Friday, September 11, 2009

The Real McCoy!

We never did unearth the person responsible for the Vampires Dance at Dusk and Monster of the Moors story art this week, and though we came up with many possible candidates, in the end none of them fit. But extra props to THOIA reader Mark Borbas who went to bat and emailed me a pile of scans in hopes of helping solve our mystery. Two other Weird Horrors stories he sent were definitely by the artist in question (see splash page examples below after today’s story), but alas, still no signature on the art, nor a credit anywhere to be found. So as our search for the Real McCoy continues, let us instead enjoy today’s gruesome tale from the July-Aug ‘54 issue of The Clutching Hand #1 one-shot, featuring some great art by Paul Gustavson and presented in glorious black and white. Gustavson was one of the many artists whose name came up this week in our “Mystery Artist” search.








(Thanks again to Mark Borbas for the scans!)

++++++++++++++++++++++++

More from this week's THOIA "Mystery Artist" (any clues?)


12 comments:

Unknown said...

Winner: World's Best Dad Award, 1954.

Anonymous said...

"What's $ 100.000 to you?" - "Money, my boy -- Money!"


Great answer and the rest of the story wasn't half-bad either.

Mr. Karswell said...

>Winner: World's Best Dad Award, 1954.

Next up on THOIA--- Winner: World's Best Dad Award, 1953. Just you wait and see!

Trevor M said...

Pretty good story. Really good art. I'm glad to have discovered Paul Gustavson through reading THOIA.

Well, whoever "The Real McCoy" is, he was an ace at splash panels, at least. The one for The Fiend of Dachau is another good one. Too bad the stories we've seen him illustrating suck so bad.

goblin said...

Poor Oliver. One would assume that he would've easily been able to pay off Blackie if he had just sold the formula for that "secret new plastic" of his.

Anonymous said...

MAN THIS ONE WAS FUNNY BUT BRUTAL! AND I LOVE THE ART TOO. THIS SEEMS MORE IN LINE WITH EC THAN ACG AND I WONDER WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN COLOR NOW......... REAL GOOD STUFF!!

Prof. Grewbeard said...

how can anything be so ludicrous and so awesome at the same time?...

Mark said...

For some reason the scan I found of the Gustavson story only had the first page in color. Karswell wisely and artfully dropped the color so it fit in with the other pages.

That splash page on Horror Grips reminded me of the famous painting Death of Marat by Jacques Louis David. Then I found the French painter has another one called Andromache Mourning Hector that has a dead guy on a bed. There is an armor helmet at the side of the bed, and when the babe in the Horror Grips story walks up the stairs, she turns her head to look at a suit of armor. Doesn't mean anything, I guess, this is just how my mind works.

Comparing the Monster on the Moors story and the Horror Grips story, both have an almost identical doctor dude, in his white button up lab coat, with an almost identical daughter babe, and a close enough copy of the daughter's boyfriend, to have been drawn at the same time. Cripes, the same day.

You can find Weird Horrors #1 easily enough online if you want to read the story. It's not much of a story.

I'm glad folks liked these. It's been fun. I might have to do my own blog someday.

Mark said...

I forgot to mention that Vampires Dance at Dusk has the same trinity of doctor in white lab coat, brunette daughter babe, and studly young man as the other stories I mentioned. WTF? I can't imagine the editor would have been very pleased with different characters looking the same in three closely released books.

Mr. Karswell said...

Thanks for the comments everyone, had fun this week playing "Guess the Mystery Artist" even though we came up goose eggs. Got another theme coming up next, stay tuned...

sfdoomed said...

The scan I have also only has the first page in color. I think I got it from the Golden Age Comics site.

Fantastic story either way.

Anonymous said...

Some of the shading by the mystery artists reminds me of Gene Colan but any other similairites stop there.