Had a few requests for more ACG 3D-esque "TrueVision" stories, so here's a good 'n demonically possessed one from the February 1954 issue of Adventures into the Unknown #52, and illustrated by Harry Lazarus, of course. For a couple more similarly titled "Till Death Do Us Part" tales, check the THOIA Archive because man, I totally thought I had already posted this story, but nooooo...
5 comments:
Some of these stories keep you guessing about whether the witch practicing medicine is good or bad. This one comes right out with it with "It'll take every cent o' yer savings!"
This one's a lot of wacky fun. I love how the witch's answer to bringing someone back from the dead is to shove a demon inside of them. I love the panel of Old Liza on the second page, announcing the arrival of her master. It's kind of odd though because even though everyone else states that this really isn't Fay due to the demon possessing her dead body, she still acts like her old self, with the exception of going on nightly killing sprees. The panel of Fay contemplating murder on the top of the fourth page is good and I love all her demonic facial expressions afterwards, especially the one in the first panel of the last page. Those are fun! Pretty easy way to get rid of a demon though. Usually shooting the supernatural with a regular old gun doesn't work.
Some writer had it out for the "hill people." First, Fay's death is blamed on them not calling the doctor earlier (and he even shows up at the end to rub it in) and then when they try their way it's a disaster, and then the mob comes out. Yeesh!
Sadly, I don't think this one uses the format to good enough effect. I mean we are basically stuck with gun barrels or mailboxes popping out of the frame. That said, I wonder if these were more expensive to produce? That's a LOT more ink to blank in the pages and you'd have to be really careful with the registration, if you screwed that up too bad on one of these it would be super obvious.
The last page is great; the artist does a really good job of transforming Fay into a demonic looking monster.
Harry Lazarus' figure drawing style is, like, all the way to the pop art side of the spectrum, close to an exaggerated satire of classic square-jawed, clean-cut comics illustration. It would look right at home in a National Lampoon, just change all the word balloons to something bland like famous television commercial dialog or something. I really dig the look, especially with the really bright pop-out colors (there are very few half-tones in the foreground). And I especially love the gnarly and knuckley death's hands he puts on all the characters--though the one at the bottom corner of page two is very, very small. That's gotta be the hammer from Baby's First Tool Belt.
That final soft note of despair and acceptance is a real Richard E. Hughes touch. The Johnny Craig drawn 'The People vs. Hendricks!' contains another good example.
Post a Comment