Number 446
To know the secret of the Black Dungeon is to die...
"Black Dungeon" is from 1951, Mystic #2. The Atlas site, www.atlastales.com, says the artist is Mike Sekowsky.
I owned Mystic #2 until about 2000 when I sold it on eBay. Ever do that? Sell something and immediately kick yourself for doing it? I've done it too many times. My bum is sore from those self-kicks. I felt lucky to find the story in one of the Marvel reprint books of the '70s, Beware #8, 1974.
I like the splash panel, although it doesn't have anything to do with the story, nor does the original 1951 cover, but in its own right the story is pretty good.
This is very much like an old Robert Bloch story that was turned into an ep of THRILLER on TV. If Bloch's story came first, this is a swipe.
ReplyDeleteWhat? A comic book rip off a popular writer? Unheard of...except by EC and every other comic book publisher in history.
ReplyDeleteI believe I remember the story by Bloch, but not the Thriller version. Is the main character's name Hugo?
This is a really good one Pappy, I have the reprint version too but not the original. And yes, I have regrettably ebayed off a couple comics... I even have the shoe print on my arse to prove it. Wah.
ReplyDeletemy GOD that was depressing! but well done.
ReplyDeleteIt does remind me a lot of the Robert Bloch short, "The Weird Tailor," which a bit of searching reveals was first published in the July 1950 number of "Weird Tales," so predating this story by a year. It was done as a "Thriller" episode in 1961 and later as a story within the portmanteau movie "Asylum" in 1972 starring Peter Cushing and Barry Morse. Despite being scripted by Bloch, it's one of the more disappointing Amicus anthologies. I know you didn't like their "Vault of Horror" and, I would guess, their "Tales from the Crypt," Pappy, but I saw them before I'd even heard of EC and so enjoyed them for what they were. I'm very fond of portmanteau films myself, right from "Dead of Night." It's a shame they're out of fashion.
ReplyDelete