So far May has become a month to BEWARE, and we're rolling out the November 1953 issue of Beware #6 to prove it! Or are we unrolling, --or maybe unraveling it? Whatever, it's a weird story about a vengeful paper ghost (not a toilet paper ghost, anyway!), and it's a tale we liked so much that we included it in Haunted Horror #13 way back in 2014. Also, if the 2-ply terror pair-up of Belfi / Tyler art doesn't wipe you out-- nothing will! Ugh... did I really just say that?
Two rounds of applause for the artist in this one. While sometimes the ghost is just wispy smoke -- like a lot of pre-code ghosts -- there's some great paper ghost images.
ReplyDeleteThe 2d paper ghost on the splash is a great piece of work and that's hard to get right. The ghost spun out of the presses is also excellent. The fight on page 5 is equally excellent. This is some really strong work that is harder than it looks, especially integrating it properly with the 3d world.
I also like the exaggerated and sometimes over-sized faces. Coloring is also uniformly good.
I do get a kick out of this is yet another pre-code story where a factory has a giant -- completely uncovered -- vat of acid with a catwalk over it. You'd think they'd stop building stuff like that!
There are several ways this story could have ended, if the paper item that did him in was a book of horror stories, a Halloween decoration or a Beware comic book! Had this story been reprinted in the seventies the paper ghost could have been a haunted copy of Eerie or Creepy.
ReplyDeleteThis tale would have worked as a psychological horror. In fact, maybe it did, with Banton's guilt causing him to imagine the paper ghost everywhere. Maybe it was Banton himself who wrapped a newspaper around his neck and ended up scaring himself to death or causing a fatal heart attack. The last panel has the police speculating the cause of Banton's death, so we will never know for sure if it was a paper ghost or a phantom of Banton's own mind that did him in.
A unique terror tale with great fifties comic art.
Hilarious as the idea of a paper ghost is, at least a paper mill is something worth murdering for. It's not a puppet show or something.
ReplyDeleteWe'll probably do a few more Beware stories and then switch it up for the second half of May-- I do hope everyone's enjoying the Trojan Terror Show so far!
ReplyDeleteI always love horror derived from popular media. All those scary video-tape moves (Videodrome, Ring, etc.) spring to mind. I kind of want to add this story to that category, even though paper had already been around for thousands of years by the time this was produced. It hardly seems likely anybody would still be imagining much lingering chill factor there.
ReplyDeleteI really like Jack's comedy styling. See his expressive face (on the bottom of page three or the middle of five), or his slapstick physicality (that jogging montage on two, or his all-out newspaper bout on four) for my favorite examples. He really is quite a character.
This is a story in which the protagonist is menaced by a ghost on every page before getting killed by that ghost on the last page. I guess one could use this format to write a story of nearly any length. At first I thought maybe the page count of this one would have to be governed by how many killer paper ideas the writer could contrive, but then Jack has repeated run-ins with the local news rag. Like JMR, I'm a little surprised he didn't end up getting offed by the very comic I was reading! Shudder!
Course, by this late date, Jack's business partner would need to have been killed in a huge vat of ChatGPT to come at me through my screen. I guess I'm looking forward to the first slop monster stories that are going to be cropping up soon.