“The Dead Don’t Sleep” was originally published in Atlas’ Adventures Into Terror #30 (1954). Art is credited to Al Eadah. “Death by Witchcraft” is from Harvey Comics’ Witches Tales #4 (1951). The Grand Comics Database credits Rudy Palais for pencils and Vic Donahue for inks. The reprint in Haunted Horror #23 from IDW, and a blog entry in The Horrors of It All from Karswell in 2007 doesn’t think Palais had anything to do with it.
Have a great Halloween!
The ending of the "Dead don't Sleep" surprised me. I was sure that the voice calling them to come was calling them to their eternal rest and that by silencing that voice the dead would wander restlessly forever. Killing the medium doesn't really solve their dilemma of course. Another medium could just as easily come along and disturb their "rest"
ReplyDeleteI was equally surprised by Death by Witchcraft. Considering how terrified of growing old and weak Arnold I was expecting his punishment to be that he couldn't die and would be doomed to an eternal life of "wrinkles and disease" as Arnold put it. Actually he got exactly what he wanted. As the Who put it "Hope I die before I get old". And so he did. Just a bit sooner than expected.
But Dora did get all his money and his mansion so there is that. But at the cost of her soul I don't think it was a very good deal.
So kudos I suppose to the authors who avoided what I thought were predictable outcomes.
Both are very nice stories, I like them both for different reasons. The Atlas story has incredible art, Eadah knocks it out of the park with every ghost, and it's a fun punch ending.
ReplyDeleteThe second story is longer but a great journey, there's no redemption for any of the characters and they all basically get what is coming to them ... eventually.
Happy Halloween! And this year no grumpy post about kids and rotten Halloween candy!
Rick, hey, thanks for your assessment of the stories. I should hire you to interpret horror stories. At least to me go way over the edge of reality; so far as to make them totally unbelievable, which horror stories usually are. The successful ones give the reader a sense of reality and "what if this happened to me?" shudders while reading.
ReplyDelete(I remember reading The Exorcist — before the movie version — for the first time and feeling spooked; then turning out the lights and having to walk what seemed like an interminable distance to my bedroom so I could sleep... and I didn't do much sleeping that night. For me a great story is about suspending disbelief in the probability of the plot.)
Brian, just because I am a cane-waving, get the hell outta my yard grouchy old man, I do buy candy for kids. I usually end up eating the whole bag, because we don't get many, if any, trick or treaters in my neighborhood. The neighborhood still has most of the people it did when Mrs Pappy and I moved here in 1975. Their kids, like my son, have grown and moved on, and with rare exceptions, no younger couples with kids have moved in to take their place.
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