Anticipating Halloween next week, we have a spooky story. The moody and melodramatic tale of a malevolent medium in the aftermath of murdering his mark has a gimmick: a couple of meanings, besides the most obvious, for the term “dead man.” Huh. I was not familiar with either of these descriptive phrases before, so who says you can’t learn something from comic books? King Ward signed this story in the splash panel with a fancy “K”. It is from
Forbidden Worlds #2 (1951).
That's some nice art, and it's really busy, which you don't see a lot in the some of the pre-code horror publishers.
ReplyDeleteStories got a lot going on, though, it's a bit messy. In horror stories, I always think that the smaller amount of elements you can throw into it, the better. Too many elements and nothing really jumps out at you (ha!)
Brian, the story is gimmicky, but we get a lot of nice artwork even as we are being hit in the head with the phrase, "dead man."
ReplyDeleteLove King Ward, very underrated
ReplyDeleteWell, Mr. Karswell, after all, it was your blog, The Horrors of It All that introduced me to the artist. For that I am most grateful.
ReplyDeleteGosh, I LOVE these old horror stories! (all of them have a moral lesson, yay!)
ReplyDelete:D
Yelinna, thanks for your note. Yes, horror stories have a moral lesson — after a fashion. It would be nice if justice was meted out as swiftly and surely as it is in horror comics.
ReplyDeleteI was unaware of King Ward until this post. Excellent work. Thanks Mr. Pappy —and for the link to The Horrors of It All. Some swell King Ward stories appearing there at this moment (2014-10-28).
ReplyDelete7f7, as I mentioned to Karswell, it was that blog that introduced me to King Ward's artwork, and for that I am grateful. Karswell is also, as you may know, the co-editor of the Haunted Horrors comic book series from IDW. (A little plug, there.)
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