Time to end the month of May with a gory, drug induced, blood bath doom-o-rama as only Chic Stone and the Eerie Pubs could do it, from the December 1969 issue of Weird V3#5. A true fan favorite freak-out that Eerie reprinted no less than 5 more times throughout the 70's. And try not to vomit over Bill Alexander's grindingly gruesome cover! See ya's in J-J-June...
8 comments:
Ah, I remember this one and I remember wondering whether it was made just as horror or as an antidrug PSA.
Refer Madness would have been a lot more effective like this!
Is there an original pre-code for this one (I assume greatly changed.) I'd love to see that if you published it or was going to.
There's a lot to love about the art here -- I love all the Dr. Strange-y (mentioned twice now in this month) panels, with a lot of callbacks to Ditko, the bloody squishy skulls, the over the top gore.
I mean, I have no idea where the machine gun, or the hammer and nails came from or went to! I think the point of the story was our "hero" freaked out and did the murdering, but it could just as easily have been a third party and the twist was it wasn't the drugs but reality. That said, one panel hints that he was holding the knife (but then nailed his hand up after cutting it off?) so who knows!
We are here for the bloody skulls, anyway! Always appreciate the Eerie Pubs stuff!
The tripped-out guy's eyes in panel 1 of page 2 remind me of the old Don Martin cartoon "One Day in the Park" (on FB: https://www.facebook.com/MADMagazine/photos/a.568359173184529/762981357055642/?type=3)
Without that ending, and with a much more up in the air ending, it could be like Roger Corman's THE TRIP.
That film is famous for not really being pro-LSD or anti-LSD.
It's 1969 not 1972, but you'd think the girl on the cover was modeled on Stella Stevens in THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE.
"...you'd think the girl on the cover was modeled on Stella Stevens in THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE."
But what I actually thought was that she was modeled on Elly May Clampett.
I like the groovy, lava lamp aesthetics of the acidverse here, Alexander surely channeling Ditko as Mr. Barnes suggested. And doing it well. I really love the panel of concentric outlines at the bottom of page three. It's so great when the comics try to be hip. Dig these hairdos, the slang, the Mao suits. I want to see a whole coffee table book dedicated to comics artists drawing framed paintings onto the walls of their backgrounds. The modern abstract art in this one is very entertaining. Even though Bill avoided drawing backgrounds like the plague here.
Little thing, and just as likely a typo, but I noticed that the usual introductory paragraph ends by including the title, a pretty standard practice, like so: "Prepare yourself for an Blood Bath." Is it possible the title was changed? I imagine something along the lines of "Acid Nightmare!" may have been subbed out at the last minute because the drug reference was deemed too unsavory for the cover credit. What would the newsstand vendors say? I'm probably being ridiculous. But I like to imagine creepy decision makers greenlighting a picture of Jed's girl going feet first through a meat grinder, but no counter culture stuff. No, that's a bridge too far.
Just a quick note that Chic Stone is actually the story artist Bill Alexander did the cover
Aaargh. Of course. That makes so much more sense.
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