While you glance over the selections, I almost forgot: another motive for posting these two was a question I haven't really answered myself.
By the way, I know pre code horror is a specific taste and if you're not into it, no hard feelings.
But the question itself;
Do the reprints build up a false sense of a golden age that really wasn't there? The law of the wave says that there had to be lows along with the highs. Even those EC comics had to have less than stellar stories from time to time.
That's a really solid question. I'm of the opinion that all art genres have peaks and troughs. Still, just as some stock prices have stronger charts than others, I'm pretty sure that E.C.'s chart would be considerably stronger than the four Harvey imprints. The Wertham hearing fiasco and the antihistimine situation notwithstanding, I got the feeling that Gaines (for all of his and his father's dabbling in multiple genres) cared about the product and hired artists and writers who cared about the product. Indeed, the later Warren black and whites (which spooked me out just glancing at them off the racks) always seemed to be more of a labor of love than mere (if one can every really call it that) publishing venture.
It's not a genre which I have followed faithfully, but that's my general impression. That being said, let's look at these specific issues.
#13 – I read this one first and wasn’t very surprised by any of the plots. This may be pre-code horror, but it didn’t seem the level of the EC comics I remember. The art was colorful and imaginative on the creature front, but not particularly inspiring in term of human characterizations.
Elixir of Evil was a typical Jekyll and Hyde transformation story. It seemed to be a moral allegory versus greed and lust, much like the classic novel. Indeed, it seemed like such a morality tale that one finds it hard to believe it’s a pre-code story.
The Torture Jar reminds me of an experiment I tried with insects during my junior high school years. I was researching the properties of sulfur and timed how long insects could last against the fumes of burning sulfur before they expired. HINT: Cockroaches lasted longer than houseflies and mosquitos. In this case, we have the trope of aliens of superior intelligence placing human victims in the torture jar, as opposed to my personal killing jar. There was definitely a sense of poetic justice in this one, but I suppose the vivid demise (if it is indeed a demise) of certain humans was grotesque enough to qualify as pre-code horror. I did, however, like the fact that the character name, Ephraim Harley, would have fit equally well in a story from H. P. Lovecraft or August Derleth.
The Impossible text filler was pretty much just that. There’s no explanation, no interesting revelation, and no solid motivation for what the protagonist was feeling or seeing. It’s almost like the editor said, “We need a partial page filler inside of 20 minutes.” The writer said, “That’s impossible!” Then, proceed to write this atmospheric, but unconvincing, text.
Laugh, Clown, Laugh is a perfect example of this genre. One can either take a supernaturalist or a psychoanalytical approach and still be satisfied with the story. It is a classic murder/revenge trope with the potential for graphic, public homicides used in the circus venue for colorful and exotic results. Oh, I would have enjoyed the story more if the characters, particularly the knife-thrower’s assistant, had been drawn with more attention to realism, but I liked the story because it reminded me of all those haunted circus movies I used to watch late on Friday nights when the horror feature would come on. This is, by no means, a perfect story, but it is iconic for a certain type of tale.
Death Lies Ahead is a typical story of people overplaying their hand(s). Although the climax didn’t occur exactly as I expected, the irony was the same. The artwork seemed very rough and rushed in this story. It is definitely not a sophisticated presentation. I was intriguing enough to be worthy of attention, but I don’t think I would have ever been a regular customer of this book. [DISCLAIMER: I was too young to read it when it first came out, but my parents would have never let me by a horror comic anyway. It wasn’t until Marvel published Werewolf By Night that I experienced my first horror comic. It was only later (much later) that I discovered EC Comics at garage sales, reprints, and anthologies.]
Time for Terror is simply a text tale set up in the mode of The Lady or the Tiger.
Now, when we got to #24, things still seemed simple, plot-wise, often turning on a single word or concept, but from the first story, “The Undertaker,” the atmospherics seemed richer. The ending was definitely foreshadowed; one could see it coming as soon as the protagonist put his plan into place, but it was a story that had gravitas—even the Stan Lee-style dialectical speech gimmickry of the eponymous character in the story. Suddenly, this story didn’t seem like the Casper the Friendly Ghost publisher trying to take horror seriously. This one seemed viable.
“Pictures,” the initial text entry in this volume, was an extremely contrived piece of irony. It was good enough to keep me reading. I was expecting some Twilight Zone-style story where the camera was causing these horrible things. As it was, the ending felt rushed and forced. No regrets about reading it, though!
I would have liked to see better scansion on the twisted little nursery rhymes of “Mother Mongoose,” but I still liked the idea—significantly better than the average filler page.
The “Mutiny on the Boundary” parody was colorful and atmospheric, even though I wouldn’t exactly call it “horror.” As parody, it was solid. The “ending” (for no one believes the authorities would let things stand as they are at the conclusion) was certainly more appropriate than the conclusion of the tale of “The Bounty.”
The private detective story, “Eye, Eye Sir!” had some of the most interesting character expressions I can ever remember seeing in a Harvey publication. Even though the story seemed done more for laughs than horror, it had a nice rhythm and progression. Of course, as I said before, the ending was clearly foreshadowed with the recurring refrain providing the vital clue. The story was good fun, but it definitely could have used some exposition to go with the rather cheap twist of the climax. Although handled in a much lighter vein, the protagonist sort of reminded me of Eisner's The Spirit.
“Surgery,” the second text adventure in the volume, was tremendously predictable. It might be a little more “One Step Beyond” than “The Twilight Zone,” but it had that limited space between the commercials feel to it.
Speaking of “commercials,” as a former publisher (not of comics), I was really amazed at the number of advertisements Harvey was able to cram into this issue. Commercially, it definitely looked more viable than a lot of the comics I’ve seen over the years.
The second set of “Mother Mongoose’s Nursery Rhymes” were even more forgettable than the first. The most interesting aspect of these snippets was the blatant promotion on the back of the police van, reminding readers to “Look for the Harvey H.” I chuckled more than I did with the “rhyme.”
“Monumental Feat” was, again, predictable—only the exact instrument revealed to do the plot’s bidding was different than I expected. Without too much of a spoiler, let me just suggest that the important device was not one of the three possible instruments I expected the author(s) to use.
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Topic: READING GROUP # 295 Witches Tales 13,24 (Read 2496 times)
