Tuesday, August 27, 2019
Love Affair
A pretty girl bent over a typewriter. A longing that swells up inside him. These are the ingredients that equal one big dreamy disaster, as bad things continue to happen to good people during our month long Atlas Fest here at THOIA. From the murderous May 1953 issue of Mystery Tales #11, art by Mike Sekowsky.
Diana Ross is secretly in love with George, but her husband is being released from prison soon. I guess she just wants Lew to set her free.(why don't you Lew?) In her dreams she keeps seeing "Reflections" of George, the man she truly has feelings for and now that he's back in her arms again, right by her side, she's so satisfied. However, Lew just won't "Stop! In the Name of Love." before he breaks her heart and kills George.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard not to laugh every time you read the name Diana Ross.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting change from the "wicked adulterers" theme in so many of these stories, considering all the forbearance each one shows. I guess Diana Ross proves that you can't hurry love.
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ReplyDeleteI like the cool 50's décor here. The Loopy Lou album, the furniture, the ashtray. The art is kinda up and down. I agree with Mestiere after I had consulted the dictionary, some heads seem malformed. Neat story, simultaneous dream reality while awake? Who knew? So is the fifth panel of the last page a representation of the shattering of the shared dream? The unexpected ending had me thinking wow. What happens to Diana? Thank you Mr.K. for this hole in the head.
ReplyDeleteI got to see Miss Ross and the Supremes at an auto show in the late sixties. The Batmobile was there too.
I knew there was going to be puns!
ReplyDeleteIs this story aiming for a moral tale? It's hard to tell; I'm sure in a more religious time the "thought" of sin was as bad as the sin, and it seems to be going there as he truly gets a grisly fate.
It spends time trying to make sure we see George ignoring his wife (as if driving the point home that the day dreaming is hurting his wife) even up to Tony Sta... George's eventual death.
Or it could just be a clever idea somebody had about getting killed in a dream!
I like the art but there's some real distracting perspective in it, for instance, the splash is weird in a way I can't quite describe, and the last page is full of stuff that's a bit ... strange ... also can't put my finger on it.
I really like this one, it's different, and it's interesting.
Man, the illustrations really nail the floating-heads frame-within-a-frame storytelling here. I feel like so many of the same thing, over and over again, should have become kind of tiresome, but panel after panel I stayed totally engaged, impressed how Sekowsky and co. kept it fresh, solved tricky visual problems, etc. No mean feat. Five stars.
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