While ACG is credited in creating the very first horror comic book series with Adventures into the Unknown in 1948, Avon actually beat them by one year with the first full horror comic issue one-shot with Eerie Comics #1 (1947.) Some top-notch artists joined in for the creation of this landmark title, like legendary Joe Kubert, the great George Roussos, as well as Bob Fujitani (who also illustrated that superb cover, see below!) We're actually going to take a look at the frighteningly funny Fred Kida tale today though, where his unique, organic style, and cinematic staging / character posing was really beginning to take sensational shape. And to anyone who doesn't think that you can be titillated by a woman falling on some train tracks, well, I present one seriously gorgeous splash page, as well as a couple of panels on page 6 that will absolutely convince you otherwise! "OH-HHH!"
8 comments:
Obviously this story is foundational and people are figuring out the ways to handle this in a comic, but the ending feels like they didn't quite get the concept of a snap ending, and the ending doesn't clarify but makes the proceeding pages make less sense!
Still, that's a minor complaint. This gets everything else right; the wind up is good, seeing the movie about a murdering spouse helps cement the heel turn, and it's a decent murder plot and a decent comeuppance.
The sexy train murder is a bit much, though!
Page 5 and 6 have some great and interesting perspective, the circular track / view up on 5 and repeated on 6. Nice train, too! Very realistic, some artist also took the subway!
I swear Harry is modelled after somebody. Bob Hope? Maybe?
The media really liked their henpecked husband tropes back then (cartoons, shorts, horror comics). In all honesty, I feel really sorry for Harry here. I mean, even the little boys know about his marriage woes and make fun of him for it. Some of the people in the apartment even enjoy watching it every night like it's a show. (One person even remarks that it's better than ever!) Surprisingly, Margie isn't the usual stereotypical naggy wife. She's not an overweight monster. We don't get too many close ups of her face (except for the last panel) but she's got a nice pair of legs. I'm amused by Harry watching the murder picture and declaring that that's no way to commit a murder. There's also some unintentionally funny dialogue such as the one guy declaring that the woman isn't a woman anymore but a mess or the sudden plot twist that Margie at work was killed in the subway after Helen casually asks where she is as she wants her coat back. I like the closeup of Harry's face on the last panel of page 3. I will admit, it's a fairly clever way to commit a murder though. He didn't actually push "Helen" but merely caused a "tidal wave" of shoving to get his target to fall right where he wanted her to.
He really only looks Bob Hope-ish in the profile images, the same kind of ski slope nose, but straight on facial panels not so much. And I'm not sure why you don't get the ending, Brian, it "snaps" pretty damn good to me, and it's very funny I might add: He killed the wrong woman. Her ghost came back and then nag haunts him in the same way his wife would've-- because he's that much of a pitiful failure!
@Glowworm: I think I feel most sorry for those lovely nylon'd legs!
I don’t think the ghost part was actually real. Just Harry being haunted by his own guilt.
It can be interpreted both ways, no need to split hairs (on a train track)
Didn't you post this before? I'm sure I read it on this site years earlier.
(Why don't these henpecked men in these stories just leave their wives and walk away? Even being a homeless hobo must be better than this, right?)
Or try some "taming of the shrew" approach on them.
I know that sounds very sexist, but obviously it's better than murder.
Harry looks more like an Al Hirschfeld cartoon of Marlon Brando in the Godfather to me. But skinny.
Definitely some beautiful work here by Kida, especially in the middle of the story. As mentioned, the character work is beautiful. And obviously the overkill on page six is a bravura bit of exploitation. Seems Fred wasn't able to really conceptualize the ghost train climax as lovingly as the subway murder, though. I get it, too. "Now the Train is in his room! It follows him to the roof!" It's easy to jot these things down in a script, but it's very hard to plausibly draw them. So a lot of the ending here felt a little like a shrug: A bunch of similar images of train/victim in wire-frame backgrounds crossed-up by motion lines. I wish we'd gotten a closer look at that ghostly conductor, too.
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