Wednesday, April 27, 2022

The Unwilling Witch

As April winds down to its final days, we're reminded that the halfway point to Halloween, aka Walpurgisnacht (aka "The Night of Witches") is nearly upon us! For the rest of the week, let us commence with the conjuring of the wickedest of witchcraftiness, summoning up a tale that is as wonderfully weird as one could possible get, a wild 'n wooly, hellish hybrid of multiple precode horror themes-- cats, bats, transformations etc.., as could only be found in the ominously oddball, Oct-November 1951 issue of Dark Mysteries #3.

8 comments:

Brian Barnes said...

I love these crazy pre-codes, I always call these "stuff happens" stories because, well ... stuff just happens. A lot of stuff!

I love that splash! The artist is pretty stiff and that "Conjur woman I once met (!!!)" panel is really wacky, but the artist is great at the witch and horror, and I do like the concept of the beast/woman devouring each other, that a cool little bit. The cat's not bad ... but in places it is. The art has a good deal of wildness to it, but I like it!

I love all the random rules. I'm glad there's not some real supernatural curses out there because if I read this as a kid I'd probably attempt to burn off a cougar's whiskers to get a pretty lady!

BTW: Note to witch. If a guy is sleeping in his suit, it might possibly be a trap.

nutsilica.blogspot.com said...

I would like the story more if there were more pages to tell the story of when he put the fire on the cats face to singe the whiskers he burned the woman's face too. She becomes horribly disfigured and he has to decide whether to keep her or ditch her.
He ditches her so she summons the witch again to turn her into a cat again and then she eats him.

side note: she can fly when she's a cat?

JMR777 said...

They tossed a bunch of ideas in a blender to come up with the plot- and horror comics fans were the better for it.

Todd said...

This is the craziest one I can remember in quite some time. My favorite part is how they keep breaking into each other's home, and no one seems surprised, by that at least.

Mr. Cavin said...

A stream-of-consciousness dream logic masterpiece. From beginning to end it's a barrage of crazy new details and straight-faced weirdness. I love a lot of this, but my favorite thing has to be the way the ostensible climax of the story is all contained in an offhand panel caption at the bottom of page six: "At this point, Bob defeats the witch and sends her packing." If this was my fever dream, there would be at least one panel in which Bob makes the witch pinky swear she'll stick to her end of the bargain.

Well, and I also love how the little cat cage Bob drops over Jane turns into a huge prison cell when she transforms back into a woman. But that one's just exactly how I would have dreamed it.

Glowworm said...

Somebody really didn't know how to draw a cat.It looks like one of those Medieval paintings. The closest it gets to actually looking like a cat is in the 3rd panel of the 6th page. It's also odd how transformation in the fourth panel of the second page looks more like the cat is eating Jane rather than merging with her. Although I do like the 3rd panel of the final page where it looks like Jane is dancing or embracing her inner beast. Thankfully,Jane's bite as a cat doesn't infect anyone, otherwise I'd be a bit worried about that random victim's gashed throat and Bob's clawed up shoulder.

Oh but I LOVE that Bob basically dials a conjure woman and gets her advice over the phone. I hope Bob was taking notes during that part! I also love how Bob was able to easily get the hangman's noose and rope from his warden friend so easily.

Mr. Karswell said...

haha, great comments... also glad I'm not the only one who thought this tale was batshit kookoo puffs! aka Just the way I like 'em!

Captainadam said...

I'd love to know this Bob guys backstory. He knows a voodoo priestess and a warden.