Thursday, April 5, 2018

Murderer's Mask

Getting back into the swing of 1950's precode Golden Age horror with a short but interesting one featuring some nicely detailed art by Mean Gene Colan. From the Winter 1951 issue of Weird Thrillers #2, and highlighted by a gorgeously painted cover by Allen Anderson.









8 comments:

Mestiere said...
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Brian Barnes said...

This story wouldn't work in the days of DNA tests!

4 quick pages, beautiful Colan art. The heart attack panel with it's shading, the great look of the twisted face, real action in some of the panels when a lot of artists at the time would do very static images. Just great stuff, a real treat.

Anonymous said...

I love that we're getting another story that's so reminiscent of a Twilight Zone episode (season 5's "The Masks", of course)!

Mr. Karswell said...

Good eye, Wendy!

Guy Callaway said...

What pre-codes have taught me: If you ever see a shop that has suddenly appeared, DO NOT GO IN.
Clever, tight little tale.

Glowworm said...

This seems to be a classic in a lot of old comics--the mask meant to disguise one's true face turns the person's face into an exact replica of the mask--sometimes like in this story for the worse and sometimes for the better.

Grant said...

Brian Barnes is right, and for that matter, what about fingerprints? But it's entertaining either way.

Mr. Cavin said...

Excellent story with great Colan art. It's amazing that, even this young, he is already fully-formed in his sense of dapper male clothing. This guy just exalts in drawing flapping pants cuffs and fluttering neckties. I think page two is jaw-dropping: I love that first panel, with the really impressionistic colored lights falling around the frame with the rain, our hero kicking an open book down the road. Hilarious. I love the way he's flipping the collar on his suit jacket up to go back into the rain by the bottom of the page. That's a pretty concrete depiction of the environment here, more thorough than I'm used to seeing in such a brisk precode story.