Let's kick off August 2019 with some long-awaited, always requested
Atlas posts, you know-- since it's been awhile! And here's a good
Stan Lee / Tony DiPreta team-up to scare things off to a grim, grinning, ghostly start! From the August 1952 issue of
Suspense #21.
Fun story, I love how the narrator turns out to be the playboy nephew in this tale. Although honestly, I'd never find someone running around in a white sheet to be scary, unless they weren't actually dressed as a ghost--but let's leave politics at the door, shall we?
ReplyDeleteVery cute. Stan was always excellent at the more tongue-in-cheek punchy horror stories. Really good rhythmic flow with some of the panels, like the top of page 4.
ReplyDeleteAs a lot of pre-code had pun-filled horror host to lessen the impact, Lee did all that by having a very smirk-y type ending. I always loved that style.
DiPreta art is sloppy but dynamic. Some stretched bodies and slanted angles and ever looming shadows. I loved it, and the coloring is uniformly good but most Atlas is that way.
Nice, snappy story!
Ha! I thought I was going to finally be able to agree with Mr. Barnes about the poor coloring in this one! Oh well. I can half agree, I guess: What color there is doesn't distract. I just wish there was more of it.
ReplyDeleteI think the art is super, filled with gnarly black shadows and evocative shape replications. It's all really groovy and dreamlike, with a smooth momentum that bolsters the mood of this simple story considerably. I even like the way DiPreta leaves so much of each panel empty. It's something I normally do not like, but Tony really knows what's what, using the negative space to neatly focus the panel compositions on moving forward through the page. But I just can't imagine he thought his colorist would leave so much of that space blank. Sheesh. Some of these panels look like stickers on notebook paper: Brightly colored people lost in a sea of line-ruled emptiness. Others look like the house is snowed-in. Atlas stuff usually looks so much different I have to assume Stan Goldberg took the week off. Only the middle of page four really works for me. The first panel on five is pretty good, too; but by panel two, that empty white window and white light on the floor undermines the impact of the ghostly sheet. The last panel on the page is amazing--look at the solution DiPreta employs to show the both the inside and the outside drama all at once. But since the room is as empty as the panel gutters, the effect just comes apart.
Not to bitch and moan, tho. I mean, I still really loved it. I always like Atlas. Beautiful art and Pure-T Stan Lee. I just want to find a black and white version I can try coloring myself, now.
I see Stan didn't have to search the name files too far for a member of the Fantastic Four.....
ReplyDeleteI'm hearing the Beach Boys because this was fun fun fun. I was expecting a little more supernaturalness from Meadows, but this was very good. Thanks Mr. K. for a little darkness on this sunny day.
ReplyDelete@Mr. Cavin -- we are fated to be eternal coloring enemies until the heat death of the universe!
ReplyDeletePfft, "enemies". You just force me peek outside my usual biases is all.
ReplyDelete