Friday Frights here at AEET gives you something to really sink your sinister, slobbering teeth into today, as Stan Lee and Russ Heath team-up on a terrifically creepy, crypt-kicker classic from the November 1952 issue of Spellbound #9.
Friday Frights here at AEET gives you something to really sink your sinister, slobbering teeth into today, as Stan Lee and Russ Heath team-up on a terrifically creepy, crypt-kicker classic from the November 1952 issue of Spellbound #9.
I absolutely adore the Stan Lee zinger endings! He, above most everybody else at the time, could really do a good dark humor and/or more tongue in cheek ending and not drain any of the horror out of it. He really found a rhythm to these I don't think anybody else was as good at.
ReplyDeleteLet's talk about Heath's artwork here. First, my favorite panel is second to the last -- I love the detail of the broken fang and the expression of horror -- which does a great job of setting up the joke.
I also love the decision to do most of the art in the dark, especially the striking white face/black body in the first couple of pages. The whipping transform panel on page 2 is also a very nice image.
Yea! Friday Frights!
This one's pretty funny although I honestly feel sorry for that poor vampire. The art is great. I love the third panel of the second page where the vampire chants his spell to turn into a bat. Also, panel 6 of the third page of the vampire bat sulking is great. I also love the images of the bat leering lustily in the window.
ReplyDeleteI mutter the century-old black magic chant of the living dead...
ReplyDeleteGreat, I'm gonna have that stuck in my head all day now. Leave it to Stan to concoct something so genre relatable and simultaneously nonconforming to the usual vampire playbook. That's the verve I signed-up for.
My but this one looks great. That's the best page one I've seen in a while. Leave it to Russ. He even breaks with some of my own hard fast illustration preferences, all to good effect; for example: I usually hate the collagey-ness of outlining the foreground against the background, as you see in panel three. I think that's usually a byproduct of bad composition. But here, balanced against the sky in the previous panel, it looks like clinging mist. Bravo. I love the gargoyle-like design of this baddie, too. He's actually scary, which is kind of head-turning in a world were vampires have become emo at best. If I were casting this one, I'd say Panthro? That was definitely the voice I was hearing in my head.
TGIF
Great comments, glad everyone enjoyed this awesome Atlas horror classic! Maybe we'll stick with Atlas all this month for Friday Frights, unless anyone has any objections?
ReplyDeleteSeems apropos:
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/Q7qP68gQHNw