It sure wouldn't be a Valentine's Massacre at The Horrors of it All without a couple of horrible old hags hangin' around here and lousin' up all the hearts 'n huggin' action. Take for example this horrendous Atlas tale of bad lovin' gone extra hilariously hideous, from the December 1952 issue of Mystery Tales #6. But first up, we'll take a lovely little boat ride out to sea, --to see how luridly love sick our sea sickness can be! From the May 1981 issue of Secrets of Haunted House #36, and yep, it's a double beheader today, one golden, and one silver --and trust me on this one, folks, it doesn't get much juicer than this! And fyi, both tales were written by Carl Wessler! Neat to see him spanning nearly 3 decades with high quality, haggish horrors!
4 comments:
I smell the decaying flesh of Wessler Week!
While I'd say Atlas on a good day and EC always, 70s DC post-code horror comics always brought the art (when talking about colored/comic size.) This is moody, deep shadows, and the sea hag is a good image. Even some panels without text, which is something comic horror stories should use more off. I love the skeleton dogs!
The Old Hag is one of those fun but really mean Atlas tales. Two jerks (and boy did they get the setup as jerks) getting their comeuppance, such a beautiful valentine's day message! The art is great, good expressions, some fun reactions to "hidden" horror, but the coloring on this one might be a bit to garish at points. The ol' Atlas 4 panel on page 3 is awesome, as the panels before it.
And everyone wonders why I never tried to find a wife.
Single and sad
Married and miserable
Divorced and disgusted
you just can't win.
I agree with Brian on those skeleton dogs. They're unique and adorable--and probably the last thing I'd expect in an ocean scenario involving a sea hag. Also the design for the sea hag is epic!
The second story has a great splash of Walter strangling his wife. I'll admit with the coloring of Emma running down the stairs, I would have sworn she was a vengeful spirit, not the result of a botched murder. On page 4 I love panel 6 with the fire enveloping our nasty couple and the panel after it. The angry red guy is probably the best part of this story. I feel like I've seen a similar story to this one with the same outcome somewhere else. With Carl Wessler as the writer of this one, I wouldn't be surprised if he revamped it later on in another skin.
You know, there are about five panels across the tops of pages four and five of The Old Hag that are just fine, but dull, you know, duly subordinated to the service of trotting out the details of the plot. It's only really noticeable because every other panel of this story is a raging onslaught of nervy, angry aggression. The thing is dialed up to ten, man! It's like every page was cobbled together from local band flyers and skateboard stickers, then colored by vandals. I love it.
I really like the Hampton brothers. They are both nice as heck. They hail from my area of the world--back when I had one--so the whole time I was growing up I kept running into them here and there. It was always fun to sit around and watch them draw. Scott taught me a lot about how to use color ink washes. I've never heard of "Wade" before, but I see that GCD credits Beware the Sea Hag story to Bo. It sure looks like Bo's work. Anyway, thanks. I haven't thought about those guys in a while, and it's nice to see one of them pop up here.
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