There's a chill in the air as November 2024 finally creeps in upon us, and that means more chilling tales from the Golden Age era of precode horror comics! And what better way to chill the blood, than with a mummy curse decimating the fools who willingly choose to tempt their own fates! From the April 1953 issue of Chilling Tales #15, with art by Galotti and Lang.
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Tut-Rah-Ha took his time seeking revenge, but since he had all of eternity ahead of him, he was in no hurry to dispatch these three.
The actions of these three were a blend of the Friday the 13th club, Houdini's campaign against fake spiritualists, and a too skeptical attitude towards the unknown. Some people are just begging for trouble.
"Why should we work? Our families are rich?"
Even if he doesn't actually do anything awful, he almost marks himself as a victim by talking that way.
Of course, if he'd kept on having that attitude - instead of becoming a debunker - he might have survived.
You spend you life busting fakes, just by sheer mathematical probability you're going to run into a real, live mummy ... but the real curse of this story is the color plates not being positioned right!
Page 6, panel 1, I love the mummy grinning out of the construction equipment! That's a great image that made me chuckle.
I also really like how artists deal with ancient Egyptian constructions. So here, after King Tut, they are no longer venturing into a pyramid but venturing into a Valley of the Kings type tomb. I love that the mummy is just sitting out in the open on top of his coffin!
Sort of like a twist on the Final Destination theme, death coming for them, now or later, but it is inevitable.
The color plates aren't in the wrong position, the paper is. Man, if some print worker set the machine up this wrong, that guy wouldn't have a job for long. These presses churned out comics and other material the culture looked on as throwaway, sure, but they also did newspapers and things that "mattered" too. Those folks were professionals.
No, the problem is that paper shoots through a printing press at a high rate of speed, moving over four separate plates, one for each of the different colors. If a roller loosens throughout the run, if the paper slides a little or slows down a fraction, one or more of those plates would hit it in the wrong spot. I suspect most jobs start out pretty true, with some slight registration error widening as the paper rolls get lighter during the run. That's supposition, of course. Really anything can happen. The paper gets wetter and heavier as it goes, can tear or warp; it gets curlier the closer it gets the end of the roll, just like Christmas wrapping paper. It soaks up humidity and bugs fly into the machine. I'm sure there were quality checks to realign things multiple times as a job progressed, but work was certainly dashed off in a hurry.
I really appreciate this style of art. I like the thick, aggressive ink lines and the filled-up frames. It isn't fussy or fancy, just very direct. I don't feel like the registration errors curse it too badly. It's too bold for all that.
Nice Matt Fox cover here, too.
Howdy all, can anyone tell me what is in the final panel bottom right? Looks like a hat to me but.....
Looks like one of those hats people wear with the flap on the back to keep the sun off their neck,
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