Our third curse of the month is also another unearthed Four Favorites horror tale as told once again by "The Unknown" (see our previous post HERE.) And we also got a taste of 1940's Rudy Palais art with the previous post's comic cover image as well. So now here he is delivering his wonderfully colorful, --though a bit more subdued than his hellacious Harvey sweat fests-- illustrative visuals in a rather epic 10-pager. So who's afraid of a beautiful mummy? Not me! But you might be, as her creepy curse carves its way through yet another hapless group of archeologists. From the May 1946 issue of Four Favorites #23.
5 comments:
I like the Unknown just hanging around everywhere, even in the most white Egypt of all time, and then the whole thing wraps (ha!) with the Titanic mummy myth, which I think we've seen a couple times.
This is early Palais and it's rough in places but he goes all out on some of the Egyptian stuff; his ancient times, all the tombs, the figurines, etc. I love page 4 for all of that, and the first panel is really well staged. This is a good piece of work, especially this early in his career.
I love how sexy the mummy is in her picture. It's the come-hither curse!
The unknown sure knows a lot about the unknown, but obviously knows nothing about the condition of the titanic on the bottom, nobody was raising that thing!
This one's weird. For starters, the mummy in question isn't that of a queen (despite the title saying just that) but a priestess. The other thing that strikes me as weird is that Sir Ames just goes dashing off into who knows where into the desert. I didn't think he died but when Henderson starts dreaming, he sees Ames screaming and dashing off to his death, according to the Unknown. Love the sexy mummy photo though.
Yeah, there’s no actual title for this story so I just made one up. I think queen sounds better than priestess sorry.
I see. I didn’t know that this one was originally nameless. It reminds me of some sort of urban legend regarding a mummy’s curse, come to think of it. Mostly due to the ending with the Titanic.
𝄞 ♪"Where have all the workmen gone? Looong time passin'..."♫
Baby Rudy! These are definitely pretty humble beginnings, and yet there are some fledgling outsider choices that are perfect signposts to the intuitive and wonderful weirdo the man evolved to be. They're everywhere, but look no further than the splash with its bizarre candle wax skulls and the scientist with grown together fingers (two guys are even throwing the same gang sign). Note that there are five British grave robbers in that image. I assume one of them is the Unknown, incognito without his robe (the bald guy with the fake goatee is pretty suspicious looking to me). What better way to dog these dudes around the world? Now he's cursed to redundantly natter on and on in precode comics forever.
"But can you imagine anyone believing such rot in this day and age?"
Lines like that were funnier back before I knew just what we'd really believe in this day and age. I don't think things were much better in '46, either.
Post a Comment