Friday, December 13, 2024

If a little kid murdered me with toy soldiers; I gotta say, man, respect.

I may be just a hair older than this issue, but it's close! It was possibly on the racks when I was born, or pretty close to it. From 1971, The Twilight Zone #39, cover by George Wilson.
The title on the opener looks like it's from a Charlton book, for some reason: "The Youngest Witch" with art by John Celardo. Ralph Speaker takes a friendly interest in his young neighbor Mark: his dad was overseas, his mom had a new baby, and he was left out a bit. (This is all innocent, at least on Ralph's part!) After several fun excursions, including an ice show, Ralph notices Mark playing with a puppet, on a patch of ice--in July? Mark claims nothing was amiss, and the patch of ice was gone; but later Ralph finds Mark making stuffed toys float and move. Then, Mark is nearly hit by a taxi, that he seemingly makes fly over him: the cab driver thinks he just hit a bump, but Ralph suspects Mark might be a warlock. His suspicions are seemingly confirmed when Mark's toy soldiers attack him...but he's not quite right!
"Wedding March" is a cheerless ghost story, as a rich jerk murders a composer to steal his girl, but the music lives on, even if the jerk doesn't. (Art by Oscar Novelle.) Not that "Fool's Gold" is a laugh riot, either: a shifty prospector finds gold in forbidden territory, then kills a medicine man to cover his crime. Newly rich, he makes his way to a life of luxury in the big city; while a lot of blood is spilled looking for him. Still, the prospector gets got when he runs short of tobacco; if you've ever seen Creepshow 2, well, there you go. (Story by Len Wein, art by Alan Weiss.)
In the last story, "Escape Artist" what are the odds two magicians would end up at the same nursing home? Marcus and Bondini had been rivals for years, and were pretty sick of each other. In his glory days, Bondini had made an impressive escape from a locked trunk thrown in the river; but Marcus claims it was all faked with false panels. Later, Bondini challenges him to prove it, since he still had the trunk in the attic. Marcus gets increasingly frustrated when he can't find the trick to it, as Bondini laughs at him: Marcus tries to shake it out of him, but Bondini makes a fatal escape, shaking loose, slipping and hitting his head. Panicking, Marcus takes the key from Bondini, and locks his corpse in the trunk. The next day, Marcus feigns ignorance as the staff searches for the missing Bondini, but is really surprised when Bondini returns...a final escape? Or was he really dead? (Story by Paul S. Newman, art by Jack Sparling.)

1 comment:

  1. Mr. Morbid1:46 PM

    I actually did watch Creepshow 2, so I gotcha. Cool way to die if you’re into that sort of thing. Still need to watch Creepshow 3, not to mention I’m so far behind in catching up on the Shudder series.

    Death by action figures….feels custom made for you. Like it’d be intended to be an ironic & maybe cruel death, but you’d die of laughter first, well that and eventually the totality of all those hits by semi-hard plastic, the old death by a thousand cuts trick.

    ReplyDelete