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Post by thwhtguardian on Oct 15, 2014 21:56:24 GMT -5
He does indeed, along with Kubert, Severin, Kirby, and Toth he is a king in my mind. As for this weeks picks, I can't believe I didn't think the Marquise! I love Guy. And 30 days of Night is fantastic, it was a runner up for my first choice. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 15, 2014 23:43:59 GMT -5
bronzeagebrian's #3: "The Wall of Flesh!"
Writer/Artist: Bob Powell From: This Magazine is Haunted #12 (cover shown from 1992 AC Comics reprint) Publisher: Fawcett Publications, Inc. Date: August 1953 This is the only pre-code horror story on my list. I first encountered this story in the 1992 AC Comics reprint, and something about it seems very horrifying. The tale begins as Nurse Sheila finishes up her night shift at the hospital, when creepy old Dr. Quantrell appears and begs Sheila to marry him. She says no and he then asks her to at least see the work he is doing in an unoccupied wing of the hospital...something called a flesh bank. Sheila is disgusted by the sight of the wall of flesh and as she faints, the flesh begins to pull her into the wall. Gross! The Doc tells Sheila that this is what the flesh needs to nurture and survive as she screams in horror.  Meanwhile, Sheila's boyfriend Johnny gets concerned when she is late coming out of the hospital. He sneaks in and spots the Doc acting suspiciously, as a clock shows Sheila slipping into the flesh in psychedelic fashion. Johnny follows the Doc into the room where the wall of flesh is, and a fight ensues.  Johnny knocks the Doc down and pulls Sheila out of the flesh. But the Doc grabs a knife and plunges at Johnny, but horribly misses as he falls straight into the open cavity of the flesh. The flesh takes Doc's body entirely, and all that's left of him are two gruesome eyeballs that stare menacingly at Johnny and Sheila.  I guess the flesh isn't a fan of peepers! Something about a wall of flesh is just very disturbing to me, and this story has stuck with me (no pun intended) through the years as one of the more unusual horror stories from the golden age.
The full story can be read over at The Horrors of It All blog here.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 15, 2014 23:48:47 GMT -5
With a title like that you can't go wrong
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Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2014 2:04:32 GMT -5
It's like a mash-up of Wall of Voodoo's name & one of their best songs ...
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Oct 16, 2014 5:03:35 GMT -5
Week Three"Your Name is Frankenstein!" Written by Stan LeeArt by Joe ManeelyFrom Menace #7Published September 1953 by Atlas ComicsMary Shelley's Frankenstein is one of my favorite novels of all time, other than Where the Wild Things Are,Don Quixote, The Little Prince and Dracula I don't think there is another novel that I've owned more copies of than Frankestein. And as a character I don't think that there is another in all of fiction that I've ever empathized with than Shelley's monster, I have always felt that somewhere within all those cobbled together corpse parts there must have been a piece from me.
Of all the various retellings and sequels though, this is my favorite. It's simple and short and though it echos much of the novel it still feels new and unique. What I like the most about it though is the way it really keys into the prejudice, intolerance and human superiority that was inherent to the original tale but in 5 short pages. It's everything I love distilled down to its purest form without feeling rushed, which is just beautiful. Also, its interesting to note that those same themes mentioned above would be a heavy focus in two of Stan Lee's most famous later stories: The Hulk and the X-Men. Both of those stories focus on characters ostricized from society struggling to fit in, powerful themes to be sure and that he was already ruminating about them in this story in 1953 shows how important they were to Lee so it would seem he felt the same way about the creature as I do.
And then there's Joe Maneely's art, just look at the way he drew the Monster's face in the right hand panel at the bottom there...its stunning. He put so much humanity into his art that at times its enough to make you weep, especially when you think of how young he died and how much more he had to give us. He's a guy that doesn't get half the credit he's due and he shines in these five pages and everything else he did from the Black Knight to the Yellow Claw and beyond.
'Nuff Said. I am SUCH a sucker for horror stories written in second person, placing the reader inside the monster's head. No doubt, Lee's work on stories like this one influenced my #2 pick...  |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2014 9:00:44 GMT -5
I'm about 99 percent sure I own Wall of Flesh ...
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Post by MWGallaher on Oct 16, 2014 9:37:00 GMT -5
I posted this request a few weeks ago and nobody responded. It's my Number Three but I still don't know what it was titled or what comic it was in, despite a frustrating Internet Search where I couldn't find an online EC Index that had enough details that I could figure out which story this is.
One of you EC fans must know!
HELP!
Looking through the list of Elder's EC contributions (other than MAD and PANIC!), I see that Weird Fantasy #17 has a story called "Ahead of the Game". That's the only story title I can see that might correspond to the synopsis you've given. Unfortunately I can't find a description of that story online anywhere, and I don't know if I have a reprint of this one at home. |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Oct 16, 2014 18:13:49 GMT -5
With a title like that you can't go wrong I was just thinking the same thing! I need to read this book in its entirety. |
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Post by Hoosier X on Oct 17, 2014 0:12:47 GMT -5
Looking through the list of Elder's EC contributions (other than MAD and PANIC!), I see that Weird Fantasy #17 has a story called "Ahead of the Game". That's the only story title I can see that might correspond to the synopsis you've given. Unfortunately I can't find a description of that story online anywhere, and I don't know if I have a reprint of this one at home. That's it! I'll write it up tomorrow. Thanks, mwgallaher. |
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Post by Hoosier X on Oct 17, 2014 16:41:03 GMT -5
Hoosier X's #3: "Ahead of the Game"
Writer: Probably Al Feldstein or William M. Gaines
Artist: Bill Elder
From: Weird Fantasy #17
Publication Year: 1953
This would make a great low-budget horror film from the 1940s, with Albert Dekker as the detective and either Bela Lugosi or George Zucco as the scientist.
It starts with a headless body on a wharf, the police have gathered around, there's a crying widow off to the side.
The lead investigator exclaims: "That's the third decapitated corpse this week!"
Three this week for a total of six!
There seems to be no connection. A comptometer operator, a writer, an intern at the hospital, a civil engineer, a fashion designer and a math teacher.
The lead investigator gets on the phone and starts trying to dig up leads, searching for any connection. There's one slim lead: Reports of seven headless corpses in Chicago the previous month and then seven more in St Louis the month before that.
Well, the investigator eventually discovers that a scientist who is developing a mechanical brain was in every city when the deaths occurred. It's slim, but he has no other clues, so he goes to the scientist's house and discovers ... 20 heads - still living and thinking! - arranged in series and attached to an apparatus. The mad scientist is using human brains to power a super-computer that can solve any problem, that can think, that can create!
Then the lights go out as the scientist injects him with an anesthetic, and the police investigator wakes up and finds himself one of the heads in the network! In the final panel, the head of the policeman explains that they are still living, still thinking and they all cooperate because they want to live. Are they planning an escape? Are they planning revenge? The final words are kind of ambiguous.
This gives me the chills. I think part of the effect derives from the Bill Elder art. He drew so many of the best MAD comics - Frank N. Stein, Shemlock Shomes, The Hound of the Basketballs, Mole!, The Klatchandhammer Kids - that this story - "Ahead of the Game" - seems like it's going to end up with a punchline, where one of those Bill Elder characters is going to bust in and lighten it up with some foolishness about chicken fat.
And it never happens!
This crazy scientist has a bunch of heads wired up to a thinking machine in a secret room! Gad! How creepy! And it doesn't end. That's another great thing about it. The heads are probably conspiring against the scientist. And how nerve-wracking for the scientist if he begins to suspect?
Part of why I love this story is because of the "disembodied heads" theme. I love that kind of thing (also I love disembodied hands and evil ventriloquist dolls). There should be more horror movies about heads. We all know about "The Brain that Wouldn't Die." There's also a German movie called "The Head" that is some creepy, chaotic, goofy fun. But where is the "Citizen Kane" of the "disembodied head" movies? Hasn't the world waited long enough?
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Oct 17, 2014 16:47:48 GMT -5
So glad you got this story identified!
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Post by coke & comics on Oct 19, 2014 17:47:07 GMT -5
"A Serious House on Serious Earth" Grant Morrison & Dave McKean Arkham Asylum, 1989 I knew I would use a Batman story on this list, and considered a handful. This one seemed a bit too obvious, and I thought about finding a more interesting choice. But I couldn't justify it. This is the creepiest, most disturbing Batman comic I ever read. McKean brings through the absolutely claustrophobia of being trapped in a house with pure madness. All Batman's villains depicted at their most psychotic, and most pathetic.  A horrific scene which stands out is not depicted. Batman is on the phone with the Joker, who has a hostage nurse and a pencil. We only get hints of the scene from Batman's point of view, and our left to our imaginations, just as Batman is. We learn the truth of what transpired when Batman later arrives at Arkham. |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Oct 19, 2014 20:29:32 GMT -5
I'm a huge Batman fan but I've never been able to finish this one despite checking it out of the library multiple times. I love Dave McKean's work on covers but on interiors his style just turns me off, the story is occasionally hard to follow visually and atleast in my library's copy the text is hard to read. That said, what I have read of it is very disturbing, so I can't fault you there.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2014 20:58:58 GMT -5
I'm a huge Batman fan but I've never been able to finish this one despite checking it out of the library multiple times. I love Dave McKean's work on covers but on interiors his style just turns me off, the story is occasionally hard to follow visually and atleast in my library's copy the text is hard to read. That said, what I have read of it is very disturbing, so I can't fault you there. Yeah, I read Arkham Asylum once, on the day it came out. I was a huge fan of both Morrison and McKean at the time and...well there's a reason I never wanted to reread it. Disturbing is a good word for it, but not in a way that appealed to me, but it is a good choice, just not one I particularly cared for when I read it. -M |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Oct 20, 2014 4:46:28 GMT -5
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