If you enjoyed being buried alive in our previous story HERE, then it's time once again to dive in over our heads for yet another smothery love triangle gone horribly wrong! Speaking of heads, you may be scratching your own when today's crime horror classic from the November 1953 issue of Startling Terror Tales V2 #7 incorrectly reveals just how quickly a body actually decomposes in quicksand! But it's still a grimy, fun tale none the less, and it's just the start of our lurid look into Star Publication's most sicko murderers and maniacs --and this theme should also run its rotten course through most of December Week 3, so stayed tombed for lots more!
Cover art by L.B. Cole, of course!
Quicksand that dissolves the body in minutes! No pity for Gail though… that shallow b**#h deserves to be alone…
ReplyDeleteA rare story where the rich one with the pencil moustache was *not* the villain.
ReplyDeleteSomebody will chime in on how you don't sink in quicksand, if it kills you, it's because you can't get out and just die of starvation / etc (oh wait, that was me) but during this time quicksand is certainly a trope in the movies and horror comics, so I'll let it go!
ReplyDeleteI like the art in this -- it's amateur, for sure, but that kind of works for it, giving it that sweaty kind of swampy feel. There's some interesting touches, like the shadows on the splash that are ... just not quite right. It looks more like a tattoo than a shadow. But, again, it ... works! It works in both a crime (which is basically is until the zombie) and horror comic.
The old "corpse pulls you down" is pretty standard in these tales.
Gale isn't even human in this, she's a macguffin to get the plot moving!
I like these lesser known and sometimes a lot lesser produced tales. They have this "seedy side of town" horror comics. Interesting to read!
"I'll lower myself down the rope, grab the wallet with my feet, and pull myself up again"-what could go wrong? What a plan, or should I say 'What, a plan?' Tom, an early winner of The Darwin Award.
ReplyDeleteThe art is something of a mix of the late 30's type comic art, where the idea is there but the execution was somewhat unrefined, and a early 50's style where there is clear detail but either the artist or printer turned out a B minus looking horror tale.
With the victim of the quicksand reaching to pull Tom down, I can only wonder if the script was lifted from an old time radio horror. It would seem to be the kind of tale broadcast over the airwaves from the thirties and fourties.
I'm with Bill. It's nice to see a postwar love triangle in which the clean-cut dude is the biggest jerk. And just from what I see in this story, I gotta say Gail seems to have made a pretty canny choice. I know she says the issue is that Tom has strung her along for too long. Been lapped by the competition. But what we see is Tom being a whiny, a violent jerk and that Briggs is definitely the better man.
ReplyDeleteLove that last panel. It's like if Gahan Wilson drew Gomez Addams. Whatever Briggs uses on that villainous looking facial hair makes it totally impervious to the acid quicksand treatment. One imagines his remains dredged from the pit during some future land development, all bleached white skull-and-bones still decorated with just that neat little David Niven 'stache and a wallet full of money.