Looking back at our awesome Atlas Fest earlier this month, I suddenly realized I made an inexcusable, and rather monumental mistake: How on Earth can we have an Atlas Fest without featuring my all-time favorite artist ever-- Bill Everett??!! Okay. Fixing that la boo-boo now with a real screamer from the June 1952 issue of Journey into Unknown Worlds #11 (Everett also created that incredible cover design too!) And because of my awful, absent-mindedness, I've suddenly decided that we'll continue on this journey into even more unknown worlds by extending / reviving July's Atlas Fest --granted, if I can find enough worthy material-- for the entire month of August! Sound good? Oh, who am I kidding? Like I won't be able to find enough worthy material! It's Atlas after all... see ya's shortly in August for lots rots more!
5 comments:
Did Dr FilledUp Le Douche, er, Phillip Le Doux, cure any of his *other* dupes, er, patients? If he did, then he at least gave them value for money. This must be the first vampire I've ever seen who was afraid of the fact that he was a vampire unlike the common werewolf tropes. That is if he is a vampire and not just a were...bat...thing.
Everett's faces are so good!
The way Le Doux looked, I half expected him to be working for 'ol Scratch, offering to cure phobias for a small fee, after the patient signed a contract in blood.
The only way this twist could have been more twisted is if Le Doux watched Frankie turn into a vampire, then turn into a vamp himself, and uttering the last word "You too, huh? Small world."
Everett's work was always a ten out of ten, but for his horror work he dialed it up to eleven.
Based on the text (first panel, last page) the Dr was curing people, he just wasted their time with payments and then cured them on the last day with exposure therapy, a real thing that does work. Of course, he soaked them first, so therefore, deserved to get his blood drained.
Everett's ability to give us realistic yet cartoonish faces is priceless here; the Dr looks like a swindler, his nurse looks like a bad girl, his patients look fearful, it's just master work. It's incredible. It's the same kind of thing Ghastly and Davis had just with a different percentage of cartoon-y in there.
Last page, 4 panel sequence is another great use of the medium. The four panels do a 360 rotation around the Dr. That's great stuff and very dramatic and full use of how panels work and keeping them entertaining.
Every one of those gravestones had to mean something, friends, enemies, etc. I'm sure Everett had some fun with that!
I also love the very Gregory-ish vampire, and the last panel with the Dr by the gravestone (RIP.) Second to last page, the colorist does a great job with making the Dr look sinister (again, he just seemed to soak people for money but was curing them.)
BTW, $400 today would be around $5300. That's a good daily haul!
Everett's always an absolute delight, and this is no exception. I really love all those claustrophobic close ups, the sweaty faces straining at the panel borders. They are legion, but my fave is probably panel five, page three, with both the doc and Frankie crammed in there. I also love Nurse Girlfriend, and the subtle way she seems to be coming out of her clothes the second the clock strikes five. The two panels of graveyard weather at the top of the last page is a masterpiece in and of itself.
To me, a nurse right out of a (supposedly) dated comedy sketch is always welcome, in any kind of story.
I was hoping that first patient would play a bigger role, and that isn't because of just a one-track mind. I immediately imagined her somehow innocently coming between the doctor and the nurse, and maybe being the only survivor of the three or something.
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