Saturday, July 26, 2014

The Witch's Victim (PART ONE)

Another request, this time from "Mad Margaret" who is haunted by memories of an eerie Ellery Queen comic book mystery she read as a kid but she can't remember the name or anything else about it except "it had a spooky black cat in it!" Hopefully this is the one... and like our last post, it's a bit lengthy so I split it up into two posts. Sekowsky art fans take note! From the Nov. '61 - Jan. '62 issue of Dell's Four Color #1243, --part two coming up shortly (containing a few more spooky cat panels!) And man oh man, is that a gorgeous George Wilson cover painting, or what?










...to be continued!

8 comments:

  1. Damn, that's some beautiful artwork! Can't wait to see the rest.

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  2. I didn't know Mike Sekowsky drew for Dell. That's pretty wild.

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  3. Page four is interesting, Wrenn is standing the circle, chanting in all sincerity, "Behold me standing in the magic circle, safe from your hordes of devilish furies"

    Then he stops and says to Ellery Queen "Yes? What can I do for you?" as if the sacred chanting and invocation of demons can wait, sort of like hitting the pause button on a DVD player. I would think the demons and such would be mighty peeved if this happened in real life (not that I would know mind you, just guessing on my part.)

    Question, if standing in a magic circle renders one safe from demons and hordes of devilish furies, would it also be effective defense against lawyers?
    Just wondering.

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  4. The art is interesting, though I don't know how often it fits. The cover is great. It almost looks like 40s/50s painted Halloween card art. The silly grin on the doll is a little out of place, though!

    We are given a full plate of suspects, right up where the brother might be faking it for a plot. Doesn't seem to be any real clues, yet, unless I missed something. Nobody sticks out as a red herring.

    Waiting to see where this thing goes!

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  5. The wait is over, part two is now up-- thanks for the comments and for the post suggestion from Margaret (yes, this was the spooky cat EQ story she was looking for too :)

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  6. I'm a little surprised Wrenn ended up being COMPLETELY innocent, as opposed to being some kind of swindler who's using his whole occult image, like maybe a fake fortune teller. Detective stories seem to enjoy punishing characters like him for SOMETHING, even if it isn't something supernatural and even if it isn't as big as murder.

    Thanks to the artwork, I think I have a thing for Helene Winters.

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  7. I don't expect you mau remember me, but I used to write to you (with congrats) years ago. Have kept a lot of the comics you so kindly post. Now, about this "Ellery Queen" comic book, I have a somewhat queer anecdote: when I bought an Spanish version of this nmagazine, I wrote to "Ellery Queen" magazine to propose myself as an illustrator of his adventures (oh, boy, was I naive then!) and the result was I received a letter from I don't remember who, asking for details about the mag, since they had not authorized the rights for any comic book at the time! I never knew the end of all that; it seems a sort of arrangement was
    made among the parts... (Hopefully) Greetings, my friend, from this tiny Southern city of Montevideo, Uruguay.
    Carlos M. Federici

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    1. That would be interesting to research-- thanks for writing, Carlos, good to hear from you again :)

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