Okay, I know some of you are probably going, "Atlas time again already?!" But seriously, I can't stop thinking about that Louis Ravielli story I posted last month HERE, and just had to drop another one in your laps ASAP. And this is another Golden Age gem, only 4 pages long but every panel is packed with master class art atmosphere, and cinematic camera angles and lighting. Yes sir, it really doesn't get much hotter than this one, folks! From the August 1953 issue of Marvel Tales #117.
5 comments:
The best part of this tale is that there are literally no good people. Both the uncle and nephew are scum.
The art was great in this one. The art looks like illustrations from a magazine or book.
Had Uncle Gideon been smart, he would have said the magic words "the gold is in the safe deposit box" leaving the nephew dumbfounded and powerless. Of course, the tale would have to take a different track, where the nephew would lead his uncle to the bank where the gold was stored, and having the uncle open the safe deposit box where the gold and a poisonous snake/demon/protective jinn popped out to make short work of the greedy relative.
This tale was the gold standard of art and storytelling, thanks for posting.
This is utterly excellent.
No idea if Stan was involved in writing the blurb but I always like the anti-communist stuff -- it's so 50s Atlas. It's like a warm blanket for Atlas tales!
The story: This is a super clever trick ending. Nothing is hidden, nothing is "as it turns out" and everything leads exactly to a really hard to guess but hilarious ending.
The art is dense, shaded and lined this thing must have been an inking nightmare (I suspect all the shading was an inking step.) Every part of the house is gorgeous, dark, dismal, with the right amount of decay, and incredibly thin line work (I'm surprised it printed so nice back then!) The colors are the right degree of muted, and there's the Atlas 4 cinematic four panels. The one on page 2 is so cinematic and flows incredibly well, and followed up by some great noir-ish panels. The whole thing could have come out of a crime comic.
I can't say enough about this. The story is top notch and the art is just beautiful.
The art and composition of this one are downright cinematic!
I definitely think that Ravielli spent a lot more time trying to get the backgrounds right on this one than he did in that last story. It still feels like a collage of photo references to me (many of which I assume Louis would have taken himself), but background elements mostly gel.* Some of the weird mood of that last story has been lost in the process, but that's okay. This thing does look pretty marvelous, and tells the story well. But here and there the reference materials seem to run out, and that rich, textured rendering of elements gives way to much more artistic uncertainty. It's hard to take a picture of fire or a mudslide of molten gold, so those things lack the photo-realistic polish of the characters (and the house in that gorgeous splash), and seem a like a different art style completely. Honestly, I think it's an effective trade off--the process means the lighting is near perfect throughout the story, and that the weirdest elements stand out from reality.
* But the doorknob placement on page two, panel six, makes those kids look like they're about three feet tall.
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