The three sisters who are “The Sisters of the Witch” are a mean bunch. They are beauties, and flirt with a hunk, Rob. Their older sister, Martha, is plain and in love with Rob, who ignores her. She whips up some spells and takes care of at least two-thirds of her rivals. In this case I am rooting for Martha because her sisters are mean girls, insulting Martha about her lack of beauty. I think they deserve what they get.
Karswell showed the story in his blog, The Horrors of It All, in 2012. These are scans from Tales of Horror #5 (1953). The artwork is by comic book journeyman Barnard Baily. The writer is unknown.
In my opinion, the evolution of Baily's style was a sad one. His early work is simplistic but has a gracefulness to it. Then his work became more like cartooning without much knack for that. His stuff from the '50s, as here, is detailed, but drawn as if either slap-dash or with a loss of motor coördination; it's like a coarsened version of product from the Iger studio.
ReplyDeleteThe fates of Mae (the first sister) and of Martha herself were designed to fit; Mae is shown what is said to be her real face,* and Martha is the most evil person in the room. But the attack on Lil has no corresponding link to her virtue or lack thereof; I suppose that nothing occurred to the writer that would have made Lil's fate more fitting. And a better way needed to be found to bring the final four characters together; one doesn't normally ask someone suffering immediate and severe cardiac difficulties to exercise herself.
"I think I'll sell this place and move." The house ads write themselves! "Contains mysterious witch room with built-in fire snake and dead witch!"
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with you on this one, I'm on team Martha. They were all jerks. Heck, Rob could have made an effort to be nice to her, but he didn't even do that. The fire snake sure made a bad choice at the end!
And now this month both you are Karswell have called out to each other, my two favorite comic blogs!
"Oh Rob, it's so wonderful to be with you, now that all my sisters are dead. What a wonderful weekend!"
ReplyDeleteBrian, I didn't realize Karswell and I were calling out. I just try to let people know I am not swiping from his blog. I haven't told this story for a long time, but Pappy's was originally going to be a horror comics blog called "The Grim Reader's Horror Comics," but the idea died in utero. I am glad I didn't follow through, because Karswell has done such a great job with The Horrors of it All.
ReplyDeleteRick Heg: YES! You captured the tone perfectly. Just skip the mourning when a sister dies, saves time, and just puts the survivor in the winner's circle for the guy.
ReplyDeleteDaniel, since Baily had been a publisher in the mid-'40s, and had a shop doing artwork for one-shot titles, I don't know how much of the later Baily is 100% his. Some, or even all of it may have been done by other artists.
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