Friday, October 7, 2022

"Lights Out"

As mentioned over at THOIA, we'll be diggin' up a variety of haunted house classics for the month of October. Now whether this is actually a "classic" by your definition of the word is another story altogether, as I'd be very surprised if anybody else has ever even heard of Hector Comics from good 'ol 1950's Stanley Morse. It only lasted 3 issues, but certainly managed to provide this blogger with at least a few chuckles, --even if I've only ever read the very first issue, of which this story is pulled from. Kooky cool, and very unique artwork from Ben Brown.

4 comments:

Michelle aka Naila Moon said...

Almost looked like a spooky version of Archie comics. Love this!
~Master Crypt Keeper,
Michelle

Mr. Cavin said...

You know, the combination of speedy deadlines and low wages in the comics industry produced a number of really brilliant time-saving cheats by canny illustrators--but I'm not sure I've ever seen anything like Ben Brown's use of the sunburst to avoid drawing-in backgrounds (or doing the work to set foreground figures into those backgrounds). What I marvel over, though, is just how much more work, tedious and time-consuming, drawing all those starbursts is. I mean, some of them come off as hasty, but most are great. But it's way harder to make an oval out of hundreds of fine, evenly converging lines than it is to draw a room interior. I have to say I'm impressed.

Also, I love how the cyan misregistration adds value to the panels at the bottom of page three. Happy accidents!

Brian Barnes said...

This art is interesting. Not sure what Foggy's hair is supposed to be -- is it thin and draped over his face? And the little lord Fauntleroy smart guy character? There's a lot of architypes here, and any comic reader of the time would instantly recognize them.

I do have to say I'm not a fan of the lighting effect. It's super heavy and just makes the page look like a mistake.

I love the devil head blowing out the candles, that's a great gag.

Mr. Karswell said...

I like the lighting effects, it follows through with the overall straight lines theme found throughout the story (the rain, the woodwork, Foggy's hair, etc...), i find that splash to be especially hilarious for some reason