« Dick’s Monster was something to behold. Whatever possessed him to put the creature’s nose up on the forehead is beyond us — but it worked, making it possibly the weirdest Frankenstein Monster ever done. » — Ray Funk and Al Dellinges, 2005
Golden Age cartoonist Richard “Dick” Briefer (1915-1980) had a special fondness for Dr. Frankenstein’s creation. Between 1940 and 1954, he wrote and illustrated scores of the Monster’s further adventures, both as tragedy and as farce… with equal aplomb.
This is Frankenstein no. 7 (May-June 1947, Prize), the lighter version.In a darker vein, this is Frankenstein no. 27 (Oct.-Nov. 1953, Prize), the darker one.
Having left the troubled comics industry after its censor-imposed purge in the mid-50s, Briefer put together an exquisite proposal for a daily newspaper strip featuring the Creature and his pals, thirty-six strips in all. Here’s a handful of them. Don’t you wish comic strips were half as well written and drawn nowadays?
In a 1979 letter to Al Dellinges, Briefer recalled « Frankenstein, the comic version, was always a joy, and I have some superb samples of a projected daily strip that had been turned down by syndicates in the past. At this stage in my life, even though ‘horror’ is ‘in’, I’m too lazy to start sending it out again. »
For further reading on this subject, do seek out the inaugural volume in Craig Yoe’s ‘Chilling Archives of Horror’ series, Dick Briefer’s Frankenstein (2010, IDW).
« Religion is like a blind man looking in a black room for a black cat that isn’t there, and finding it. » — Oscar Wilde
We certainly can’t have an Hallowe’en countdown without at least one black cat, can we?
Here we have Hamilton, Ontario’s Win Mortimer (1919-1998) at his most stylish. A competent craftsman, he drew a lot of Superman and Batman for DC in the Golden Age, and may be most remembered by readers of a certain generation for his work on Marvel and The Children’s Television Workshop‘s Spidey Super Stories (57 issues, 1974- 1982). As for me, I was always fondest of his work for Gold Key’s mystery titles, where he seemed to be having more fun.
And never did he cut loose more expressively than with this tale of « The Cat with the Evil Eye », from The Twilight Zone no. 38 (July 1971, Western). Working from a barebones scenario by the über-prolific Paul S. Newman, Win messes around with shapes and textures at a breakneck pace. Four pages flicker by and it’s all over but the mournful yowling.
The Moomins* never had a ‘proper’ Hallowe’en, as this celebration didn’t exist in Finland in Tove Jansson’s lifetime. The closest thing was Pyhäinpäivä , a sort of ‘Saints’ Day’ dedicated to lamented loved ones, whose memory is honoured with lit candles on their graves.
That being said, Moomins’ myriad adventures include many costumes and surreal moments that would qualify in a skipped heartbeat as good fodder for the end of October — who needs a specific holiday for sinister goings-on? Tove Jansson knew how to temper the spine-chilling with good humour. Her cast of characters is rich in spooky creatures rejected and misunderstood just because they live by different rules, some of which are, most appropriately to this post, ghosts.
The Hattifatteners (first appearing in The Moomins and the Great Flood, 1945), described as ‘…the little white creatures who are forever wandering restlessly from place to place, in their aimless quest for nobody knows what’ (Comet in Moominland, 1946) certainly qualify as a kind of ghost, with their whitish colour and the soft flexibility of mushrooms on thin stalks.
Hemulen (looking a bit Slavic there) and the Hattifatteners, whose appendages (appropriately) make them look like a bunch of crosses at a graveyard.
The Moomin lore includes actual ghosts, too. One example is the Island Ghost, featured in The Exploits of Moominpappa (written in 1950, and that can be read in its 1968 revised version here). In typical Jansson fashion, he can’t actually haunt very well, and is prone to random bouts of sneezing. He also likes knitting. That description fits me well, actually, so perhaps I’m a ghost, too.
« The room had suddenly grown cold with an icy draught, and the ghost sneezed. I don’t know how you’d have felt, but for my part I immediately lost much of my respect. So I crawled out from under the bed and said: ‘Cold night, sir!’ ‘Yes,’ replied the ghost in an annoyed tone. ‘A bleak night of fate resounding with the horrible wails of the phantoms of the gorge!’ ‘What can I do for you?’ I asked politely. ‘On a night of fate like this,’ the ghost continued stubbornly, ‘the forgotten bones are rattling on the silent beach!’ ‘Whose bones?’ I asked (still very politely). ‘The forgotten bones,’ said the ghost, ‘Pale horror grins over the damned island! Mortal, beware!’ The ghost uncurled, gave me a terrible look and floated back towards the half-open door. The back of his head met the door-jamb with a resounding bang. ‘Oops!’ said the ghost… »
The Moomins (1983) S01E45 – Island Ghost
This is not the only time the Moomins tried living on an island or encountered a ghost. Moominpappa at Sea (a story published in the daily strip in 1957, and similar to, but not entirely the same, as the novel from 1965), in which the Moominpappa becomes a lighthouse keeper, features another timid spook who does such a rattle-up job terrifying Moomintroll that he gets banned from haunting by the stern Moominmomma. Given this story’s mostly nocturnal setting, lonesome lighthouse and clanging chains galore, it’s highly appropriate to this October. The following version has been ‘reworked’ in colour by Drawn&Quarterly:
Tove’s brother Lars Jansson, who took over the writing (and eventually the illustration as well) of the Moomin comic strip in 1958, also has something to contribute to this Hallowe’en post. As an honourable mention, I offer you his Moomin and the Vampire (1964). One can argue that his stories lacked the soul (and artistic ability) of his sister — I’m not here to discuss that, just to take a peek at the little vampire bat escaped from a zoo.
« His deadline-flouting attention to detail was so ambitious that, whenever one of his jobs was delivered, editor Archie Goodwin reported, everyone gathered around to see what “that crazy bastard Heath” had done. » — Michael Dean
In my opinion, Atlas comics generally weren’t very good. But they remain fascinating because of one impressive asset: the line boasted no less than four absolutely top-notch cover artists, namely Joe Maneely, Bill Everett, John Severin… and Russ Heath. It may seem like nothing, but that was a truly phenomenal assemblage of talent in one place at one time. However, the writing was pedestrian and the second-stringers were, well… second-rate. But oh, some of those covers…
Today, we’ll coyly peek at some of Mr. Heath’s horror covers.
This is Marvel Tales no. 104 (Dec. 1951, Atlas); colours, in every case, by Stan Goldberg.This is Astonishing no. 9 (Feb. 1952, Atlas).This is Suspense no. 14 (Feb. 1952, Atlas). This one’s especially intriguing: there’s so much going on, yet it’s not overly busy… the mark of a first-rate cover designer.This is Journey into Mystery no. 1 (June 1952, Atlas). By now, I have a sneaking suspicion that Mr. Heath liked his ladies… on the buxom side.This is Adventures into Terror no. 11 (Aug. 1952, Atlas).This is Spellbound no. 3 (May 1953, Atlas). Yes, it’s the worm.This is Strange Tales no. 18 (May 1953, Atlas).
« Well, as everyone knows, once witchcraft gets started, there’s no stopping it. » — Mikhail Bulgakov
Another, day, birthday post? Well, it’s still a mighty special occasion, as we’re celebrating the one-hundred and fourth birth anniversary of our beloved Samm Schwartz (1920-1997).
One year ago to the day, we gave you Love in Broom, first of a loosely connected two-parter (‘loosely connected’ is the strongest dose of ‘continuity’ one could expect from the Archie folks in those days).
Of course, the now-named Samantha the witch — and the rest of the cast, notably Jughead and Reggie — appear to have forgotten all about their earlier encounter… but that’s just fine: the burden of continuity is one I’m glad to see sloughed. The chief constant is that our witch has quite a yen for Jug.
Switch Witch first appeared in Archie’s Pal Jughead no. 123 (Aug. 1965, Archie). It was presumably scripted by George Gladir (not coincidentally co-creator of Sabrina the Teenage Witch a couple of years earlier), and unmistakably illustrated by Mr. Schwartz. Of Mr. Gladir, Mark Evanier wrote: « Even when they had no credits, you could generally spot a George Gladir script. They were a little wackier, a little sillier, a little more human in their humor. And oh, yes — they were usually fresher than the ones crafted by younger writers. » This certainly fits the bill.
I had to buy three different copies of this issue to get a complete one… and it’s still a brittle mess. But hey, my ordeal, your benefit!
« I’ve had great success being a total idiot. » — Jerry Lewis
Hey, it’s Bob Oksner‘s birthday! I hope you’ll forgive me for double-dipping into that particular well — he also illustrated our earlier Mary Marvel entry — but I still wanted to highlight the occasion, incorrigible Oksner booster that I am.
DC’s Jerry Lewis (or Bob Hope, or Dobie Gillis…) comics weren’t even remotely funny, but they sure boasted some spiffy covers. Here’s a gallery of the most Hallowe’en-appropriate, from the pencil and pen of Mr. Oksner.
This is The Adventures of Jerry Lewis no. 87 (Mar.-Apr. 1965, DC).This is The Adventures of Jerry Lewis no. 88 (May-June 1965, DC).
TAoJL editor Murray Boltinoff (1911-1994) had a soft sport for that particular cover concept, since he recycled it, eight years later and with a different tone, for another title he was overseeing:
Here, for comparison, is It’s Midnight… the Witching Hour no. 31 (June 1973, DC). Art by Nick Cardy.This is The Adventures of Jerry Lewis no. 93 (Mar.-Apr. 1966, DC).This is The Adventures of Jerry Lewis no. 94 (May-June 1966, DC).This is The Adventures of Jerry Lewis no. 98 (Jan.-Feb. 1967, DC).And finally, The Adventures of Jerry Lewis no. 109 (Nov.-Dec. 1968, DC). This one’s another riff on a rather hoary theme.
« I won’t put in a load of laundry, because the machine is too loud and would drown out other, more significant noises – namely, the shuffling footsteps of the living dead. » — David Sedaris
First things first — the general plot: « Dead in the West is a short horror novel written by American author Joe R. Lansdale. It involves the tale of longtime Lansdale character the Reverend Jebediah Mercer: he rides into the town of Mud Creek, Texas that is about to be attacked by an Indian medicine man who was unjustly lynched by the town inhabitants. Soon the dead will rise and seek human flesh and the Reverend finds himself right in the middle of it. He aligns himself with the town doctor and two of the town’s inhabitants, Abbey and David. Together they fight the zombie horde and try to dispatch the medicine man who is the cause of all the evil. » [ source ]
Well, I haven’t read the novel, but the comics adaptation, by seasoned scripter Neal Barrett Jr. (1924-2016) and illustrator Jack ‘Jaxon’ Jackson (1941-2006), is exemplary… well, the results are, at any rate. While we’re not dealing with anything truly new here… I mean, it’s a zombie siege in the well-trod Night of the Living Dead tradition, but in an Old West setting. But the pacing is flawless, the gore and horror balanced with judicious sprinklings of gallows’ humour — served deadpan — and Lansdale’s trademark brutal frankness strikes just the right tone.
Jackson, a fifth-generation Texan and in many ways the original Underground cartoonist, was an inspired choice, as he’s well and truly in his element here.
As this thing is fairly long — as it ought to be! — I’ve just plucked some favourite pages as examples. But if this is up your alley, do yourself a favour and grab yourself copies. Over three decades down the dusty road, these babies are still available at below cover price. It is to weep… but it’s a bargain well worth making.
This is Dead in the West no. 1 (Oct. 1993, Dark Horse); cover by Lansdale regular Timothy Truman. I guess he sells more books than Jaxon, but I’ve never been a fan, save when he’s inked by Sam Glanzman, (1924-2017) who expertly ironed out the chronic stiffness in Truman’s pencilling.I must concede that the giant spiders are a novel touch.This is Dead in the West no. 2 (Oct. 1993, Dark Horse); cover, again, by Mr. Truman.
George Mendoza* does it again! I first stumbled upon Mr. Mendoza’s works through one of his collaborations, The Good Luck Spider: And Other Bad Luck Stories (1970, Doubleday), which was illustrated by the avuncular Gahan Wilson. Since I also happen to be a Mercer Meyer (last mentioned on this blog by ds in 2018!) fan, I did not tarry nor hesitate when I learned, a few years ago, of a dusty tome entitled The Crack in the Wall & Other Terribly Weird Tales (1968, The Dial Press).
Here’s a look at the book’s first yarn, The Devil’s Pocket, a sort of cautionary folk tale/urban legend.
« It was an old, abandoned Vermont quarry, and the two brothers were forbidden to ever climb down into it or even go near it. » « … their father would look up under his glasses, and in his deepest voice he would say, “It’s the devil’s pocket — don’t ever throw a penny into it!” »« But the more stories the boys heard about the quarry, the more fascinated they became with the devil’s pocket. »Mercer Meyer’s uncanny ability to invest the inanimate with animist animosity is on virtuosic display here.« “I’m not afraid,” said Marty, looking down into the bottom of the quarry. “I’m going to throw a penny into it!” »« But it was too late. Marty was already running down the side of the quarry. » « I’m scared,” Marty whimpered, stuffing the penny into his pocket. “Let’s go home.” »« That night both boys had the same dream. They dreamed that the devil’s pocket was calling them, calling them to give back the penny. »« Perhaps it was only a dream, but when morning came, the two brothers found themselves huddled together in one bed, and the penny was gone! »And here’s the front cover of this delightful tome. It’s not cheap, but not entirely unaffordable, either.
-RG
*kudos to fellow blogger Antmusic for digging up as much as could be reasonably dug up about the elusive Mr. Mendoza.
«… devolving into a downright National Socialist muck of murderous paranoïa, a Lord of the Flies for our new century…»
Lychee Light Club, aka Litchi Jirai Club (ライチ☆光クラブ), is a manga written and illustrated by Usamaru Furuya, who was smitten by a theatre play of the same name after watching it in 1985 as a high school student. Years later, he recreated it in manga form, albeit with a somewhat modified plot. It was serialized in Ohta Publishing’s Manga Erotics F* (May 7, 2005 – May 3, 2006). As for the play, it was directed by Norimizu Ameya** for the theatrical group Tokyo Grand Guignol (it’s funny to see the French ‘guignol‘ in this context).
Lychee Light Club‘s over-the-top violence elicits the occasional chuckle (one of its characters dies from somebody pitching a toilet through his midsection), and more than one wince of discomfort, too, as its schoolkids maim, bash and burn their way through the story. The premise is simple – Lychee Light club (more of a cult, really) consists of eight barely-teenage boys who worship youth as the ultimate symbol of beauty (and, consequently, hate all things adult). They have nice digs where they spend all their time after school – an abandoned factory with plenty of dumped implements useful in their pursuit of the sadistic. They are led by the charismatic and cunning ‘Zera’ (actually, Tsunekawa from class 2), whose charm and fine features inspire blind devotion from his gang, not to mention occasional sexual favours.
To pursue their vision of eternal youth and a universal, if unfocused, lust for power, the posse builds a mostly robotic ‘thinking’ machine-cum-Frankenstein-monster, all metallic parts except for a human eye ‘borrowed’ from Zera’s number Eins, Niko. Zera informs his crew that he planted lychee seeds in a landfill three years ago… and now they have a forest of trees heavy with fruit at their disposal as fuel for Lychee, their mechanical prodigy. Apparently Zera is also a brilliant agriculturist, for lychee trees are notoriously slow to bear fruit, and three years later he’d have a forest of greenery at best. ***
Lychee awakens! When questioned about why he is born, Lychee’s computer algorithm spits out that its mission is ‘to capture a girl’, so off he goes to kidnap many until he finds one beautiful enough to be their ray of light, eventually bringing Kanon, the female protagonist.
The story’s settings immediately plunge the reader into a kind of claustrophobia – filthy streets, a sooty factory, trashed cars — clearly an industrial town which doesn’t offer much hope for a better future. The boys’ lives outside the club are barely discussed, but the story hints that they all come from an uncomfortable family situation, though apparently they’re all ‘good kids’, as their maths professor incredulously notes before she is gleefully tortured and murdered.
Don’t forget to read right to left! Much later, in a fit of poetic justice, Zera gets killed by a toilet with (doubtlessly) beautiful curves.
There is a strong current of body dysphoria running through Lychee Light Club, fitting for a set of characters so fixated by ‘beauty’. The megalomaniac Zera is obsessed with Elagabalus, a Roman teenage emperor known for his sexual decadence (apparently to the point of standing out for his outlandish vices among other Roman emperors centuries later, which is surely a feat of some kind, given what some of them got up to).
In a sort of Peter Pan/Neverland situation, the boys are nauseated by the sight of an adult woman’s body (her breasts are qualified as ‘repulsive, swollen lumps of fat’), and horrified by her ‘ugly’ innards, wondering whether their own organs are ugly, too (plot spoiler: they are, indeed). They obsess over Kanon, the eventual heroine of the story, because she’s soft and beautiful (but hasn’t turned into a woman yet). Kanon herself doesn’t want to grow up because she’s worried Lychee (at that point ‘humanized’ by her love) will reject her adult self.
All of them need to urgently get to therapy, but instead of that eyeballs are ripped out, innards (not to mention semen) are spilled, and the whole thing ends in an utter bloodbath, leaving the only ‘innocent’, Kanon, mourning Lychee, who is now more ‘human’ than the members of the Lychee Light club because he understands that murder is wrong. Reading this manga is a bit like observing a train wreck. Nothing in this story is nearly as profound as it pretends to be, and plot holes bloom much like lychee flowers — and yet its mostly naïve characters stick in one’s mind. Poor, poor children.
« …a mere plaything, having feelings! »
~ ds
* Speaking of the erotic… a quick perusal of blurbs quickly yields ‘Shocking, sexy and innovative, the Lychee Light Club is at the pinnacle of modern day Japanese seinen manga (young adult comics)‘, with which advertisement I have several bones to pick. ‘Sexy’ is an uncomfortable description of a manga with sadistic violence and heavily underage protagonists, though eroguro fans probably lap the former up. As for the ‘young adult comics’ bit, I’d like to submit a petition to stop assuming that stories about teenagers are meant to be necessarily read by teenagers. Should ‘old’ people read exclusively about the elderly? One can argue that adults aren’t so interested in reading about to-be-adults (my case in point, Wheel of Time book one, which I recently read, and whose adolescent protagonists were intensely annoying), but that speaks more to a lack of storytelling ability.
** Who’s had a wild enough (perhaps ‘unhinged’ would be a better description) life that he would merit an entire article by himself (see a summary here).
*** As far-fetched as this plot is is, the anime by the same name (loosely based on the manga) is hilariously goofy where the manga was highfalutin. Take the plot of episode number 6, in which ‘Some members of the club wonder if Lychee really only runs at lychee fruit and then offer him a peach. As he accepts it, they give various other foods and eventually Lychee develops culinary skills.’
I was recently asked to feature some more Archie artists (other, that is, than my perpetual favourites Samm Schwartz and Bobs Montana and White); while I suppose Orlando Busino (1926-2022) is perhaps an oddball choice to fulfill such a request, it’s his birthday today — he would be ninety-eight years old… but hey, ninety-five is still a pretty good run.
Mr. Busino passed but briefly — but oh so memorably — through the halls of Archie: from 1960 to 1962, before he understandably went off to greater success and better-paying gigs: The Saturday Evening Post, Reader’s Digest (I can confirm that they paid really good rates), McCalls, Good Housekeeping, Boys’ Life… you name it.
Mark Evanier recalls fondly that short Archie stint, where Busino was among the few artists allowed to work outside of the house style and march to his own tune: « I first became familiar with his work, as did my pal Scott Shaw!, during a brief period when Busino worked for the Archie people. His work appeared in Archie’s Madhouse and a wonderful, not-sufficiently-recognized comic book called Tales Calculated to Drive You…BATS. It was kind of like “What if Charles Addams had produced MAD?” Scott and I both remember exactly which newsstand we were patronizing in December of 1961 when we glimpsed the cover of Bats #3 and grabbed up our respective copies. » [ source ]
Signor Busino’s lovely cover for the first issue of Tales Calculated to Drive You Bats (Nov. 1961, Archie).
However, our featured tales hails from Tales Calculated to Drive You Bats no. 3 (Mar. 1962, Archie):
And here’s a little something extra from Archie’s Madhouse no. 14 (Aug. 1961, Archie).
Painting your nose the right shade of dill pickle green would also work.
Who's Out There? 