Our previous Wanted post reminded me of this true story filler entry from the May 1948 issue of Wanted Comics #13, and concerns the late 1600's Salem Witch Trials. I meant to post it around the end of October a few months ago, but as is the case around Karswell Manor, sometimes things get lost in the spooky shuffle. But hey, there's nothing wrong with a little hellish US history lesson in the darkening days of December now either, is there? This one is nicely illustrated by Maurice Del Bourgo, and actually sticks pretty close to the facts too, though if you want to read more about it all you can always hit the 'ol inter-webs and get all the info you could ever possibly hope to find-- or just CLICK HERE after today's post.
5 comments:
I love this! It's relatively accurate and goes a long way to putting the blame where it lies -- the girls demanding attention, people with petty grievances and superstition.
The splash is great, too, I love the wrapping snake and all the cool demons and smoke monsters. I swear that cow is lifted from something, though.
BTW, there's a lot of pointing in this. At least 11 panels!
I also like the out of nowhere ending where death gets the final say and the looming skull. Good art, good retelling, this is a nice one.
Technically not Death, it's the host of the comic book series, though I guess maybe he's a cross between Death and Satan... you've probably seen him before, check the cover of Wanted #31 for example: https://www.comics.org/issue/237602/cover/4/
That splash page is horror deluxe; the witch looks like a mix of Pinnochio, Baba Yaga and a werewolf. The pointy eared fiend and the one wearing a skull necklace deserve honorable, or horrible, mention too.
The lesson from the Salem Witch Trials, don't believe the stories without proof, was a lesson never learned. Even today, false accusations ruin lives and businesses. It seems only in courts of law is one innocent until proven guilty.
Vampires, werewolves, all of the beasties and nasties of myth and legend are tame in comparison to the ultimate horror, and that is man's inhumanity towards man.
It's always interesting to see hanging in place of burning in an American witch trial story. I mean, even though this is a matter-of-fact story about Salem - so you'd expect that here - it's a famous thing to replace the one kind of execution with the other in pop culture.
That is quite a neat splash for sure; but the image that really grabbed me, while I was first flipping through the thumbnails, is on page six, panel four: Silhouettes on gibbets and that somewhat abstracted tree. Neat! It's like a Richard Powers book cover.
Man, if I learned anything from the Satanic Panic in the eighties, it's that brainwashing people, perhaps especially kids, is simple. Suggesting terrible things to them causes anxiety, tacitly rewarding them with care and attention for admitting false histories and pointing the finger of blame elsewhere helps create a reality out of grievance and fantasy. Meanwhile, I guess upset children can make adults abandon all reason in the rush to end their perceived torments. Once the smoke finally clears, everybody is victimized: People have lost careers, friends, faiths, livelihoods. The children themselves often end up with PTSD over trauma that never even happened to them. Trauma that was only suggested to them by perhaps well-meaning authority figures.
It's easy to get caught up in mass hysteria. It happens regularly, and it's not always simple to assign the blame. What saves us is due process. All-powerful magistrates that can condemn someone to hang without rational evidence was the villain in Salem.
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