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Post by shaxper on Jul 16, 2015 11:15:55 GMT -5
Maybe there was no story-based reason for three panels of an attractive woman, but who needs a reason? I'll take the art! True. This would likely only annoy Doug Moench and anyone crazy enough to be reviewing all of Moench's stories in order.
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Post by shaxper on Jul 16, 2015 18:58:55 GMT -5
"The Creature of Loch Ness!" (from Creepy #53, May 1973) art by Jose Bea my grade: D plot synopsis: A young zoologist who believes in the Loch Ness Monster persuades a colleague who does not to come with him to Loch Ness on a fact-finding mission. They argue back and forth about the plausibility of the monster's existence, finally actually seeing it. They go back, convinced, only for the reader to learn that what they saw was an inflatable decoy utilized by the local hotel owner to drum up business. As he rows out to admire his handiwork, he is killed by the real Loch Ness monster, all while the scientists, back home, examine their photographs closely and dismiss the whole thing as a stunt.It must have been quite a task for Moench to drum up new premises for his horror stories as regularly as he did. He must have been writing at least one story a week at this point, and, after a while of writing at that pace, one would suspect you start to exhaust all the conventions of the horror genre. It's for this reason, I suspect, that this story, while something Moench hadn't tackled before, lacks his usual umph. Much like "Hit and Run: Miss and Die!" in March, and "The Message is the Medium" in April, this story feels phoned in, lacking in Moench's usual narrative flare, rich imagery, and visual premise. And, just as in "Hit and Run," Moench is paired here with an artist that did amazing things with his work previously, only to turn in bland and generic visuals this time around. Jose Bea absolutely nailed Moench's visual style with "Quavering Shadows", perhaps moreso than any other artist who drew his stories for Warren, but it seems as though Moench didn't give him much in the way of notes and suggestions this time. So, all that being said, this story ends up being two generic talking-head characters going back and forth tediously (and sometimes repetitively) about the existence of the Loch Ness Monster, only to stop in time for a lame and predictable twist ending. Granted, they bring up points on both sides that were somewhat interesting to me, as I've never given the legend much thought one way or the other, but that might have worked better as a one page interior cover write-up on the Loch Ness Monster than a joyless nine page story.
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Post by shaxper on Aug 10, 2015 8:05:44 GMT -5
"The Choice" (from Vampirella #24, May 1973) art by Rafael Auraleon my grade: B Plot synopsis: A werewolf is observed by a woman while preying on another female, but shakes it off, returning to his castle (he is a baron), only to discover the woman who witnessed him was his own wife. Though she struggles with the revelation, she agrees to stay with and aid him, locking him in a cage under the next full moon and becoming thoroughly emotionally drained by the experience. The two grow increasingly distant as an overly accommodating servant begins spending more time with the wife. During the next full moon, the baron bursts out of his cage to spy upon his wife and servant, only to learn that the servant is a vampire who has slowly been turning his wife. He rejects the urge to kill his wife out of rage, feeling immense pity for her instead, and thus deciding to mercy kill her instead. As his wife burns to death in the fire he has created, he debates whether he should join her and end his misery or live and destroy the vampire who did this to her.Possibly Moench's most psychologically rich tale yet, this one is such a metaphor for the darknesses we all bring into our relationships. That the baron must wrestle with the hypocricy of resenting his wife for becoming a vampire when she has had to deal with his being a werewolf, as well as the later inversion that he only became a werewolf in attempting to save her from a wolf attack, exposes a level of circuitous introspection that we all become ensnared in when relationships are turning sour and eating away at our souls. Is this really about extra marital affairs? Latent sexuality? Maybe just the question of "who's fault is it that we're fighting this time?" Who is to say? And yet it all feels so very very familiar. Much of what makes it easy to relate to this story is Moench's unusual choice to have the baron maintain total awareness while the werewolf. His impulses and emotions change, but not his overall character. I'm not sure I've ever seen it done in quite this way before. It's a much better reflection of our own experiences in life and relationships: able to be cruel and irrational at an arbitrary turn and then wonder how we can still be us and yet behave like monsters. The flaw in this story is the pacing. While Moench delivers a powerful psychological study, it ends abruptly, with the baron attempting to make his decision. There's a way to end on that note and make it resonate, but instead it just feels like Moench ran out of space, time, or consciousness when writing this thing. There's also no visual premise this time, narrative cleverness, nor twist ending -- all traits I've come to expect from Moench as a writer. Of course, Moench will see nine stories published over the next two months and, on that kind of writing schedule, I'd imagine he isn't doing many revised drafts (if any!). Remember, Moench is being paid to churn out hack thrill adventures, and, at this point, he's being paid by the story. As of May 1973, Auraleon has been the artist most frequently paired with Moench, and yet there is no great synergy between them. I would rank Auraleon's work on Moench's scripts as generally being average. Here, his layouts are ordinary, his inks inexpressive, but he adequately conveys all that is happening. He does make a stylistic choice in how he draws the werewolf: But, upon further inspection, I think he's just looking for ways to avoid depicting all that detailed hair. After all, he turns in one photo-referenced panel late in the story, and it makes no effort to go for the same style he'd been employing otherwise: Yes, you've found a good photo of Lon Chaney jr. and duplicated it well, but you'd think he'd make some minor changes to have it resemble the werewolf he'd drawn for the rest of the story if he'd actually cared about what he was doing.
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Post by shaxper on Aug 14, 2015 23:00:40 GMT -5
"Cold Calculation" (from Vampirella #25, June 1973) art by Ramon Torrents my grade: A- Plot synopsis: an average joe trying to stave off debt accepts a job as lackey to researchers deep in Alaska. It is soon revealed that he is replacing the female researcher's husband, who wandered off in the snow and is believed by his wife to have been killed by a Yeti at large. One night, something enters the protagonist's room. He is able to fight it off, and the team quickly devises a method for taking it down. They do so, with the female researcher firing the bullets that finally kill the thing, only to realize it's the missing husband who has managed to survive for all this time. The wife continues to convince herself it was a Yeti, revealing that a fight between them led to his leaving in the first place.A pretty solid and yet different Moench script, which is surprising considering how he's churning scripts out by the numbers at this point. While the final twist, itself, is no shocker, there's a lot else going right with this script that impressed me. For one, while Moench has tried to write "average joe" protagonists before, he usually makes them slimy characters out of a bad noir film. This time, there's a subtle hinted pathos experienced by the protagonist as he takes interest in the romantic tragedy playing out by the end. Moench doesn't oversell it, but you can sense it just the same, and that's more impressive coming from a character who otherwise comes off as uninterested and numb. For another, I love that Moench allows the story to progress beyond the standard tropes of a horror story. Yes, one character believes there is a monster while the others doubt her, but when the evidence becomes difficult to ignore, instead of just panicking and getting killed off, the team works together to devise a clever strategy for taking the monster down. It's exciting, darn it. Reminds me a bit of George Romero's Dawn of the Dead. And the ending, itself, while predictable, is very touching. My only regret here is that, once again, Moench crams far too much into the final panels, afraid of giving time for falling action and resolution. Were this a 9 pager, I'd get it, but this story was only seven pages long. Surely Moench could have expanded it out two more pages in order to give the ending the decompression and gravity it so required. Look how crammed in all of this is. It's powerful stuff that deserves room to breath and resonate. Torrents does an adequate enough job conveying Moench's ideas, but it isn't very Moench. It's striking, but it isn't the signature style Moench had been employing previously. No real visual concept at work throughout beyond the idea of a man wearing furs being mistaken for a monster -- a visual idea Moench previously employed in his very first script to Warren. As usual, I suspect Moench was flying through these scripts too quickly at this point to concern himself overly much with directions to the artists.
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Post by shaxper on Aug 23, 2015 17:45:37 GMT -5
"The Slipped Mickey Click Flip" (from Creepy #54, July 1973) art by Richard Corben my grade: A Plot synopsis: Uncle Creepy is on strike, lamenting being temporarily replaced by a Mr. Diment; a character who wastes no time revealing that he's so psychologically disturbed as to be completely confused between what is good and what is bad, brutally stabbing his assistant as a reward for pleasing him. He then goes on to introduce a doctor who once tried to cure him of his insanity and then discusses the nonsensical supernatural means he used of enacting revenge -- first murdering the doctor, then his wife, then his faithful dog, and the utterly twisted ways in which he did so. Ultimately, realizing that the rant makes little sense, he decides to be offended by the reader not enjoying the story and then threatens to get us next.When Richard Corben first took on a Moench script with "Bright Eyes" (Eerie #43, Nov. 1972), I noted that the story felt far more like tales Corben would go on to co-author than anything Moench was writing at the time. Now, in their second story together, we once again have a tale that feels nothing like anything Moench had written previously or would go on to write after. The extent of the non-sensical derangement, delivering shock and absurd humor with no regard for narrative craft whatsoever, just isn't Moench at all. It leaves me wondering if, in fact, these were both Corben stories that Moench merely scripted. In "The Peruvian Connection: Confessions of a Horror Writer" (2001)*, Moench acknowledged having phone contact with Corben around this time (he never spoke to most of the artists who did his scripts prior to Marvel), but Moench remembers them only discussing his submitting a story for Corben's Grimwit publication (coming soon in this thread): But he in no way suggests Corben was plotting or co-plotting these scripts. In fact, earlier on in the same interview, he suggests just the opposite while discussing artists who would bungle his vision when penciling: So that leaves us with four distinct possibilities, here: 1. Moench is badly misremembering, and these stories were, in fact, at least partially conceived by Corben. 2. Moench is badly misremembering, and these stories were significantly altered by Corben. Moench either didn't mind or saw the changes as improvements. 3. Corben was picking and choosing the stories he would do and was particularly drawn to the two Moench stories that felt the least like Moench stories. 4. Moench wrote these, Corben drew them, and it's an utter coincidence that they don't feel like Moench stories at all. You decide. Anyway, if we can put aside the fact that there's little Moench to be found in this script, the story is utterly awesome, as Corben appears to infect it with all the nonsensical sadism of the underground comix scene. Sure, there's a little bit of Poe to be found in the rambling narrator bragging about the twisted revenge he formulated, but beyond that, it's all just strange and perverse for the sake of strangeness and perversity. Here's the doctor getting run over by Thomas the Tank Engine: Yay! And then there's the sheer lengths that Mr. Diment goes to in getting revenge on the family dog for the sheer sake of having been the doctor's faithful dog: One thing I always love about Corben is how soft and rounded his edges are. For most artists, you'd use such an approach to indicate safety and simplicity, but Corben seems to purposefully thrive on the mismatch of tones his style elicits and, in this case, there's almost a perverse eroticism at play in those soft edges as Mr. Diment seems to nearly get off on his revenge fantasy. Really supremely twisted stuff. Bold content for something as mainstream as Creepy. * Cooke, Jon. "The Peruvian Connection: Confessions of a Horror Writer." The Warren Companion. Vol. 1. Raleigh: Twomorrows, 2001. 118-125. Print.
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Post by Warmonger on Aug 25, 2015 12:45:21 GMT -5
His runs on Moon Knight and Batman were awesome. Was also the creator of one of the most underrated characters in comics history Deathlok
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Post by Rob Allen on Aug 25, 2015 14:58:43 GMT -5
His runs on Moon Knight and Batman were awesome. Was also the creator of one of the most underrated characters in comics history Deathlok Frank, Deathlok has come up before in this thread. Doug scripted his earliest stories but the credit for creating Deathlok goes to Rich Buckler. See my post on page 3: classiccomics.boards.net/post/64114
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Aug 25, 2015 15:42:08 GMT -5
His runs on Moon Knight and Batman were awesome. Was also the creator of one of the most underrated characters in comics history Deathlok Have you read his Electric Warrior? It's essentially the Deathlok concept taken to a stranger level. It's uneven work that is occasionally great and often bad, but it's a short run and worth the look if you like Deathlok. My reviews of Electric Warrior
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Post by shaxper on Oct 20, 2015 8:23:53 GMT -5
"Let's All Drink to the Death of A Clown" (from Psycho #13, July 1973) art by: Fernando Rubio My grade: C Plot synopsis: A wealthy man is being pursued by a clown that he appears to know. As he continues to run from the clown that casually follows him, he flashes back to recall that he is a circus owner who wanted to date his top aerialist, but she was engaged to the clown now pursuing him, so he killed him and then fired all of his clown friends. At the end, we learn that it's the clown friends dressing as their murdered comrade who are haunting the circus owner until they surround and kill him. Ultimately, the narrator decides, he was the real clown.I'm occasionally asked what my criteria is for grading these stories. It's quite simple: C is an average story that is neither particularly good nor bad, and then every grade above and below is that much better or worse than a C, with an A+ being a flawless work and an F being a work utterly beyond possessing any redeeming qualities. And yet, while I've had many A+ stories before and one or two Fs, I rarely (if ever) stumble upon a perfect C; a story so thoroughly ho-hum ordinary as to almost not be worth discussing. In a thread reviewing the breadth of Moench's output, this story is the perfect C that lies in the middle of everything else I will grade. Moench delivers a well-tread revenge plot, recycles a visual motif last employed (and to a far more successful degree) in a previous story, the narration attempts to be clever by employing a device that neither particularly works nor particularly doesn't (framing the narration through the emotions the protagonist undergoes: desire, rejection, indignation, shame, fury, avowal, jealousy, helplessness, envy, and resolve), the characters are flat arch types neither done particularly well nor particularly badly, and Rubio's art is absolutely adequate. The awesome title aside, there is truly nothing remarkable about this story, one way or the other. A perfect C at a time in which Moench was pumping out stories as fast as he could for Warren and Skywald.
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Post by shaxper on Oct 20, 2015 9:07:47 GMT -5
Satanna, Daughter of Satan!: "Genesis of Depravity!" (from Eerie #50, August 1973) art by: Ramon Torrents my grade: A+ Plot synopsis: The origin of a character we'll never hear from again, this story shows a woman making a deal with Satan for immortality and, in return, becoming the world's first vampire, her first victim being a young Count Dracula.Before even discussing the merits of this story, we have to talk about Satanna, Daughter of Satan. While this character is completely different from Marvel's Satana other than in name (and you'll note the double "n" as opposed to a single one), it's hard to miss the facts both that this story was printed only two months prior to Marvel's character first appearing AND that the folks running the black and white Marvel mags where she made her first appearance are only a few months away from offering Moench a job working for them. Clearly, they were looking at his work around this time. And yet, when Moench was asked about this in an interview in 2001, he either didn't recall this or simply didn't have much to say about the matter: (source: Cooke, Jon. "The Peruvian Connection: Confessions of a Horror Writer." The Warren Companion. Vol. 1. Raleigh: Twomorrows, 2001. 118-125. Print.) Whatever the case may be, what's odd about this piece is that it functions entirely as an origin story, clearly opening the door for more to be done with this character, and yet nothing ever is. AND Moench appears to have no memory of this (or at least doesn't want to discuss it). Interesting. As for the story itself, WOW. I've never seen Moench so thoroughly put himself into a story, creating such compelling ideas and dialogue that, even though this entire story is essentially two talking heads conversing, one of them REALLY feels like Satan, and so the whole thing is thrilling, nonetheless. Added to that is the sheer inventiveness with which Moench explores the concept of a vampire. WHY do they have the familiar conventions that we all know about them? Moench is quite creative here, extending the symbol of the inverted wooden cross to depict vampires as inverted parodies of Christ himself, cursed with thirst as he was upon the cross, mortal yet immortal, and as vulnerable to a wooden stake as he was to a wooden cross. All very very thoughtful stuff. But, if all this wasn't enough, Ramon Torrents turns in some of the most gorgeous art I've yet seen accompany a Moench script. He truly brings Moench's story to kinetic life even while all Moench has going is two characters talking. How much of this came from Moench's written instructions (which he may or may not have been including with his scripts by this point) and how much was Torrent is difficult to say. However, Moench usually includes a visual concept of some kind to drive the story, and I see none present here beyond the fact that Satan's wings ALWAYS extend beyond the frames of the panels (though I did crop them in the second image), visually depicting, perhaps, his limitless reach and power. This is one creepy, brilliant, and perversely beautiful piece -- definitely one of Moench's finest thus far.
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Post by shaxper on Oct 20, 2015 9:34:04 GMT -5
(NOTE: Moench's first work for one of the Big Two)"Special Sale: Canned Death 1/2 Off" (from House of Mystery #216, August 1973) art by: Abe Ocampo my grade: A- Plot synopsis: An elderly woman kills off her husband because he spent all of his time on his store and never gave her any attention. When she goes to take over the store, the power blows, she gets locked in, and the cans attack her. She dies, believing her husband has exacted his revenge on her, only for the cops to disclose in the final panels that this was all caused by an earthquake.Moench was certainly doing his all to get as much as work as possible at this point. I wonder whether his submitting work to DC was a conscious effort to get in with a Big Two publisher, or if, in fact, he was just producing more work than even Warren and Skywald combined could accept and publish. Either way, this brief four pager marks his quiet introduction to Big Two publishing, even if it was a small freelance gig that likely didn't garner any attention at the very back of an anthology book. And, while these four pages are devoid of the usual things we've come to expect from Moench: dense narration, clever visual concepts and the like, this is just a delightfully brutal tale. Somehow, even while writing a relatively safe story for a Comics-Code approved book in which, it turns out, there wasn't even a supernatural presence, both the old wife's murder of the husband and that later death by canned food felt excessively brutal somehow. It's not that shocking when a vampire, werewolf, or monster kills. It's a lot different to watch someone's grandmother do it with a simple roller skate, or to see a familiar scene like a grocery store aisle become a brutal death-trap. It's too bad Moench didn't spend that much time writing horror stories for Comics-Code approved books. This little four pager demonstrates that he possessed the ability to do it remarkably well.
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Post by shaxper on Oct 24, 2015 13:58:34 GMT -5
"Moonspawn" (from Vampirella #26, August 1973) art by: Esteban Maroto grade: D- Plot synopsis:
Moench's explanation for how werewolves came to be, as a young couple, disturbed by a gypsy rapist, face further complications when a wolf, irradiated by a fallen asteroid, now carries the germ within him that creates werewolves with his bite. Following the theme established in "Genesis of Depravity" (also published this month), Moench decides to provide the origin for a well known monster lore. However, whereas his explanation for where vampires came from was both full of brilliant dialogue and characterization AND provided an unexpected reversal when the first victim was a young Count Dracula, this story features two obnoxiously philosophical lovers who prattle on until the absurd intervenes. That's right. Werewolves come from a wolf irradiated by a fallen asteroid. You're welcome. Beyond that, if Moench had any clever ideas for how to redeem this story with visuals, as he is sometimes wont to do, this story is penciled by Esteban Maroto, once again ensuring that none of Moench's written suggestions for art (if any were provided) would be adhered to in favor of as many sultry images as possible with the busty female lover in primary focus. That's Maroto for you, and I have no doubt the male teenage readership loved him for it. So, sultry bustiness aside, this story is pretty much devoid of anything worthwhile.
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Post by shaxper on Oct 25, 2015 11:03:34 GMT -5
Fringe Benefits (from Vampirella #26, August 1973) art by: Jose Bea colors: ? my grade: A- Plot synopsis:
A woman waiting for a delivery opens the door to be greeted by a ghoul who stabs and kills her without explanation. The husband then arrives home in time to see the ghoul, struggles with him, discovers it's just a robber in a mask, and chases him out into the street, where the robber is hit by a car. He wakes up in the hospital, believing he got away scott free, but the surgeon who will be operating on him reveals himself to be the husband.Jim Warren is still working to publish as many Moench stories as he can, but even two stories in this issue (three stories total across all three Warren titles this month, which has become the average ever since Moench's confrontation with Jim Warren) aren't even close to meeting the quantity of work Moench is generating at this point. As a result, we'll see two works published by DC in this month, and another by Skywald. Nevertheless, Warren really is rolling out the royal treatment for Moench here, making "Fringe Benefits" one of the very first stories to appear in full color in a Warren mag (a feature introduced only last month). The color is brilliant (even if I feel both Moench and Bea's talents are better suited for the striking contrast of black and white), but, as one would hope in a review thread devoted to the writer, it's the story itself that stands out most. As with "Special Sale: Canned Death 1/2 Off", Moench discovers there's sometimes more horror in telling a tale devoid of the supernatural -- something that could occur in the real world. Sure enough, the monster glimpsed on the title page surprises us by obsessing over silverware and hidden cash after stabbing his victim, only to later reveal himself as a burglar with a mask, and, believe it or not, that adds to the terror of this tale. What really makes this piece work is the amount of time Moench spends on one horrific incident. Usually, a writer working within a 7-10 page limit, jumps from murder to murder as quickly as possible. It keeps the focus on the murderer and gives us safe distance from the victims, but Moench removes that safety, first giving us time to know the victim: Then spending a supremely uncomfortable full page watching her slowly die, aided by brilliant narration describing the thoughts and sensations keenly, and then having the just as endearing husband arrive home early, stumbling upon the murderer. It all feels so supremely REAL as Moench goes through great pains to describe their reactions, thoughts, and feelings, and learning that the murderer isn't some deranged ghoul, but rather a desperate and amoral burglar, absolutely adds to that reality and removes most of the reader's ability to distance themselves from it. This FEELS real, and it absolutely COULD happen to you. Had the story ended there, after four pages, that would have been enough. But, perhaps falling upon his Atom Age horror influences, Moench feels some need to provide closure and karmic retribution in this story, having the murderer get injured while escaping and then find himself on the surgery table with the husband as head surgeon. It's not bad, but it lacks the power and terror of the first half, reassuring us that justice gets served when the first half did a far better job of convincing us that the world is a terrifying and unfair place. Minor Detail: Whoever colored this (I don't feel like it was Bea) occasionally changes the color of the murderer's hair. It's jarring in an otherwise seamless piece.
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Post by shaxper on Oct 25, 2015 13:01:59 GMT -5
"Just A Shot Away" (from G.I. Combat, August 1973) art by Ken Barr my grade: B- Plot synopsis: A small group of (presumably American) soldiers in the near future are making their way through a dense Vietnamese-like jungle, their leader philosophizing about the pointlessness of war and deciding that such thoughts are dangerous. A flashback reveals their mission is to test the first militarized laser rifle against an enemy target and determine if it is a more effective means of eradicating the enemy. After all his comrades have fallen, our protagonist makes it to the target, uses the gun, eradicates all enemies, and is utterly distraught with the result, revealing himself to be the laser rifle's creator, and smashing the invention to pieces before walking off.This marks a significant turning point in which it is now clear Moench is no longer just selling extra stories that Warren rejects to other publishers; he is intentionally writing content for other publishers for which Warren would never have a need. I'm curious what the process would have been -- did Moench just write a war story and mail it to DC, or was he in contact with someone there who was telling him what kind of freelance work they needed done? It's important to note that, while nearly all of Moench's output up to this point has been horror, that's only because his primary employer was a publisher of horror stories. Growing up, Moench was a fan of a wide variety of comic genres and probably enjoyed the opportunity to expand his horizons here. As for the story itself, there isn't much to tell. Barr does a fantastic job on pencils and inks, but the story is more plot and moral heavy than it is good at delivering powerful individual moments. Nothing bad about this one, but neither the message nor execution particularly wowed me. Having the protagonist be the inventor of the weapon was an interesting twist, though. Minor Detail: This is now at least the third time Moench has taken the title of a story from semi-current rock music, in this case "Gimme Shelter," by The Rolling Stones (1969).
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Post by MDG on Oct 26, 2015 11:19:31 GMT -5
Minor Detail: Whoever colored this (I don't feel like it was Bea) occasionally changes the color of the murderer's hair. It's jarring in an otherwise seamless piece. If Bill DuBay edited this issue, I'd say it's him coloring. It looks similar to other stories he worked on.
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