October is here! Time to roll out the orange and black carpet of creeps for our usual month-long Halloween celebration which is actually not that much unusually different than any other month of the year, tbh! Hey, speaking of, do you know anyone who still calls it "Holloween?" Lol! Occasionally I'll see someone spell it like that on social media, or wherever, and I just have to think to myself, "Why, that dumbbell must have holes in their head!" And then sometimes, that's right when the REAL fun begins! So buckle up and take a few tips from Swilber Smith and the March - April 1954 issue of Fantastic Fears #6 --cuz things is just gettin' started 'round here and ya oughta not miss a single post, no sir!
5 comments:
The writing on this is kind of write backwards from an idea ("hole in his head" = dumb) and you can see where it's going ... but ... the journey? Woah doggie is it *mean.*. I don't know if the author meant it, as he was just filling in a way to the ending, but it's hard to not feel for Swilbur and hard to not think all those people had it coming.
Murder? No, but yeesh, Swilbur needed help not constant ridicule this one is actually a bit of a hard read. Everything in it feels dirty and grimy, and I like how the artist gives Swilbur this constant grimaced expression (as if he's in pain, which you think he would be) and deep set eyes, and we get the filling that he's not fully responsible for his actions. Yikes!
I do like how the artist can't get away from good girl art even when said good girl is getting her head chopped off!
Sometimes these stories have a real ugly slant to them, this is one of them. Good or bad, it'll stick with you!
Today I also read about the (perhaps) not all there woman who murdered a girl when she herself was a teenager, and was supposed to be executed 32 years later but they botched it. Even if I condoned the death penalty, and I'm against it under all circumstances, I would still have been against it in this case. Therefore this story was an especially hard read and my sympathy is with Swilbur (not that unusual a name, surely?)
Hopefully he'll get the help he needs, but I don't think a factory that couldn't even be bothered to inform its staff that the new hire was a war-damaged veteran cares either way.
This was a telegraphed ending and a twist ending all in one comic.
For some reason, I would expect this type of story and ending to be in an Atlas comic, since Atlas did twist and telegraphed endings consistently.
I know comic logic has nothing to to with real life, yet I still find it a bit strange Swilber had so many holes in his head And he survived the war wounds and the surgical treatment.
Swilber should have mentioned his wounded veteran status, if not for sympathy then at least to have those around him think twice before insulting him. Then again, Swilber's co-workers tended to be jerks in this story so he was in a lose-lose dilemma.
It strikes me that comic book readers can be suckers for a story about a bullied murderer. This comment section seems to back me up (including my part in it). I like to think the creators demonstrated a sophisticated level of storytelling by presenting the circumstances in a way that evokes Swilber's somewhat disabled view of events. He's not a particularly reliable POV. And while I know this comic takes a pass at an omniscient view, what with all those narrative captions and scenes Swilber isn't actually privy to, the ultimate effect is that we relate to Swill and not his coworkers. Again, I think we are susceptible to that by default. I think the writer and the artist were susceptible too, and that they turned out a story that is almost gleefully ugly because of it.
I like Swill's face, too. I note that it is almost the same image every time we see it. It could almost be a stamp. He reminds me of characters in the comic Red Meat in the way that he carries the same expression--and, indeed, the same quarter profile view--panel after panel throughout the story. Honestly, it feels very much like he's an inside joke, someone someone actually knew. It makes me wonder exactly how I've been made complicit if this is the case: Am I one of the bullies or am I part of the revenge?
Dumb ol' me was surprised by the telegraphed ending. It made the story make a little more sense but not much. Thanks for the chills Kars!
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