Number 262
Flipping the bird
You never want to scoff at an old Indian legend. No sirree. Otherwise you'll end up like this hunter who went against the strong advice of an old Indian. "Wings Of Death" is likely inspired by "The Birds," a novelette by Daphne DuMaurier published in 1952 in her collection The Apple Tree, and later made famous by Alfred Hitchcock in his movie version.
The story is signed by Frank Giacoia. A commenter on this posting gave the opinion that the pencil artwork was done by Mike Sekowsky. The story is from St. John's Amazing Ghost Stories #15, 1954, reprinted from Weird Thrillers #5 (1952).
6 comments:
Vultures pickin' a guy clean stories were pretty popular in the pre-codes, of course EC probably has the best/most gruesome one. I've got another good one in a Mysterious Adventures issue that I should post one of these days. Can't remember which number though...
Just like you can't remember which issue of Mysterious Adventures had the vulture story, I can't remember who did the song, "Carrion, My Wayward Son." (Ouch.)
> "Carrion, My Wayward Son."
Ha ha, some cannibals from Topeka I believe.
The Mysterious Adventures story is called The Vultures of Doom from issue #12.
I also just remembered that Atlas had a great vulture story too. Of course EC had the best one with the guy handcuffed to the dead cop and lost out in the desert.
And as someone coincidently pointed out today on my blog, there was also Doug Wildey's "Trapped" from Fight Against Crime #17 with some hungry vultures downing a man alive.
I have it on reasonably good authority - Gil Kane & Julie Schwartz - that Frank, who was very insecure about his penciling, would generally hire someone to ghost rough pencils for him, usually Mike Sekowsky. (Gil did a couple, though I don't know which; everyone liked Frank.) Looking at this story, I'd guess Mike's hand underneath it all, with finished pencils and inks by Frank, who was always much more comfortable as an inker anyway.
By the way, "Carrion, My Wayward Son" was a story title used by Bill Mantlo during his Spec Spidey run...
- Steven Grant
Thanks, Steven, for pointing that out even though I've never read a comic book by Bill Mantlo. I guess great minds run in the same gutter!
As for Sekowsky doing the ghosting, you're probably right. There was a lot of this sort of thing going on, probably still is. Wood, Williamson, et al., all had gangs of people working on their strips and still signed their names as if they were responsible for every line.
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