Thanksgiving is all about tradition, so I guess this year I'm doing a thing here, maybe it'll catch on, or maybe it'll be one of the million things I start and never do again, --we'll just have to see what happens next November. Anyway, so what's everyone out there in bloggerland thankful for this year? Me... I guess I'm thankful that a few of you still bother to come around here and read my ramblings and look at all the goofy shit I'm into, so a great big THANKS to you, You, and YOU! You guys 'n gals know exactly who you are because you're the only ones leaving comments, (and not just stealing my scans and posting them on tumblr without crediting me.) And ok, since I've been having a fun Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery run over at THOIA for the last week, I thought I'd do it over here as well, with not just one, two, three, or four spooky stories-- BUT FIVE-- you know, anthology horror movie style! Pretend that Mr. Karswell has invaded Amicus Studios for a minute and provided the dusk to dawn line-up. I've even collected them with a "deadly dames" theme running through each tale as well, making a hearty attempt at finding a good variety mix of womanly weirdness. I hope you enjoy them all as much as Boris and I enjoy bringing them to you. And everyone have a safe and delicious turkey day tomorrow too! See you all in a lil bit...
Hi. I check your blogs just about every day, and enjoy both of them, though I seldom leave a comment. Thank you for the time and thought you put into them, and Happy Thanksgiving.
ReplyDeleteThank you for writing! :)
ReplyDeleteI had never seen the tale Carnival before. It leaves the readers with an open ending- Is it a dream? Is it purgatory? A nightmare?
ReplyDeleteHave great Fangsgiving, er, Thanksgiving, Karswell!
"Only Skin Deep" feels like it switches artists half way through (at page 3) but it's probably just the artist moving into a more shadowed and spooky style. It's interesting! The two halves of the story really seem like they were drawn differently.
ReplyDelete"Burn Witch Burn", page 2, panel 1, is a good panel, the artist really wanted to draw a cool car. And, I don't care how desperate you are, a mysterious woman with a cat name Mephisto is a giant, satanic red flag!
"Carnival" page 3, last panel is a cool image.
And, as I say a lot, thanks for all that you do in the blogs, for us, your fans and pals, for all the Tumblr people in dire need of content!
> for all the Tumblr people in dire need of content
ReplyDeleteHahaha
I've only read the first story so far, but I wanted to wish everybody a HAPPY THANKSGIVING while it was still Thursday locally. I am definitely terrifically thankful to you for maintaining this blog for so many years, Karswell.
ReplyDeleteAs for Burn, Witch, Burn, I think having them wander into a museum thinking it's actually a bona fide deserted old timey place was a really good idea. I'd like to see that played up in a roomier story sometime. I like the lady's kitty cat eye pupils, too.
Looking forward to other comments on the rest of the stories.
ReplyDeleteUP NEXT: The Horror of the Talking Toilet!
Finally! I've been enjoying a visit from the in-law, so it took a little while to get around to this stuff. Now I'm rushing to catch up before I go visit 'em all right back at the next holiday.
ReplyDeleteOscar Novelle looks like another one of those DC artists I simply grew up with no inkling of, owing to my predilection for Underground Comix as a child. But there's something about his stuff here--especially in Golden Seaweed--that really reminds me of British newspaper strips of the time. Boy, that ghost gives no quarter, huh? Can't muster the superhuman strength to wrest a thousand-pound obelisk off the ocean floor? Then you get revenged, pal!
I dug the Grandma Guignol story, and forgive them for cheekily cheating me of the particulars. It's wonderful to imagine ole Little Red trapping big bad granny in the attic and living out her days in the homestead beneath. Has kind of a Ginger Snaps 2 feel to it.
I'm not the biggest fan of "endless loop" stories like Carnival--repeating the beginning isn't any way to end something--but I have to hand it to Novelle (again!) for actually redrawing the identical panels on pages two and four. A lazier artist would have just photostatted that. I know the offices over at at Western had a camera (unlike Avon).
(And speaking of "unlike Avon") I like the sassy title treatment of Only Skin Deep, but another story in which a werewolf isn't the equal of a vampire in a fight? What is this pro-undead bias that comics always seem to employ? I mean, this guy was really only about a halfway wolf-man anyhow, but the real pleasure of a monster mash is that final throwdown that, like in a lot of these stories, happened--quite literally in this case--behind closed doors. Was this some kind of Comics Code thing? You can have monsters just so long as there's no payoff? Nevertheless, the Pitt Brothers(?) art was pretty great here.
All told, I give this group of stories about seventeen stars!