July 22, 2009

Zombos Says: Good

Heh-heh, Welcome–Welcome to the comic world's newest, most exciting
and most imaginative magazine in 10 years. I'm Creepy, your nauseating
host! I've scrounged around the lowest places imaginable to dig up the
comic industry's greatest and most fiendish artists! — Uncle Creepy (Creepy Magazine No. 1, 1964)

Uncle Creepy is back! And this time around he brings his bad-blooded relations, along with Sister Creepy, to punk out the night with four new stories oozing black and white terror, one loathsome lore, and one reprinted story. And let's not forget the Dear Uncle Creepy letters section, too.

The artwork is all very good, with Angelo Torres pencils visualizing Dan Braun's Hell Hound Blues, and Alex Toth's reprinted Daddy and the Pie lending some classy support; but from the lighter lines of Hillary Barta's Loathsome Lore on Faustian Deals and Brian Churilla's All the Help You Need, to Shawn Alexander's The Curse Part One and Saskia Gutekunst's Chemical 13! darker, starker characters, the stories capture the old Creepy mystique fairly well, especially with Uncle Creepy providing the introductions and appropriately quippy last words.

In The Curse Part One, Jude discovers he has a certain knack for making his wishes come true. Unfortunately, his mom has been doing some wishing, too, and Jude is in for a shocking surprise. Hell Hound Blues plays off the Robert Johnson legend, wherein the Devil provides the soulful chords for a price. Or was it really Tommy Johnson who met up with the Devil at the crossroads one lonely midnight? Who the devil knows? The story could have used a few more pages to flesh it out, but the ending is classic Creepy. In Chemical 13!, the Nazis get exactly what they bargained for, and Delia Gold gets the fat farm treatment–to the max–in All the Help You Need. The only problem is the farm next store prefers to chew the fat more than lose it.

On the Dear Uncle Creepy letters page is a family snapshot promising some interesting happenings with oddball relatives popping up in future issues. For issue one we are introduced to Sister Creepy, a cool, naughty, Goth who dishes up the Loathsome Lore with relish.

An unexpected oddity for this issue is the reprinted Daddy and the Pie, a story more sci fi than horror. It is a well-executed story but still not horror, so it ends this issue with a whimper instead of a chill. But it is nice to see the classy creepster back in action, and I am sure, based on this first issue, the chill will return soon enough.

Book Review: Monsters From the Vault Special Edition
Kharis Unearthed!

July 22, 2009 / Magazine Morgue / Leave a Comment

Jul 22 2009

Zombos Says: Very Good

Come the casting of Lon Chaney in The Mummy's Tomb, and the Universal legend of Kharis truly came alive–both on the screen and the back lot.

Indeed, once 'The Screen's Master Character Creator' was under that mask and inside that costume, true horror ran amok at Universal City. Forsaking tana leaf tea for vodka (hidden inside the suit and sipped through a straw), the Chaney Mummy drunkenly rampaged through the rest of the series–genuinely terrifying leading ladies, dangerously attacking fellow actors, vociferously claiming the Mummy mask gave him an allergy, and angrily bitching about his costume to anyone who'd listen (Greg Mank, Kharis Unearthed!).

Monsters From the Vault magazine has released Kharis the Mummy from his celluloid tomb in their first Special Edition: Kharis Unearthed! Profusely illustrated with sharp photographs that show every three thousand year old wrinkle and dusty bandage, and effusively written by Gregory Mank, Mummy fans will savor this superlative look into one of Universal's least appreciated–but one of their most recognizable–monsters. Who hasn't dressed up as the mummy for Halloween?

What started as a year-long quest to assemble the best photographs of Kharis turned into a wonderful homage to the four films that launched–more like lurched, really–his terror into movie theaters for audiences who, to this day, either deride or cherish the ambling Mummy as he slurps tana tea under the guidance of the high priests of Karnak, the real villains of this series, and slowly stalks his victims–conveniently always too paralyzed with fear to escape the death grip of his one good arm.

Each film is addressed by Mank, who provides wonderful anecdotes regarding Tom Tyler's The Mummy's Hand, and Lon Chaney's turn at the bandages in The Mummy's Tomb, The Mummy's Ghost, and The Mummy's Curse. Mank's enthusiasm and informed observations make me want to rediscover this series, especially director Le Borg's more ambitious handling of The Mummy's Ghost.

John Carradine is the most Grim Reaper-esque of all the series' high priests…Ramsay Ames is the most drop-dead sexy of the Kharis leading ladies…Universal's back lot New England provides a poetic, Halloween night aura for the Mummy's midnight haunts…George Zucco's Andoheb gets a farewell showcase…and the surprise Lost Horizon-style finale is still a gut puncher–probably causing more than one smart-ass 1944 teenager to shut up, sit up, and stop razzing the movie (Greg Mank, Kharis Unearthed!)

Two more sections, devoted to the actors who portrayed the high-priests and the leading-ladies (the real highlights in all the Mummy movies), provide ample insight into, and respect for, the creative people who gave Kharis life.

For Kharis fans, Kharis Unearthed! is a picture and word treasure to savor, to be read late at night under the bedsheets, with a steady flashlight and a cool, dry breeze blowing in from an open window. For future Kharis fans, this special edition provides a wealth of information to prepare them for the fun of experiencing the Mummy for the first time.