Friday, April 22, 2022

Skeleton in the Closet

Atlas proving once again that they could just as easily pour enough character development and crazy creepiness into 5 pages, to give a typical 7 page EC tale a run for its newsstand money. From the August 1952 issue of Uncanny Tales #2, with macabre art by mad Manny Stallman. Love that ending!

6 comments:

  1. So come on in, it
    Ain't no sin, take
    Off your skin
    And dance around in your bones


    I feel like Uncle Jonathan drew the genetic short straw, as it were, but maybe his special talents just aren't apparent. For the record, I'd marry into this family in a hot minute. I'd also real more stories about them. I think the black-and-white sixties TV series would be a real hoot, and fit nicely into the theme of the age.

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  2. Darn Mr. Calvin beat me to it, I was gonna say

    The A-dams-fam-I-ly

    or the 'normal' relatives of the Merrye family from the movie 'Spider Baby'

    Eddie Briggs is overlooking the plus side of being married to this family-

    A wife who will never gain weight, never age, never get wrinkles, etc.
    Although their lovelife will require some creativity.

    Make a deal with Cousin Exel, if he can go through solid materials then he can go through mountains and find gold, silver and platinum reserves. Maybe even find the Lost Dutchman's Mine. If Exel can go underground he can find natural gas and oil reserves, the sky's the limit, so to speak.

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  3. Make that three.

    This seems like an incredible deal. First off, the endless applications for Exel have already been mentioned, and honestly, I want to see Sir Roger's notes. He did some incredible work, and if you can figure out how to make it work even better, Exel is just the beginning of the fun.

    And frankly, the wife seems great. Sure, she's a living skeleton, but you were dancing with her and married her so obviously with her flesh on she's fine. That seems like another great deal!

    Last panel on page 3 is awesome.

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  4. Another thought popped into my head-

    Let Eddie make horror movies- he won't have to work too hard to come up with original ideas, monster wise. Maybe a few of his relatives would be willing to star in said movies.

    Give ol' Ben Cooper a run for his money with monster mask ideas for All Hallows.

    Come on Ed, you are sitting on a gold mine here. Your new family needs money, let them help you create wealth for the family.

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  5. > I think the black-and-white sixties TV series would be a real hoot, and fit nicely into the theme of the age.

    There's definitely ALWAYS room for more of these 60's horror tv type shows!

    >Give ol' Ben Cooper a run for his money

    Haha, as much as you all know I love him, I don't think it'd take much to give 'ol Ben a run for any amount of money.

    So Exel seems to be the favorite of this story, I'm blanking out but he does seem to predate something from the Marvel or DC hero/villain universe. Someone surely knows!

    Thanks for the comments, got more Atlas up next, --and its a creepy Gene Colan classic too!

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  6. This is adequate art by Manny Stallman but I have some Creepy reprints and he got way better in a decade.
    His work in Creepy shows a huge stylistic evolution.

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