final page. But it was still very good.

And lastly, I really liked the Count's faith that the act of falling down the stairs might, um, explain away the disappearance of all his wife's blood. "She must've dropped it when she fell," investigators may say, "look around under the couch for it."

Anonymous said...

Love the art on this one

Frederick said...

The flying scenes of the vampire were almost cinematically staged, very dramatic.

The Vicar of VHS said...

Ladies and gentlemen, THE FABULOUS VAMPIRES OF DONEEL! Give it up! Now, let's have a round of applause for THE DANCING WEREWOLVES OF CLEVELAND!

Great story here, neat variation on "Death Takes a Holiday." I love the idea of Death finishing his drink and everyone in the room suddenly dropping to the carpet. I also love the fact that for the first time I can remember, the vampire dies of sheer clumsiness. :)

And what a rogue's gallery here! Moral of the story, kids--take a vacation! I love the gorgeousness at the bottom of pg.2. I can see why the count would want to suck on that. >:[

Fabulous post, Karswell!

Frederick said...

Karswell,

Somebody should give you the Golden Skull award for excellence and dead-ication in a scary blog.

If one doesn't exist, someone should invent it and award it.

I think I will, and then make you the first recipient. I'll send you your winner's graphic after the weekend. No real gold skull, though. Sorry!

Anonymous said...

not familair with lou cameron either but this is an incretible story

have you posted other stories by him????

Anonymous said...

I wonder whether Death has assistants, or does he work as part of a team? Something like 8,000 people die every day just in the US. No wonder the poor guy's tired.

Great story and superb artwork. The two big layouts of the vampire are excellent, and I loved the picture of the doctor falling into the pool.

Well done. Thanks for sharing, Karswell.

Anonymous said...

Great blog!

Mr. Karswell said...

>HAVE YOU EVER POSTED A GOLDEN AGE PHANTOM STRANGER STORY?

Unfortunantely I don't own any issues from the Golden Age PS run, but I have the complete Silver Age series which is of course super great.

>I can see why the count would want to suck on that.

You win the "No prize" quote of the week award Vicar. Again.

>Somebody should give you the Golden Skull award for excellence and dead-ication in a scary blog.

Awesome Fred, thank you! I'll put it in the prized spot on my mantle where the Rondo is supposed to go, but most likely will never.

Thanks for all the comments today gang, someone asked about more Lou Cameron and yes, there are TONS in the back archive, you just gotta dig around for them since I'm STILL too lazy to tag anything.

Cool blog Arakna, added you to my links! Kriminal is great, and wears the most awesome costume of all time. About 8 years ago I did a rock poster for Rob Zombie and The Damned and used Kriminal as the subject. Some of you more dedicated archeologists may be able to dig around the web and find it.

Anonymous said...

I totally thought that was the Phantom Stranger at first too.

Real good tale today.

Dane said...

I like this guy Death. Him with his constant racing around and "to do" lists. I think we'd get along.

Anonymous said...

Doneels ... Need Sol? Led eons? Seen old? End lose?

Anonymous said...

Truly one of your best posts,i love how all these random elements(i nearly flipped when the Vampire showed up,just like that.)come together and make such a superb story,wished i'd come earlier,buti'm trying to watch every non-Voorhees Friday the 13th film i humanly can,bye,and happy anniversary.

Unknown said...

I am behind on everything, but this was really interesting! I backtracked three times to make sure I had not missed anything. Is the rest of this issue anywhere near as good?

Mr. Karswell said...

>Is the rest of this issue anywhere near as good?

It's a decent issue, there's at least one more story (maybe two) that I definitely plan to post one of these days. This Cameron tale is definitely the best of the lot but all of the stories have excellent artwork.

Arben said...

Had to "decloak" while reading through to say this was great.