Number 716


"Shadows, shadows..."


Back in the '80s when I sold comic books through Comics Buyer's Guide I photocopied some of them before sending them off to their new owner. It depended on the availability of a copy machine; I mostly used one at work and hoped I wouldn't get caught. While copying this violent comic I worried my boss would come in the door of the copy room and yell, "WHAT THE HELL KIND OF SICK SH*T IS THIS?!" I was lucky that time. I didn't get busted.

Here's some of the sick sh*t: vampires, werewolves, undead corpses, dismembered limbs, internal organs, domestic violence, hangings...even a hatchet to the side of a guy's head. All in noirish black and white. What's missing in black and white is red blood. When I looked at the photocopies I thought of a line from the John Prine song, "Lake Marie:" "You know what blood looks like in a black and white video? Shadows, shadows...that's exactly what it looks like."

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Number 380


Couples therapy


Here are a couple of stories about couples, by a couple of art teams.

Ross Andru and Mike Esposito spent most of their careers as partners, Andru penciling and Esposito inking. "One Man's Poison" is from Mysterious Adventures #17, 1953, and is about a married couple who just love visitors. Recently Hairy Green Eyeball showed a story from Andru and Esposito's Get Lost, a Mad imitation from 1954.

The second story is by another comics team, Edwin Goldfarb and Bob Baer, who had work all over the place during that time period. Their couple in "Paralyzed" is a standard married couple from the horror comics: one partner cheating and the other choosing murder instead of divorce.

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