Wait, did you think we were done with Louis Ravielli in our last post? Not bloody likely! Yep, I have one more wonderfully illustrated tale for you, this time from the October 1953 issue of Strange Tales #23 --one that will surely send you all into a negative state of doom development! Okay, this was a hard one to clean up, yellowed pages don't fit well with a story told in this B/W manner, and I tried my hardest to make everything presentable so that the whole point of the story makes sense. (If you're not happy with what I've done here, that's on you. No apologies from me.) But if you're still hanging around afterwards and want another camera themed tale from this exact same issue, no less, then head over to AEET HERE afterwards for a dark room romp, and even a slice or two of cheesecake for dessert! *wink! (Cover art by Sol Brodsky.)
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6 comments:
I think you did a fine job, it was readable and that's a lot to ask for printing of the time and you bringing it forward many decades. You should get an award! It did take me a while to pick out the elephant and tiger, but I would have probably had that same problem with the original!
The art is wonderful (again) -- his busy line work done over in negative works great, and the last page has some clever ideas in the art. If you notice, the while begins creeping in when he develops the photos, before taking everything over. It's slightly broken by the "what is happening" panel but that's kind of convention and it can be forgiven.
Stories like this -- I wonder their original? Did a run get mixed up at the printer and somebody see it? Did somebody see the negatives and go "hey we should make a whole story out of this?" Did the writer just get into photography and go "... hey ..."
Page 4, panel 3 would make a great WWII fighter comic panel.
-"You can do whatever you want but don't open Pandora's Box."
"Gee, I wonder what is in that box, maybe treasure or eternal youth, guess I'll have a look see"-
It is due to the dullards in this world that steam irons have a warning message 'Do not iron clothes while wearing them'.
"It's the commies fault! Naw...They're too dumb to think of somethin' like that!" and a few years later Sputnik was launched. Underestimating an adversary is never a good idea.
I like the look of these Zoonga aliens. They have three eyes, but it looks like their original eyes were on the sides of their heads and the middle eye opened later (or it was the first eye to open, like the eyes of brine shrimp/Sea Monkeys.)
The one in front of the camera has a beard and pot belly, a middle aged Zoonga if you will. It really sells the 'ordinariness' of the Zoongas, not superior or arrogant, just average beings going about their average Zoonga day. The Zoonga family posing by their car, the kid not looking at the camera, to be coaxed or scolded for looking in the wrong direction, typical reaction of a family on Zoonga or Earth.
(I wasn't sure if my whole post would be too long for Blogger so here is my post part 2.)
This one is incredibly funny. So, first, everything on earth was (wll he? Will have been?) white on black until one day in 1975?
Then, the dialogue. "It's the commies' fault!" "No, they're too dumb!" By gum!
Also, the zoongas, so advanced that they don't wear clothes apart from adult diapers! And the ending is the cherry on top of this barking mad confection. I loved it.
I too thought of Sea Monkeys when I saw the Zoongas. Don't fall for it kids, it's really just a planet of upside-down bugs.
The photographer in me is interested in the way the story presents color positives as the opposite of black and white negatives. Though I do understand that if this thing had been finished to look like color negatives, it would have been really groovy, sure--but also a lot like the tutti frutti look precode sci-fi often sports.
Ravielli's illustration style fits this kind of gimmick to a t. This is definitely my favorite work of his yet. He had to draw a lot of things straight out of his head in this one, too: Aliens, moonscapes, some kind of space planetarium. I feel like he must have found models for the space suits and the that rocket ship, though.
PS., that Sol Brodsky cover is super duper, too.
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