Ahhh, the life of a comic book artist! It's all fun and games (and rockin' redheads) until your boss spoils it with those darn pesky deadlines! So yeah, today's terror tale from the June 1976 issue of The Many Ghosts of Doctor Graves #57 would probably have benefitted a bit from a few additional pages of story to really flesh out that panel jumbled story, but it still has a nice twist ending and the ominously groovy art adds a wild, nightmarish, surreal flair as only Charlton could do it...
5 comments:
OK that's a hard read. The coloring goes back and forth from muddy to non-existent, and some of the monsters look like they were pasted in from other stories. Page 3 is especially confusing. It's kind of weird, because the story were an artists creations come alive is pretty standard and been done many times, in the same page count.
I think the artist leaned a bit -- or a lot -- too much into doing something interesting than something that was readable -- but that's a GOOD thing. Got to take your chances. Sometimes it doesn't work out.
All that said -- as stand alone panels -- the last two pages have some great ones.
This was similar to the Twilight Zone episode “A World Of His Own” only in this case the creator is done in by his creation.
Charlton Horror could be hit or miss sometimes, but they had their place in the realm of horror comics, even if it was grade B horror (nothing wrong with that).
Yeah, I really love a couple of these panels--the hand drawing the comics page at the bottom of page two, the monster designs on page four, the zany trees scattered here and there--but I get the feeling that the artist was really rushing through the process. The hasty ink jobs here and there--on he sunglasses frame from page three, for one example--really brings the tone down.
Makes for a pretty breezy and wild ride, though. Can't say I've read many that look like this.
I was just thinking of "A World Of His Own" too. Kate running off with Mac sounds a little like "Mary" running off with that male character that Gregory mentions very briefly.
I'll need to revisit that TZ episode, blanking out on which one you're all talking about. Thanks for the comments-- got a text only tale up next, believe it or not...
Post a Comment