Croydon Publishing Co. delivered to us a pair of nifty 1940's "Mystery Master" horror tales, both of which can be found in the pages of the equally short-lived Variety Comics series. Running a mere 3 "mixed bag" issues, Mystery Master may have looked more like Ben Franklin than The Cryptkeeper, but he still stood out among the superhero, cops 'n robbers, and comedy selections featured in 2 of the 3 issues --and managed to spin a couple of superb chillers as well! A mad science experiment turns truly monstrous in "The Web", from the dynamic debut issue of Variety Comics #1 (1944), followed by a sinisterly swingin' old dark house set-up in "The Mystery of the Eccentric Collector", via Variety Comics #3 from 1946. According to GCD, the latter story artwork is credited to Leo Bachle, the first tale remains uncredited.
5 comments:
"The Mystery Master, a man that time has forgotten," ain't that the truth.
While it is a bit of a shame that this horror host is obscure today, the host, along with the stories, are proto 1960's Charlton horror. Scary enough, but not over the top scary.
The second tale with the eccentric collector could have been the plot in a funny animal comic. The main character enters a deserted house to get out of the rain, they see the torture chamber, meet the host and think they are going to become the next victim, but it turns out the host makes figures for a wax museum.
The artwork splash by Leo Bachle has the fine line details occasionally seen in Basil Woverton's work. Balche's work does look like an illustration found in some of the pulp magazines from the 40's.
Thanks for a chance to see two tales of the man of mystery, The Mystery Master.
Both of these have really nice artwork for 44-46. I like the Mystery Master, the old story teller is always a good character and he certain predates a lot of the folks coming up (Cain, Abel, Creepy, Eerie, etc.)
The Web looks like a guy who was good at doing crime stories taking a hand at a horror story. It's good! I wish "the web" would have been a bit more colorful, it lacks a bit of impact being monochromatic.
Eccentric Collector, though, has incredible art for 46. It's dense, the inking is great, the figures are a little off in place but other than that its beautiful. And the story is awesome -- I don't know how many times we've seen a Shaggy Dog horror story like this. All this stuff happens, there's bodies, weapons, fights ... all a misunderstanding. And it ends with our couple now befriending the poor lonely guy with a rubber torture museum in his house, and what a great guy he is!
That's ... incredible. We need more horror stories like that!
"Gig Dorn! Do you not recognise me?"
Uh... you're standing in the dark behind a torch which you're shining in his face, so.....no?
I never cease to marvel at the incredibly limited imaginations of criminals in these stories. Here you have a lethal web for which they could charge any amount they cared to name from any of a multitude of governments, enough to be rich for life, but the only thing that they can think of is to use it to snare policemen after a bank robbery. (Insert facepalm emoji)
They deserved to get eaten for that level of imbecility.
Second story, last panel.
Poor Mr Mendl. Those two psychopaths will do for him.
I don't think history records Ben Franklin giggling that much.
In the first story, I really dig the row of panels at the top of page two. I like the whole vaulted stone dungeon feel of that interior, frankly--and the masonry kinda looks like spiderwebs on down the page, foreshadowing I guess. Later, when we see the outside of the castle on page five, some trick of registration or ageing makes the walls look very chromatic and compelling. I wish the story had given a little more room for the titular web itself. Maybe one more large panel or some more action shots. What we do get on the last page is an interesting, frenetic chewing gummy blob, and I want to see more. Seven or eight years later, that blob would have been the splash, and the Mystery Master would have been in a bullet to the side of his word balloon.
Man, story two really does start out with a bang. That first panel is a marvel, and the rest of the page is just as gnarly and compelling. This work seems to be an excellent example of the artist running out of time. Page by page the work gets simpler and speedier, till on the last page page we're just getting simple outlines in hurried compositions. It's interesting to flip between the first and last pages; they seem like they are from different stories altogether. One of the reason I caution comics artists to work on the important pages and panels when there's still plenty of time--the splash, the climax, whatever happens in between that is really complicated or plot-driving--and then fill in the other stuff later, as the deadline looms.
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