shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,812
|
Post by shaxper on Feb 12, 2015 15:08:50 GMT -5
"I am Dead, Egypt, Dead" (from Eerie #35, September 1971) art by Victor Fuente my grade: C- plot synopsis: upon finding a lost Egyptian tomb, two members of an archaeological expedition plan to kill the third member (who reports to the museum funding them), keep the whole thing a secret, and keep the fortune worth of jewels for themselves. They attempt to convince the third member he has been cursed, and then one sneaks into his tent at night dressed as a mummy. The third member panics, falls to the ground, and the co-conspirator in this affair informs her partner that he has died of fright. The next day, while reveling in their new fortune, they are surprised by a mummy which kills the team member who planned the whole sordid affair, revealing himself to be the presumed dead member who had been working with the other to double cross him all along. They drink the water in her flask as a toast and drop dead, realizing the now dead team member had poisoned the water, planning to kill off his co-conspirator. Essentially, three wretched people all manage to kill each other.I had high expectations for Doug's big return, but this is by far his least compelling script yet. Beyond the nonsensical title, the absence of a compelling visual premise this time, the little details of this story that make absolutely no sense (I won't nitpick, but they're there) there's also no supernatural or horror element in this tale: it's essentially a noir tale merely set in an ancient Egyptian tomb, and it's not a particularly clever one either. I begin to wonder if Moench wasn't right after all when he said he initially submitted five scripts to Warren (not the four we've seen so far) and that they were all purchased. What if this had been that fifth script, included to once again show Moench's versatility (this story does not resemble the other four at all), sitting in a file somewhere, and remembered only after Moench started sending new scripts their way? Or maybe his first effort after nearly a year away found him a bit rusty? Who knows. But however you look at it, this is not an impressive story. Fortunately, Fuente's art isn't half bad:
|
|
shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,812
|
Post by shaxper on Feb 12, 2015 16:00:25 GMT -5
"Bad Moon on the Rise!" (from Eerie #36, November 1971) art by Tom Sutton my grade: B plot synopsis: a girl going to meet her lover on the Louisiana bayou is instead met and murdered by a werewolf. Later, her lover returns home, wondering how he got there, finding blood on his face that isn't his, and reacting with, "Oh, lord, can the dreams be real? No! No!". The next day, he's inviting another lovely young girl to meet him on the bayou, wondering why he's doing it and feeling like he can't help himself. Meanwhile, a detective is looking into the first murder and working with the first girl's father, who is convinced it's the work of a werewolf. Surprisingly enough, the male lover does turn into the werewolf and murder the second girl. The detective and father keep pursuing the trail of the guy, the detective scoffing at the idea that he's a werewolf. They find him as a werewolf, the detective fires on it to no avail, and a convenient lunar eclipse reverts the werewolf to a normal person, at which point the detective's bullets kill it, but the detective is then left convinced that he killed an innocent man and that the werewolf is still at large.It would appear my theory that the previous story ("I am Dead, Egypt, Dead") was a leftover from Moench's original portfolio might carry merit after all. This next story, definitely written after the first batch, feels like it's done by a very different author. Suddenly, Moench's characters, dialogue, and narration are all far more robust, even while the visual premise and twist ending that were both so critical to his first four stories go under utilized here. This definitely feels like the work of a more mature writer who, in the process of growing, finds himself a little more out of touch with the tropes he once depended upon. Perhaps just as exciting, this marks the first team-up between Moench and Tom Sutton (who, in a few short years, will work on the Planet of the Apes magazine together for Marvel). Of course, they're not exactly working together right now, as I assume Moench is just submitting scripts (and either breakdowns, as he did with his first four scripts, or extremely detailed descriptions of the visuals, as I know he did later), and they're being given to bullpen artists. Still, there's a strong marriage between words and images here. The only real disappointments are the visual premise (I think it's just the exotic setting of the Louisiana bayou this time), and the twist ending, which comes off awkwardly, with the story resolving so completely, and the only twist being that the protagonist believes the plot is still going in the final panel. It almost feels like Moench forgot to include a twist ending and then tacked that on at the end. In contrast, there's so much working here. For example, Moench's words are more vibrant than ever and, for the first time, lend a real sense of humanity to his characters. An example: Seriously, wow. For the first time, Moench's characters aren't just enacting plot points. He often offers little narrations that help us to feel their point of view, even fleetingly, and he works hard to give even minor characters, appearing in single panels, dialects and attitudes all their own. We've come a long way from those talking heads in Plague of the Wolf. And Tom Sutton's art -- Wow. Even his early stuff is breath-taking: Everything has a texture and realness to it, even while his art is often exaggerated and surreal. Minor details: - This is Moench's longest story yet (10 pages), and the first to get front feature billing in an issue, as well as the (somewhat misleading) cover. Clearly, Warren thought highly of it. - I wonder if Moench ever indicated a preference for which title each story should be published in. I find it odd that he's never published in Creepy. - Don't know if the snafu was Moench's or the letterer's, but in this story that repeatedly utters the phrase "there's a bad moon on the rise," our second victim mistakenly calls her approaching lover by the wrong name while examining her reflection: For the record, the character's name was Kane Kincaid
|
|
shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,812
|
Post by shaxper on Feb 20, 2015 7:20:42 GMT -5
"Power of the Pen!" (from Psycho #5, November 1971) art by Doug Wildey my grade: C+ plot synopsis: A writer has just sold the rights to a book he is working on and, soon after, realizes that naming the protagonist after his friend has forced his friend to begin living the life he is writing in the book. He quickly writes an ending to save his friend from hanging in near death at the hospital and smashes his type-writer, assuming it is the cause of the problem. Unfortunately, he then remembers that he wrote a story a month earlier using another friend's name, rushes to find that friend trapped in her mirror (as he had written), and is similarly sucked in at the close, also forgetting he'd written that anyone who tried to save her would suffer a similar fate.I was completely unaware of Skywald Publications until tracking down issues for this very review thread, so I'm truly surprised to see the wealth of talent that did freelance work for them. Even Tom Sutton, who just did the art for Moench's previous story (published by Warren) appears in this issue. How did this arrangement work? Was Sutton freelancing in the same style as Moench? Did Warren just mail him Moench's script and ask him to submit finished pages? Perhaps a question more relevant to the scope of this thread is how Moench went about submitting scripts to two different publishers. I'm assuming he didn't send the same ones to both, as that could have proved extremely awkward. So did he write specific kinds of stories for Skywald that were different than the kind he wrote for Warren (this story doesn't feel remarkably different from anything you'd see in Creepy or Eerie), or did he send Skywald scripts Warren had already rejected? Ironically, in looking into the story of Skywald, it would appear that Moench, himself, was a major part of their demise: "...Our issues were selling well, and some sold out. Such returns as we received were shipped overseas, mainly to England, where they sold out completely... When Marvel entered the game with countless [black-and-white horror] titles gutting [sic] the newsstand, their distributor was so powerful they denied Skywald access to all but the very largest newsstands, so our presence was minimal and fans and readers simply couldn't find us. ..." (1)Moench wrote the bulk of the content for those Marvel black and white horror titles. Regarding the story, itself, it fits Moench's style at the time, taking a well trodden horror trope (in this case, the writer who gets caught up in his own story), and throwing in a clever visual twist to make it his own. In this case, Moench had been working with parallel storytelling in "Plague of the Wolf", "Fates's Cold Finger", and (to a smaller extent) "Bad Moon on the Rise", but this time uses it quite cleverly to create misdirection. We begin with a story within a story, which is revealed to be the work of the writer selling the book on the second page, and, as the two stories continue in parallel, we learn on page four that the story-within-a-story has actually come true and is really occurring in tandem. It's quite clever and exciting, but once we're done with those reveals, the story quickly loses its steam. Light on characterization, and seemingly sputtering out on page 7, with a second conflict tacked on for the last two pages, there's really not much else to this one. Perhaps Moench was sending his lesser stories to Skywald? And Moench writing a story about a writer literally getting sucked into his work and trapped by it in only his third script sold after committing to becoming a full time freelance writer? I'll resist the urge to explore that one further. (1) Arndt, Richard J. (December 2, 2010). "The Complete Skywald Checklist [including] A 2003 Interview With Archaic Al Hewetson!". EnjolrasWorld.com. Archived from the original on July 16, 2011.
|
|
|
Post by Rob Allen on Feb 20, 2015 15:41:48 GMT -5
Skywald is a really fascinating little company, isn't it? I have no idea if Doug sent them scripts rejected by Warren or vice versa, but I have read that Jim Warren didn't want "his" freelancers working for Skywald at the same time.
The writer in this story resembles Archie Goodwin. I wonder whose idea that was, or indeed if it was intended to resemble Archie.
|
|
shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,812
|
Post by shaxper on Feb 20, 2015 21:03:02 GMT -5
Skywald is a really fascinating little company, isn't it? I have no idea if Doug sent them scripts rejected by Warren or vice versa, but I have read that Jim Warren didn't want "his" freelancers working for Skywald at the same time. Yes. I read that some of them used pseudonyms while working for Skywald. Still, you can't blame starving writers and artists for trying to sell a few more stories wherever they could.
|
|
|
Post by thwhtguardian on Feb 20, 2015 22:49:50 GMT -5
Is it just me or does the writer in the comic bare a fair resemblance to Moench himself?
|
|
shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,812
|
Post by shaxper on Feb 20, 2015 22:52:53 GMT -5
Is it just me or does the writer in the comic bare a fair resemblance to Moench himself? I'd considered that, but Moench didn't really begin to resemble that look until decades later. Keep in mind he had the uber long straight hair at this point, as well as no mustache. Besides, I'm assuming the artist for this story never met Doug in person.
|
|
|
Post by thwhtguardian on Feb 20, 2015 22:57:40 GMT -5
Is it just me or does the writer in the comic bare a fair resemblance to Moench himself? I'd considered that, but Moench didn't really begin to resemble that look until decades later. Keep in mind he had the uber long straight hair at this point, as well as no mustache. Besides, I'm assuming the artist for this story never met Doug in person. Ah yes, you're right I had forgotten the time period. The mustache and sorta goofy hair look is the default image in my mind, so I went right to that looking at the art above.
|
|
shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,812
|
Post by shaxper on Feb 20, 2015 23:00:25 GMT -5
The mustache and sorta goofy hair look I take it you've never been to Pittsburgh. I swear every man over forty in the greater Pittsburgh area has the exact same hair and mustache. Doug is from that area. Edit/correction: Doug is originally from Chicago, moving to New York to join Marvel's bullpen in 1974, and later moving to Pennsylvania in the 1980s(?).
|
|
|
Post by thwhtguardian on Feb 20, 2015 23:08:26 GMT -5
The mustache and sorta goofy hair look I take it you've never been to Pittsburgh. I swear every man over forty in the greater Pittsburgh area has the exact same hair and mustache. Doug is from that area. Ha, that'd be something to see.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 23, 2015 8:13:18 GMT -5
And today (Feb 23) is Doug Moench's birthday so happy birthday Mr. Moench!
-M
|
|
shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,812
|
Post by shaxper on Feb 23, 2015 8:47:31 GMT -5
And today (Feb 23) is Doug Moench's birthdaym so happy birthday Mr. Moench! -M
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 23, 2015 8:51:06 GMT -5
And today (Feb 23) is Doug Moench's birthday so happy birthday Mr. Moench! -M Take your stinking paws off of my birthday cake you damn dirty ape! -M
|
|
|
Post by badwolf on Feb 23, 2015 9:36:51 GMT -5
Is it just me or does the writer in the comic bare a fair resemblance to Moench himself? I did think it looked like he did when I met him in the 90s!
|
|
shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,812
|
Post by shaxper on Feb 23, 2015 9:43:05 GMT -5
Is it just me or does the writer in the comic bare a fair resemblance to Moench himself? I did think it looked like he did when I met him in the 90s! Care to share that story?
|
|