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Post by brutalis on Sept 25, 2019 7:36:35 GMT -5
The sheer horror of it all! Are you insane or just enjoy the pain?!? I don't know how you folks find the time for all the reviewing but I am glad to read and enjoy others thoughts and perspectives and all the review(ers) deliver fun and new things to try.
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Post by rberman on Sept 25, 2019 7:39:41 GMT -5
The sheer horror of it all! Are you insane or just enjoy the pain?!? I don't know how you folks find the time for all the reviewing but I am glad to read and enjoy others thoughts and perspectives and all the review(ers) deliver fun and new things to try. Not watching sports or playing video games frees up hours a day. |
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Post by pinkfloydsound17 on Sept 25, 2019 8:33:01 GMT -5
I watch hockey. I also have a 17 month old, teach and have a couple shows I keep up on. There is always time to read a comic a day and write a brief synopsis  |
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Post by tarkintino on Sept 25, 2019 12:29:09 GMT -5
Greetings boils and ghouls! I am going to tackle a second review thread. That's right....craziness. This one will start October 1st and be a daily review of a horror related comic or magazine up until the end of the month. Tune in to see what ghastly and spooky covers I have in my collection to read. No real rhyme or reason, just an accumulated of haunted goodness from a variety of titles. See you in 6 days fellow horror fans! Looking forward to this! |
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Post by pinkfloydsound17 on Oct 1, 2019 19:51:06 GMT -5
Alright first the bad news.
My hot water heater leaked so rather than start this lovely review I have been pulling up the repurposed floor in our storage room and moving stuff to dry it out.
The good news...nothing damaged other than wet click flooring that we had repurposed when we redid the nice part of the basement. All comics are safe (not that they are anywhere near this but just to calm Jose who cringe at the thought). And best of all, I can now get this review posted on time!!! Hooray! Let the countdown begin!
Up first I shall present a creepy crawly cover sure to send shivers down your spine!
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Post by pinkfloydsound17 on Oct 1, 2019 22:14:01 GMT -5
House Of Mystery #220  The cover by Cardy is good but not the best. The proportions on the scorpion seem off. The spook factor is low here. The first story featured art by Alfred Alcala and is about a butterfly collector who is very dweeby. He hires a local guide, who is macho and has greed in his eyes when he hears how valuable this butterfly is, to guide him through the jungle. They wander and stumble upon a temple with butterfly markings that look like the one they are after. A tribe emerges and tells them they cannot enter the temple. As the two turn to leave, a snake bites the tribal chiefs son. The dweeby butterfly collector administers a serum and the boy is saved! As a reward the tribe gives him a butterfly. As they journey back, the greedy guide tries to steal the butterfly and ends up forcing our dweeby friend off a cliff to his death. So he returns to the temple to catch his own. After a confrontation with the chief, the greedy guide takes a dart to the neck. As he lies paralyzed, a butterfly lands on him...and starts eating his finger! Soon a swarm arrives and we see them devour all his flesh. Overall an ok tale. Kinda predictable I felt. It seemed like the butterfly was obviously going to be a killer type. Best part was this splash page. Awesome!  Onto the next tale! This one is called “The Hunter”. Basically, a hunter is bored having caught all the big game he can. He leads his pal, who is a known occultist and demonologist, to his dungeon where he shows off a variety of supernatural creatures he has killed like a werewolf and a vampire. Thanks to his pal he has been able to acquire them but is now bored again and wants to hunt Satan himself. So they grab a human sacrifice (some random they kill on the streets), perform some ritual and are whisked down to hell. The hunter manages to fend off Cerebus but just cannot find Satan. Suddenly the ground he walks upon gives way. He yells for his occultist pal to help and gasp! His pal is Satan! Turns out he likes hunting too...hunting for evil souls! A quick tale but a good one. The artist is Alex Nino who I don’t think I have ever heard off. Kind of a sloppy style but I don’t mind it. Lots of good colours and fiery backgrounds.  My overall consensus? Six flesh eating butterflies out of a flock. The cover is average for Cardy, one story has great art and the other is ok. Both stories were average to good. |
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Post by shaxper on Oct 1, 2019 22:24:08 GMT -5
Alright first the bad news. My hot water heater leaked so rather than start this lovely review I have been pulling up the repurposed floor in our storage room and moving stuff to dry it out. The good news...nothing damaged other than wet click flooring that we had repurposed when we redid the nice part of the basement. All comics are safe (not that they are anywhere near this but just to calm Jose who cringe at the thought). And best of all, I can now get this review posted on time!!! Hooray! Let the countdown begin! Up first I shall present a creepy crawly cover sure to send shivers down your spine! Sorry for the added adventure tonight, but glad the damage wasn't too terrible! By the way, you may want to consult The CCF 2014 Long Halloween to guide you in some of your creepy reading  |
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Post by tarkintino on Oct 2, 2019 2:16:02 GMT -5
House Of Mystery #220 The cover by Cardy is good but not the best. The proportions on the scorpion seem off. The spook factor is low here. Yeah, a cover just playing on general arachnophobia, which I suppose was still good for a cover subject...just not spectacular here. This was not the best of HoM stories; the "Greedy/corrupt-man-kills-but-faces-the-consequences sub-genre was old even when this issue was published. You could substitute the butterflies with vampires, zombies, any number of animals, voodoo dolls, and the result would be them same, because its ground previously travelled. Alfredo Alcala's brilliant art was strangely muted in color. His B&W work was flat out stunning as the world would see in his magazine work for Marvel's Planet of the Apes (among many titles):   I would say 4.5 out of 10. You knew the tables would be turned in some fashion, but the Satan reveal was a novel twist. Alex Niño...you are in for a visual treat if you ever explore this Filipino artist's work in other publications such as Creepy... |
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Post by pinkfloydsound17 on Oct 2, 2019 21:44:11 GMT -5
Another House of Mystery because its in my collection and I haven’t read it! House of Mystery #205  Look at that cover! A thing of beauty. Jack Sparling is to thank here and also does most of the work on the first story called “The Coffin Creature”. Our story starts with two characters, Pierre and Stinky, paddling some swamp. They seem the legendary Coffin Creature and try to chase it but you know...alligators interfere, a storm comes up. They seek shelter in an abandon home on a plantation. Supposedly the Coffin Creature hides here but they just have to get out of that darned rain. Once inside we get some back story about the former owner marrying a showgirl. Someone in the family disapproved of this marriage and so the eve of the reception the new bride is murdered. The husband buries his wife with jewels and dressed to the nines. Shortly after, a homeless man digs up the grave to steal the jewels. He is captured and hung but the jewels were never found. The two guys fall asleep but Stinky believes be knows where the jewels are. A clue left behind tells him to search under a tree near a local house. Sure enough he finds the jewels. He doesn’t want to split them so he kills Pierre. Stinky tries to fend of the Coffin Creature who chases him down to get the jewels back. She touches and confronts Stinky and poor ole Stinky is so shocked to meet her face to face that he goes crazy and is not in an asylum, sharing his tale with whoever anyone who will listen. Kind of a rushed ending if you ask me. The cover is great. Definitely five purple coffins out five. The story less so...three hidden jewel chests out of five. The second tale sees a criminal on the run. A man in an alley offers him a solution...performing plastic surgery to change his face. The man takes the criminal to a creepy lab and does the operation. When the criminal awakes, his face is bandages. The supposed helpful doctor is gone. As he removes the bandages he sees his new face for the first time....  Apparently the doctor was an alien who swapped faces and now our poor criminal can never use his money because look at that face. It’s like Toxie and an elephant procreated. A meh story. One elephant trunk out of five. Finally, a biker is hounded by a masked biker. Eventually the two race and after some good back and forth, they get to a point where our poor biker flies off a cliff to his death after finally getting a glimpse of the masked biker. Turns out it was good ole Satan all along.  The art is poor IMO but I liked the story more. There was a TON of foreshadowing (the bar they stop at a The beginnjng references Death and a sign post also alludes to the reveal and ending). That being said it was fun. A better artist could have captured the feel better. This felt cartoony. Not too familiar with Alan Weiss but in this tale, not a fan. For the final story, three out of five wheelies. But really get this book for the cover. The black and purple pop so much. I’m still starin at it! |
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Post by berkley on Oct 2, 2019 22:06:53 GMT -5
Love Alfredo Alcala. I've bought a lot of comics because he drew something in them - for example, when I search for back issues of those DC horror series like House of Secrets and so on, his is one of the names I always look for in the credits.
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Post by MWGallaher on Oct 3, 2019 8:51:30 GMT -5
Love Alfredo Alcala. I've bought a lot of comics because he drew something in them - for example, when I search for back issues of those DC horror series like House of Secrets and so on, his is one of the names I always look for in the credits. Alcala seemed to be incapable of putting forth anything less than his best effort, no matter how inconsequential the story. And his best effort was always impressive. I just can't ever find him taking a shortcut on anything--it's all so richly rendered that it must have just flowed from his pen instinctively. |
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Post by berkley on Oct 3, 2019 23:20:29 GMT -5
Love Alfredo Alcala. I've bought a lot of comics because he drew something in them - for example, when I search for back issues of those DC horror series like House of Secrets and so on, his is one of the names I always look for in the credits. Alcala seemed to be incapable of putting forth anything less than his best effort, no matter how inconsequential the story. And his best effort was always impressive. I just can't ever find him taking a shortcut on anything--it's all so richly rendered that it must have just flowed from his pen instinctively. Yeah, even when he switched to the charcoal technique, or whatever it was, for the odd Conan story in SSoC, it was only a disappointment because I loved the detailed line-work he usually used so much - from anyone else I'd have been thinking, "This is great!". I'm looking forward to reading his solo Voltar series in Warren's 1999, now that I've managed to gather together all the back issues.
I should have mentioned Alex Nino also - I don't feel the same kind of emotional attachment to his work as I do to Alcala's but I've always admired his innovative panel layouts and general creativity. A unique talent who should probably get a lot more attention and adulation.
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Post by pinkfloydsound17 on Oct 4, 2019 12:15:26 GMT -5
Unfortunately, I am unable to continue this thread. Apologies for getting hopes up  |
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