Number 85
The Forbidden Drink
Hey, guys…ever really liked a girl and found out she didn't feel the same way? Of course you have. But I hope when you found out she didn't dig you it wasn't because she was laughing in your face. Poor Philip Sanderson, the hero of this story from Atlas Comics' Mystic #2, May, 1951, loved a girl and she spurned him in the most cruel way possible.
I've never figured out how men in comic book stories like this ever got married or got dates when the chicks are shooting them off the page with insults. (See Pappy's #10). Our hero, the actor, Philip, has always played the part of the great lover, but when he's old, he becomes a joke. His audience lets him know. Rosalie, the much younger woman he loves lets him know in no uncertain terms what a joke she thinks he is.
So why does he go back? Why does he still want her? The most obvious reason is that it serves the purpose of the story. It also sets up the Faustian deal that Philip gets for himself that leads to the last panel.
Philip could have spared himself some trouble. We've all known our Rosalies and being put through the tortures of the damned. Philip would be smarter to realize that he should be hanging around nursing homes looking for girlfriends. The rejections might not be so harsh.
Although the plot device of selling a soul to the devil qualifies it as horror, unlike horror comics stories from just a couple of years later there's no crime, no murder, no gore. The art is attributed to Pete Tumlinson by the Atlas Tales website.
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