If you've been a member of any type of social media platform for the last few decades, ie Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, etc., then you know at this point that "doom scrolling" for some eye pleasingly quick entertainment imagery is pretty much the norm in this age of increasingly shorter attention spans. The smaller anthology horror tale, as the kind featured regularly here at THOIA, play out well to this kind of audience, and even better (unfortunately) when someone takes a single panel out of context from one of these stories and posts it all over the internet for an even quicker laugh. And that's all fine I guess, but it kind of sucks that most people will never bother to dig a little deeper for the rest of a truly great Stan Lee / Russ Heath tale, like this one for example from the April 1953 issue of Menace #2. These isolated panels (first image below) have been floating around the web for years-- but now you finally get to know the full story!
The ending of this is really creepy. Some of the best horror stories work on imaging a fate that is worse than death and here's a good one -- dancing for eternity and deservedly so. This is even a rare 5 panel sequence, and even more spooky about how happy she is dancing on the first panel.
ReplyDeleteBTW, this contains one of my favorite things to nitpick in comics; Durell the witch is noted as being "plain-looking" and that is even backed up the the agents saying "This isn't a beauty contest." But she's not, she's as smoking hot as Stella, if not more! Russ isn't going to pass up drawing a pretty woman!
The ending also has one funny bit in it, and I suspect it was not meant this way but as the captions say she's been dancing for days, the witch teasing her at the end means she evidently kept flying back to the window to troll her. That's dedicating to witchcraft! The final caption is very Stan Lee.
I do like how it is creepy and wastes no time getting to the end. But the dude shooting himself is totally unnoticed by anyone. The theater goes on like no dude just blew his brains out there. Crazy.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I agree with Brian here. Mona's described as being plain, but she's honestly really pretty, especially that panel of her face on the last page when she casts her spell. Honestly, Stella's got a RBF, so I don't really find her that pretty. Rotten attitude to match. I will admit, as morbid as it is to watch Jack's fate, it's easy to see why those two panels went viral. They're darkly funny. Especially Stella's nonchalant response to Jack threatening to kill himself. Mona's spell reminds me of the one from the first Hocus Pocus, where Winifred crashes a Halloween party, sings an impromptu song and then curses everyone to dance until they die. Those last few panels of the dance curse taking effect are really dark. So Stella's been dancing inside her apartment for days straight and no one's thought to check in on her? I mean, I know she's not a nice person and easily replaceable at work, but still, you'd think somebody would be concerned about her absence. I also like to think that Mona's a great dancer without resorting to witchcraft. She got the role fair and square. Being a witch is just a side hobby.
ReplyDeleteI know Stan had an affinity for alliterative names (Peter Parker, Reed Richards, etc.) but “Stella Stevens” was the name of an actual actress (she was in The Poseidon Adventure) coincidence?
ReplyDeleteWhat's funny is that the actual Stella Steven played a decent number of femme fatales, so she would've been at home playing this character.
ReplyDeleteBut the one I always think of is a COMICAL one in the musical version of L'IL ABNER.
Russ is always so great. I love the first page here--the high-contrast blue and yellow chiaroscuro in the splash against the lighter two dancing panels in the bottom row, the weirdly insectile (waspish?) dancers, and that authoritative Heath crosshatching. Everything in this one has a roughed up, lived in poverty row smarm that really sells the story. The places are shabby and the people are depressed and exhausted looking--well the women are at any rate. The men are all management dandies, including the ex-con.
ReplyDeleteWell, and another exception to the above is Stella's swanky pad. For a vindictive mercenary willing to stop at nothing to claw her way up from the bottom rung or wherever, she sure does have a lair like a Eurovillain. I really love it when comics artists depict sweet interior deco and fine art on the walls. That third panel on the last page is just great.