Who's ready for more heroic horrors? That's right-- you are! And here comes The Doll Man again (featured in the THOIA Archives HERE, HERE, and HERE), this time up against a shambling executed criminal with the terrifyin' touch of death at his fingertips! Page after page is visually jam-packed with Rudy Palais thrills 'n chills, plus a fun array of stiff victims and one very va-va-va-voom babe! And speaking of babes, though this story appeared in the March 1943 issue of Feature Comics #66, I'd freakin' swear that close-up illustration of Torchy's crying face on the middle left of page 8 is a photo reference of the legendary Bettie Page. But of course Bettie's prominent pin-up career occurred between 1950 through 1957, so maybe Palais had another talent we're unaware of-- the gift of fab future female model foresight!
6 comments:
At least the gun-twirling dust panel gives the reader fair warning of how ridiculous this story is going to be.
Torchy and her gun-toting maid deserve a comic of their own. (Obviously she wouldn't be the only comics character with that name.)
Instead, one of them gets killed. Although Torchy herself seems to be a loose end.
Does she come back? - Doll Man has always been just a name to me.
Doll Man does so much action and so much work to stop the corpse and then doesn't check the body! Or chop it up! Or burn it! Good job on not following through!
I love the art on this! It's early 40s so there is still a lot of artist out there that don't have the conventions down, but Palais pretty much has it all working. There is wonkiness, like first panel on page 2 (I suspect an editing change or missing text balloon) but for the most part, the cameras and good, the panels are exciting, and the action is great.
I love the really thick inking work here. Throbbing muscles, throbbing ... good girl parts ... it gives a real kind of 90s superhero vibe to the whole thing (where there was a lot of artists working with really heavy inks.)
Another thing about 40s super hero stories is how some many elements are thrown in without explanation. Where did he get a sci-fi ray gun? Why does the clock have a giant scooby-doo tunnel behind it?
Nice cars. Good zombie. This is spectacular work for the 40s.
I like that scene in which Doll Man does research at the police station. He finds a file folder with all the DA's victims, the correct one already circled for him! The Mayor and the girlfriend are mentioned prominently. Seems like the police are already on this one. Yet there's not a real cop in any of the places crimes have been anticipated. Maybe the police are on strike? I mean, when that one pops up in the actual station itself, Doll Man seems awful surprised about it. He immediately attacks!
Doing the research is tricky, but It seems as if you measure the average boxer's striking speed and calculate to blunt force in pounds per square inch, then scale that down to wee doll fists, the result is that Doll Man's attack on the police officer in this story is tantamount to just sort of tossing a .45 caliber bullet at the man's chin. I'm never sure of this character's super powers, but the faster and more forcefully he is able to move his fist, the more like a fired bullet that punch would become. By the time we imagine ballistic ratios that would actually be effective in a fistfight, the punch would possibly be fatal.
Anyway, what with her being name-dropped in the police files, and also with three pages of this story taking place in her bedroom, and since she even stars in the splash panel, I'm a little perplexed that the fate of Torchy is left up in the air. It's almost as if she was only ever a super thin excuse to draw a bunch of cheesecake all over a story that didn't really give a toot weather she lived or died.
I've never searched out any Doll Man comics, but I have seen many reprinted stories over the years. And the ones I've seen, this one included, always has had an excellent artist working. But the name, for me, was pretty awful.
Page 9, panel 5 - Doll Man sure looks comfy. Smart guy, there... The Corpse reminded me of a Bob Burden zombie; in fact, the atmosphere and stiffness of this comic had a Flaming Carrot feel to it.
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