It just wouldn't be October without at least one weird stroll down the old treacherous path of lycanthropy, and this month's entry from the April 1978 issue of Scary Tales #13, illustrated by Alfredo De Elias, certainly fills the hairy scary Werewolf Wednesday bill nicely! Not to mention, that ominous orange and black, Mignola-esque cover design (also by Alfredo), absolutely defines Halloween... so hold onto your fangs, this is a wild one!
10 comments:
James Wolfe, a name following in the tradition of not so subtle hint of one's true character (Such as a Mr. Devilin, Miss A. van Pyre, Damian Ehvil, etc.)
Paul Naschy came to mind when I saw the werewolf's transformation on page 5, top right panel. This story could have been part of an anthology featuring Naschy along with other Euro-Horror greats in other monster roles.
I know many comic afficionados turn up their noses towards Charlton, but near the end they kept turning out horror comics when Whitman and Gold Key had thrown in the towel, and Charlton's stories were creative as shown by this one.
I will always like Charlton horror no matter what others think, they turned out B movie type horror in comic form, but a B horror movie is still fun to watch and rewatch, so too Charlton Horror comics.
Thanks for keeping October spooky, Karswell.
This story’s absolute bonkers in all the right ways. It’s already obvious by his last name that James is a werewolf, but the not so obvious twist is that Grandma is the hot young housekeeper keeping all the male relatives hostage in her basement. Now that’s a fun twist! The one thing that actually surprises me in this story is the usage of a certain word in the beginning. I’m not too certain of comic book codes when it comes to using certain language-at least for the ones that are appropriate for everyone to read, but “crap” is usually rarely used for obvious reasons. I mean, it’s used to signify worthless material in this context. Yet it’s usually seen these days as a pretty crude word.
I'm very sentimental about Charlton.
This one plays around with a lot of rules.
Maybe the most obvious one is the werewolf having the human character's mind. You see that in a few places, like RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE and the very end of WEREWOLF OF LONDON, but not many, I think. Outside of comedies, of course.
Another thing is those lines of his about the sense of freedom being a werewolf gives him. A lot of stories where the werewolf character is meant to be sympathetic have those kinds of lines, but it's interesting that they're given to a character like Jimmy.
The Red Riding Hood analogy was going great, wearing the red hood while out alone at night and all, but it was spoilt right at the end. The butler should have burst in and killed Wolfe just as he was about to eliminate the lush young granny.
Nahhh the ending is perfect… it’s downplayed and funny, instead of tediously cliched, or obvious
"What lovely big eyes you have" when the panel positions her cleavage center page. Charlton having a bit of fun, I see!
I love a werewolf in a suit. I also love the concept (you'd see this a lot in Marvel's WWBN) or a werewolf somewhat keeping his human side and being thrilled at the hunt. I have a real soft spot for that. As an editor, I would have show the moon rising on the last page, the "I've caused the transformation" kind of takes me out of the story.
I love the twist of keeping a ton of related werewolves in the basement!
So that cover: That is *excellent* work. Ignoring the horrible UPC code, the title, the woman, and the werewolf draw a triangle surrounding all the negative space around them. A bright bold orange and yellow really draw the eye. Incredible composition. That belong in a museum!
This was a pretty neat story. I like the way it fleshes out the traits of its wolf man, as noted above. I'm always interested in the way these things work. I like the way the the silver bullets simply act like real bullets against a super-nature that would otherwise be impervious. I like the combo of werewolf mechanisms: Full moons (Hollywood style) and emotional outbursts (Hulk style). One assumes magic potions (Jekyll and Hyde style), magic mushrooms (traditional American) and wolf skins (traditional European) would also work. He didn't have the classic unibrow, though. And I don't know if his birthday was Christmas day or not.
I think if the ending had a little more room to breathe, this thing would make a nice novella or movie. All the characters are nicely fleshed. But we've got to do something about the spoilers. I mean, maybe it's pretty clever having a man named Wolfe hitting on some little orange riding hood by using the usual dialog (page two, last panel). But not if the very title of the story identifies her as his grandmother because of it. Moreover, every folklorist in town knows that telling someone there's a room they can't visit guarantees that room is filled with the bodies of those who came before. So by the top op page three we've been given a pretty detailed map for the rest of the story. The only surprise for me was discovering that this man named Wolfe was, indeed, the werewolf.
And speaking of that, the transformation at the top of page five was dynamite!
With a little digital editing/carefully covering up the UPC code, we end up with one more image to add to THOIA's version of Night Gallery.
You'd think the old lady would have been better prepared after so many years and so much work!
Post a Comment