Like our previous post, "Joseph Medley, Lady Killer" is based on a true crime case, and this time about a psychopath who targeted women with red hair. The comic book adaptation, also like our previous post, started out in one comic book series, --the May 1948 issue of Murder Incorporated #3 (Fox) --and then later got the reprint / retitle Star Publications treatment in the September 1952 issue of Shock Detective Cases #20. I created an image at the end of the post to avoid additional "Barnes Confusion" (as we also saw here strangely / previously), and it's important to note the cool addition of those gnarly "strangler" hands in the later, updated splash. Is Rudy Palais responsible for those new monster mitts as well? No idea, but he created the rest of the asphyxiatingly awesome art presented here-- so hang on to your windpipes, ya'll, cuz this one's a real *CHOKE!* killer of a tale!
A rare sweat free Rudy Palais art, I like it. Palais could draw nice slices of 'cheesecake' when given a chance.
ReplyDeleteI could imagine the plot of this tale as the basis of a sixties exploitation/sexploitation flick on 42nd street.
A few of the faces here and there, namely the professor and pawn shop owner, are the kind of distorted faces that Basil Wolverton was famous for.
Another chiller for chilly December.
Make one mistake and I'm blog famous!
ReplyDeleteThe art on this is great. It's super dense, it feels like every location is dirty and grimy, and it has the even more icky feel by giving you lots of "jeepers" dead women cheesecake.
Everything is dark and in shadows, even in a brightly lit nightclub! People look sinister (the pawn shop owner might as well be the devil) and everybody has that kind of rubbery look.
It's the perfect art for a crime comic, and this jaunty little story works fast and is an easy read. This is very much a 101 crime comic, which, of course ends the only way it can, with Ol' Sparky.
Page 7, panel 6 is really grisly. That's a dead body. A sexy dead body. Maybe Wertham was right and these comics were making killers (he wasn't.)
I think the first splash is good, but I'm weirdly drawn to the more garish colors on the second version.
Yeah, man! The art on this one is pitch perfect--crunchy and energetic, with mutated caricatures that put me in mind of Kyle Baker or Ralph Bakshi. I just love the railway station altercation in the middle of page two, the gnarly rogues gallery at the beginning of three (just look at that woman's body! She reminds me of a Rockin' Jelly Bean lass or somebody from the set of Aeon Flux). I love those super brutal hands in the last panel of page six. That makes me think maybe the added hands in the reprint splash really are Palais. In any event, I love that set of brutish hands too.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Rudy--whose signature is that on the splash in the original? There under the window? Maybe the writer? And why do you think it was covered up in the reprint?
Speaking of the reprint, I'm with Mr. Barnes when it comes to the new color scheme. It's so great, especially in the foreground elements and those added hands. I'd love to see the rest of the story to compare. But I'd like to also plug the beautiful title treatment of the original. I don't know who was lettering or art directing over at Fox in '48 (Joe Simon still? I feel like Victor had already cut ties with Iger by then), but that hand lettering is absolutely wonderful.