Sunday, August 4, 2019
The Horrible Hog
Who's hungry for another savory slice of screams from the August 1952 issue of Suspense #21? I can hear your stomach's growlin' 'n a'howlin' and I do believe I have something you just might be cravin'! I also believe we won't get any complaints on the coloring for this one --oh, and let's see if we can comment on it without saying "EC" as well! Some real fine artwork from Carl Hubbell. Order's up!
The coloring is excellent. It reserves the big bold coloring (page 2, panel 6; page 4, panels 3-6) for the heavy emotion panels, and colors the rest naturally. A really good job.
ReplyDeleteThe art is similarly stellar, but GCD gives no writer. Most people have learned to pick out Stan and I don't think this is him, it doesn't read like a Stan story but I could be mistaken.
The multi panel run on page 4 (which you see in a lot of Atlas stories) is great, and the swirling backgrounds and coloring are all awesome.
The story obviously has a super predictable ending but really, in cases like this, it doesn't matter. It's just a way to end the story. The real fun is watching our evil @^#*!*! work diligently to deserve his fate.
Page 2, panel 6 looks a lot like Jack Davis. That doesn't count as mentioning the "distinguished competition" :)
The ropy and haggard old faces Hubbell provided everybody here--distending grotesquely as each character bears down on a personal breaking point--are just marvelous works of gnarly beauty. And of course that four-panel strangulation scene is a stone jaw-dropper. I really love the full selection of impressionistic panic lines coming from Mr. Baldwin's head (starting with literal fire!). This is interesting because it's the sort of thing we often see in a monster transformation scene--that multi-panel incremental change from man to wolf-man, vamp to vampire, etc. Here Mr. Baldwin transforms from alive to dead. Boom. In such a simple story, spending all this resource to walk the man every step through his comeuppance really packs a heckuva punch.
ReplyDeleteThis couldn't be much better. So close to perfection that I'd have to say it was well done. Thank you Mr. K. for this tasty plate-full.
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ReplyDeleteTalk about getting porked! Completely predictable, but awesome tale.
ReplyDeleteTo me, the second-to-last panel looks like a screencap from 'King Of The Hill'.
Really very horrible story and graphics!
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