Zombos' Closet

Action! Mystery! Thrills! Comic Book Covers of the Golden Age 1933-45

ZC Rating 4 of 7: Very Good

There's an irresponsible, commercially driven abandon, tawdriness, and pandering to prurience seen in many of the comic book covers of the 1930s, '40s, and '50s. How wonderful!

From the crowded magazine racks of the time, these covers must have screamed "Buy Me!" to those young boys holding onto their slippery dimes as they rummaged among the pulp pages to find the baddest issues to spend them on, and share with their friends. (I'm sure girls spent their dimes, too, but I doubt it would have been for any of these testosterone-building wonders.)

Action! Mystery! Thrills! Comic Book Covers aof the Golden Age 1933-1945 boasts, in lurid colors and terrifying situations, long-haired dames in distress and undress, fiendish scientists armed with sharp instruments and drooling ghouls, dashing and brawny heroes rushing to the rescue, and evil villains with guns and hooded figures with sharp knives, and enough sensationalism to fill a book, which in this case would be the whole comic.

The best artists condensed all this action, thrill, and mystery into a one-page visual story that told you everything you needed to know about that issue from it's cover, give or take a little accuracy or so. Looking at these covers you'll see the beginnings of the horror tropes we see to this day.

Greg Sadowski provides capsule comments on each of the covers shown in this collection, citing their artists, but unless you're a diehard golden age comic book fan, the information isn't very satisfying because it assumes you know who he's talking about.

But these covers are completey satisfying. In this less golden age of false propriety and parroting of values without substance, it's refreshing to just go with the flow of all this innocent naughtiness.

Now, if I can just get them in poster size... please?

 

 

 

At the Mountains of MadnessGraphic Novel

 

ZC Rating 2 of 7: Fair (art mutes story too much)

On and around that laboratory table were strewn other things, and it did not take long for us to guess that those things were the carefully though oddly and inexpertly dissected parts of one man and one dog. (H. P. Lovecraft in At the Mountains of Madness)

In a clear mismatch of artist with storyline, At the Mountains of Madness, the graphic novel adaptation illustrated and written by  I. N. J. Culbard and published by Sterling Publishing for the U.S., fails to convey H. P. Lovecraft's tone and mood entirely. Culbard's cartoony style is good for a newspaper comic strip, but it supplants the cosmic undertones of finding an ancient alien race by its minimalist panels and inadequate coloration. Culbard's coverage of the novella's highlights is good, but also conveys as much dread and suspenseful buildup as a Boy's Life magazine article, especially when it's most needed during the encounter with a Shoggoth in the subterranean passages beneath the ancient city in Antarctica: the bubbling mass of chaos is drawn in an uninspiring way that holds as much otherworldly creepiness as a Scooby Doo monster. The revelatory and bizarre dissection scene, which should have been on a scale similar to a sublimely messy melange as seen in John Carpenter's The Thing, becomes a perfunctory half-page panel that loses all shock value. 

As an introduction to the underpinnings of Lovecraft's pantheon of Elder Things and their biologically-induced mistakes, Culbard manages to cover the first person narrative of Professor Dyer effectively for new readers of Lovecraft. However, the unfolding of Miskatonic University's tragic expedition to find deep-level rock and soil samples from various areas of the antarctic continent is done in a digest-sized format more suited to an adaptation of the slicker 1951 The Thing From Another World, where the implications of finding proof of an alien creature from space is not so philosophically or religiously troubling. The nuances of Lovecraft's total disdain for the spiritual are not adequately reflected here: the cosmic joke has no punchline and there is no unraveling of faith beyond all reason. 

More reliance on Lovecraft's prose in key panels, with a sprinking of style like Bernie Wrightson's grim swirls or Neil Adam's electrifying, kinetic angles would have pleased the eye-nerves more. Along with a larger page format to expand the panels into the heinous acts of visual insanity that Lovecraft alludes to, a more experimental color palette to fluctuate the mood would have been a better choice than the standard one used here. 

For readers newly exploring Lovecraft's dark universe, Culbard's graphic novel may, hopefully, wet their appetite for delving more deeply into this ancient Cyclopean city and the nature of  its past and present inhabitants by reading Lovecraft's work directly.

Image Comics' Deadlands: Black Water One Shot

ZC Rating 2 of 7: Fair

There are times I scratch my head wondering if I'm not getting something; you know, in the sense of not understanding the story because I'm either missing important information I should have known before reading, or maybe I'm just lazy-eyeing it and I'm overlooking the obvious.

Then there are those times I read comics like Deadlands: Black Water and opine the sad fate often befalling the One Shot: not enough space to tell the story fully, no followup issues to spell out the obtuse into clarity. That irks me a lot, especially when the artwork is appealing, and the ghost of a story's there to haunt you just a little bit, but not enough to warrant the effort of turning a page.

I get the fact this is a one shot comic based on an RPG adventure. So what? I shouldn't have to know the game's intricacies to enjoy the story, although it would've probably helped me fill in some gaps in getting from the first to last pages. What Mariotte, Turner, and Sellner fail to accomplish is fortifying their story with enough sensible motivations and character actions beyond the perfunctory. I like weird westerns. I also like getting more explanation and better rationale for the weirdness. I know, it's a pet peeve I can't shake.

A portly man driven by a mysterious vision of a woman forces him to travel into dangerous territory with his bodyguard. They hook up with Lyle Crumbfine, tour guide through the dangers they need to circumvent to reach their destination. Expendable victims are provided; roll the dice.

The gun blast that blows a man's brains out at the end doesn't have a plausible explanation and it isn't rational given the story's context leading up to it (however, possibly plausible if you allow for Crumbfine's game hindrance, which is Grim Servant o'Death). And I'll reckon the fast walk-through, of we-don't-have-the-pages-to-show-you-this-stuff-so-just-take-our-word-for-it, kills whatever death at every page turn suspense those Deadlands should be providing. Black Water is shallow as weird western mayhem goes, and disappointing when you consider the artwork provides the only supernatural energy, of which the cover's the most exciting page in the whole book because it implies all the intrigue you won't find inside.

Not helping is the secondary 5-pager, The Kid in "Outlaw," which falls under Dime Store Backup: Part 4 of 4. Okay, I'll bite: tell me how it makes commercial and artistic sense to take much needed, flesh-out, pages away from  the main story in a ONE SHOT?

This is one shot that misses its target.

Image Comics' '68 Hardship One Shot

ZC Rating 4 of 7: Very Good

Zombie wars are hell, but there are worse ones. Teddy's still fighting the Viet Cong in Hitchcock County, Nebraska, only it's not 1968 anymore and zombies, and a twister, are gearing up to stress him out even more. He can't tell the good guys from the bad guys, living or dead, so the potential for messing up his chances at survival is high, and the pressure keeps mounting. 

I remember the Vietnam War and how I was a stone's throw away from being drafted and shipped out. I remember how close I was to peeing in my pants when I sat down in front of a big, noisy typewriter, answering questions asked by a disinterested administrative type who typed the answers onto my draft card.  I remember holding the 4A draft card and thinking I'm so f*cked. Even my dad, who fought in World War II, said we'd move to Canada before he saw me fight Charlie and company. It wasn't a good time for anyone. The guys I knew who came back from Nam never stopped fighting it in their nightmares or their memories.

Teddy fought that war, got a Section 8, and wound up still fighting the war years after. Not a good thing when you need all your wits to combat the walking dead. Mark Kidwell, Jeff Zornow, and Jay Fotos provide the essential spilled entrails and bloody gore, but it's not only the zombies messing up the landscape, and that's where '68 Hardship moves to higher ground. It's vivid, it's sadly realistic, it's never dull. If you like seeing zombies sliced and diced by a threshing machine, this is for you. If you like zombie stories with more bite beyond the usual us against them, this one's for you, too. For Teddy, it's all about us against them, only he can't pinpoint exactly who "them" should be.

There was a television series in the 1960's called Combat! starring Vic Morrow. Although it was about soldiers in World War II, Image Comics captures a lot of the show's grim and gritty and realistic face of war in their '68 series. The more realism in zombie stories, the better they are for it by bringing the zombies closer to home, even if they, like wars, don't seem to change much. 

Image Comics' Fatale # 1 Tentacles and Tommy Guns

ZC Rating 4 of 7: Very Good

Noir and Lovecraft seem to go together like Victorian and Gothic; all dark tones and hardboiled moods that lead to bruised knuckles and bloodied bodies dumped in greasy alleys or sprawled across attic stairs or gasping out last breadths while some hellspawn squishes close by.

Ed Brubaker's direct, terse words and indirect, terse characters capture crime noir's rythm of lightly brushed cymbals and pensive bass strumming, and Sean Phillips panels his landscape morosely, filling it with dark places and brooding recesses, hiding mystery in every corner. Colors provide faint contrast, but Dave Stewart knows to leave well enough alone and highlights the shadows by ignoring the light. This is crime noir. There's little light in crime noir, even during the day. Which works just dandy because there's little light in horror, too.

No creeping tentacles here. Yet. But the sense that something nasty and lugubrious and mucousy wet, sliding and sloshing around the next corner, is always on high. First issues are so hard to nail down tight; either they're too bland with lengthy exposition leading nowhere and no revelations, or too ham-fisted with constant rote motion and not enough exposition to build suspense. Good crime and horror needs that suspense, but they also need enough action, uncertainty, and characters having lousy luck at the worst possible moments to make you turn the page or read the next issue. Brubaker, Phillips, and Stewart hit the jackpot here. Words are as important as imagery for the noir aesthetic and on both counts this first issue provides the right mix of textual and visual narrative in its pages, which run from 5 to 8 panels deep each page in a traditional layout.

The story starts with a funeral and loose ends needing to be tied up before they strangle somebody. There's the obligatory old dark mansion, papers to go through, the handsome and rugged in-over-his-head guy who's made all warm and masculine inside by the mysterious woman who holds the answers to the questions he's about to have his face rubbed in by sinister big henchmen with dark glasses and impatient demeanors. The backstory goes back a world war or two, and there's a few splattered cultists who probably shouldn't have done what they did. But now it's too late.

At 24 pages, this is a fine read. You know fine reads, don't you? They're the type we used to get before comic books went on a diet and cover prices fattened up. So kick back that two fingers of scotch, puff on that Camel until the smoke makes you teary-eyed and your throat hoarse, and pucker up for that big, wet one. Only don't be surprised if it's slimy and cool on the lips and smells like yesterday's catch.

This is noir horror, baby.

Mail-Order Mysteries Solved

ZC Rating 5 of 7: Excellent

Kirk Demarais is crazy; as a kid he becomes so enamored with all those wild and wacky mail-order items hyped in the pages of comic books that he has to seek them out, years later, to satisfy his curiosity. Years after his parents told him they were junk or cheap crap or not really what the ads said they were and he'd be disappointed and dollar-foolish if he bought any one of them. But Kirk Demarais is a crazy adult, and he goes ahead and hunts those mail-order mysteries down just to scratch his itch. And damn if it isn't a satisfying scratch.

Mail-Order Mysteries: Real Stuff from Old Comic Book Ads! scratches my itch, too, especially because I bought a lot of these cool-looking-in-print mysteries, only to find out many of them weren't as advertised, and all those too good to be true descriptions were spot on: they were definitely TOO good to be true . 

Grouping stuff into chapters like Top Secret, Oddities, Better Living Through Mail-Order, War Zone, High Finance, Trickery, and House of Horrors, Demarais gives us the lowdown on how the ad copy and ambitious product illustration perked our young imaginations, then he reveals the real deal, describing what you actually did receive for your allowance money.

Luckily, not all of these potentially awesome goodies turned out to be bad: the spooky Greedy Fingers Bank, originally made in tin-litho, was a screamer as the skeleton arm reached out to grab a coin; those 6-foot, full-color, Monster Size Monsters posters of Dracula and Frankenstein were freaking frightful; and my favorite, Grow Live Monsters, which came with a space astronorium (illustrated backdrop and stand)  and two colorfully creepy alien monstrosities for a buck,  was the cardboard and grass seed equivalent of the Chia Pet.

From experience I can tell you a bad one could be very disappointing, though, especially after waiting weeks for its mail delivery, all the while dreaming of the endless possibilities once you held it in your hands. The 100pc Toy Soldier Set flattened my hopes when those awfully flat plastic soldiers and armament arrived in their flimsy cardboard footlocker; I never got to see how the Venus Fly Trap plant captured and ate its insect prey because mine never blossomed; and the Magic Art Reproducer didn't produce for me at all. I'm still not sure why I even bought that one. While the Secret Agent Spy Camera didn't work out for me (I couldn't find anyone to develop the mini film), at least it was still cool to show and-tell at school and it made me feel like James Bond.  So at least that one wasn't a total loss.

For those who remember the thrill and empowerment felt when ordering golden junk like this from comic books, then waiting on pins and needles for it to arrive, and then winding up feeling either giddily satisfied, somewhat satisfied, or completely duped, this book will bring back lots of great memories (and maybe some depressing ones, too). For those who don't know anything about this pop-culture staple of early marketing, it's a gold mine of how gullible and desperate our young imaginations were.

And how much fun, and magical, and unbounded, too.

IDW's The Dunwhich Horror # 1

To be accurate, this is not H.P. Lovecraft's The Dunwich Horror, it's an adaptation of it by Joe R. Lansdale and Pete Bergting. To be querulous, this first issue doesn't do a good job of making me want to read more.

In 15 pages, past the opening brief other-worldly encounter, Lansdale gives us a lot of dialog from a small group of young people worrying about the future, some half-hearted denials that anything's wrong, and a final conclusion that there's no denying It is testing It's boundaries, and will find a way in--completely--before too long. They're part of a paranormal club doing it all for a lark, and somehow the lark's gotten bigger than they expected; more deadly, too.

This is the de rigueur impetus for nearly every Lovecraftian pastiche, cosmic apocalypse-cooking recipe, botched adapation, and mythos melodrama. And yes, it's getting long in the tooth. What keeps it still compelling is a suspenseful narrative delivered through a gothically-charged atmosphere. This first issue has neither. Bergting can't generate a visual sense of brooding and dooming in his minimal strokes, and Lansdale bores with unnecessary exposition, freezing the story with pretty talking heads and no movement. Sure, if this were a graphic novel I might be more lenient, but it's not. Dare to use H.P. Lovecraft's name to sell the comic and I'll double-dare you to justify using it.

It's not much of an entertaining comic book, either. The title story is supplanted by a second one, the first part of The Hound, comprised of a few full-page illustrations by Menton3 and scripted by Robert Weinberg. The narrative appears as handwritten, in flourishy white script, and the illustrations are similar to the cover's charcoal-like hazy obscurity and ominous moroseness. The static nature of the presentation--it's like reading a children's picture book in format--is not what I expect or want to read here. This is my personal preference because it amounts to a cop-out from the more demanding panel and narrative structure a comic book demands. 

The remaining pages are filled by IDW's promotions, including an 11 page preview of Memorial by Chris Roberson, and the first part of Weinberg's essay, Who Was H.P. Lovecaft? My answer would be, Why Not Google It?

The whole of all of this is underwhelming. 

Lenore: The Cute Little Dead Girl Vol. 2 # 3

ZC Rating 5 of 7: Excellent

Little? Yes. Dead? Without a doubt. Cute? That's stretching it, buddy.

In her latest escapade, Where Pooty At? Lenore goes off on a few tangents, remembers a forgotten thing or two, and plants her friends in the dirt because she's bored and wants to sprout more friends.

Let me explain.

Before I explain, though, I should mention we find out where Pooty's been at, well into the story. He's a bit annnoyed by not being found until then, but you'll see what I mean when you read this issue...Lenore can be a little scatter-brained at times, which is most of the time.

The dancing, prancing, and singing flower opening turns into a nightmare when an insistent, pollinating-minded bee wants to buzz around Ragamuffin's petals--

--Shoot, I suppose I should tell you up front that the dancing flower is Ragamuffin, the 400 year old vampire who fed on living flesh until he became a wormy, polyester rag doll and Lenore's fast friend, although she occasionally treats him pretty mean and insensitively, which is most of the time--

--Until Lenore insists on planting Ragamuffin up to his neck in dirt, producing some unexpected results, or really I should say unexpected for us because she's giddy with the results, as they turn out exactly as she hoped for, which doesn't happen most of the time--her expectations producing the desired results I mean.

Which leads to the Pooty part of the story when he's eventually found, though he's pissed it took so long to find him. Now Pooty's not a vampire or rag doll, he's just a minion of Hell who took a fancy to Lenore and decided to stick around after he was sent to bring her back after she got bored and left. He does have an odd head, or rather it's a bucket for a head, or maybe his head is just bucket-shaped. Either way he's not happy Lenore didn't find him sooner, so he sticks his trident in Ragamuffin's brains--though it wasn't Ragamuffin's fault at all--which look and taste a lot like cotton candy by the way, and so Lenore and Pooty can't help but munch on them. Reluctantly realizing it's not a very good thing to chew on Ragamuffin's brains, they stuff what's left back in.

They spend more time beating up on Ragamuffin by telling him all about the mean things they did to him while he slept--Lenore and Pooty kept scrapbooks--until Lenore buries Pooty bucket-neck deep in the dirt because she just can't have enough friends. He, of course, is now not so sure being found was a good thing.

There's more, but you should be able to get the gist of this issue by now. And it's in full color! 

Korean Horror Comic

Guan TC pointed me to this short online Korean horror comic. It's simple, direct, effective. Make sure you have your sound on, and scroll down the page to see the panels.

Comic Book Back Covers: Munsters Cookie Jars

From The Munsters, No. 1, 1997, published by TV Comics! I would have preferred Lily Munster instead, but I like Grandpa, too. Now, if Eddie's doll Woof Woof was made into a cookie jar, I'd buy that in a heartbeat.

Comic Book Back Covers: Resident Evil: Nemesis

Honestly, unless Jovovich is in the game, I'm not interested...from The Dreaming, No. 43, 1999...

Comic Book Back Covers: Nintendo's Best of the Best Karate

To be conscious or not be conscious...that's the kicker...from TMNT Mutant Universe Source Book, No. 1, 1992...

Comic Book Back Covers: Nintendo's Super Smash T.V.

I wish arcade games were STILL a quarter...from Superman: The Man of Steel, No. 10, 1992...

Comic Book Back Covers: Splatterhouse Video Game

Yes, you actually thought this was way cool graphics back in the day, don't deny it...Wonder Woman, No. 50, 1990...

Comic Book Back Covers: Daisy 840

Go ahead, shoot your eye out!...The Unexpected, Vol. 25, No. 204, 1980...