In Search of The Omega (Wo)Man!

by John Scoleri

In the opening scenes of The Omega Man (the second film adaptation of Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend), Robert Neville (Charlton Heston) walks into a Ford dealership to help himself to a brand new Mustang. His eyes catch something off screen and he stops dead in his tracks.

From his POV, we see a calendar on the wall, establishing a future date to this 1971 film. The camera pans up from the March 1975 calendar...

...across the legs of a pin-up illustration...

...ultimately pausing on the woman's face.

Neville approaches the calendar, pausing momentarily...

...before grabbing it...

...and tearing it down.

As a fan of The Omega Man, I've often wondered about the calendar that appears in the film. It wasn't an off the shelf calendar, as they needed a prop with a future date. But it also seemed unlikely that the set decorator would commission a piece of original art for the calendar, so I thought I might be able to identify the artwork used and find a copy for my collection.

Last month, I finally set out to see if I could track down the art and artist responsible for the pin-up. With a couple of screenshots at my disposal, my first stop was reaching out to a couple of pin-up fan groups to see if anyone was familiar with the piece. Though I had no luck finding anyone familiar with the specific pin-up, I was contacted by someone who, while unfamiliar with the specific piece, was quite certain it was the work of artist Fritz Willis.

According to Wikipedia, Willis got his start painting pin-ups for Esquire magazine in 1946. And beginning in 1961, Willis was responsible for what appears to have been a popular Artist's Sketchbook pin-up calendar.

Fortunately, once I had a name to search on, the woman I was looking for was a mere Google search away. May I introduce, "The Wheeler Girl."

Once I had identified the piece, it wasn't difficult to locate a period print of the artwork. I was quite pleased with my discovery, and couldn't wait to receive the print I found online.

Once it arrived, I realized that upon closer inspection, while very similar to the pin-up seen in the film, the two pieces of art are not identical. The artwork used in the film is rougher, and lacks some of the detail in the finished painting.
You can see numerous discrepancies in the woman's face, flowers, outfit and feet.

The differences lead me to wonder if the piece used in the film was perhaps an early comp for Willis' "The Wheeler Girl" painting, or a wholesale knock-off produced by another artist specifically for use in the film.

I've put out some feelers to see I can find out more about Willis' process to determine if the artwork seen in the film is in fact his, but in the mean time, my search for the actual Omega Woman continues...

Journey Into Strange Tales Marvel/ Atlas Horror Issue 16

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part One

May-October 1949
Narrated by Peter Enfantino

So... what's the natural progression from EC Comics? Well, despite the fact that the EC blog still has a few weeks to go, I was itching to jump into another company and those Atlas titles have been beckoning me for years. Joe Maneely. Bill Everett. Gene Colan. John Romita. The list goes on and on. Just the covers alone would catch your attention and keep you rapt for hours. Originally, Jose and I would have covered Timely/Atlas/Marvel but then the Dungeons of Doom project languished (you can see our last installment here) and then morphed into a book project that might see the light of day at some point. I get bored really quick so I decided I'd tackle the monstrous Atlas project on my own (and, in the spirit of the 1950s' horror comics, I've changed the title but kept the numbering!). This could take years!

Unlike the EC blog, I won't be breaking down and commenting extensively on every single story in every single issue but rather accentuating the positive. At least that's the plan now (best laid plans and all), but seeing as how the first couple of years I cover are made up of only a handful of titles, don't be surprised if the rules are broken now and then. Each post will feature four issues (in chronological order), but that can change as well depending on energy and time (at one point in 1952, Atlas would flood the market with as many as thirteen monthly horror and sf titles!). Like our EC blog, I won't offer up an exhaustive history of the company--those have been written by better writers and more learned historians than myself--but now and then I'll point out some historical and trivial nuggets when they come to mind. For those of you desiring to dig in to the history of Timely/Atlas/Marvel, I've listed some excellent sources (most of which I steal from now and then) at the end of this post.

One slight bummer is that I don't have access to about fifteen issues from various titles at this point. That may change, though. A site I've frequented that was of immense help in filling in holes was More Than Heroes, a sort of hub for Atlas fans and a gateway to downloads of most of these hard-to-find gems. If I get my hands on those missing issues, have no fear; they will be covered at some point. For those who want to haunt your Marvel reprint titles for any of these yarns, I'll note the issue if there was a reprinting.

Like all the blogs we've done, the idea is to be interactive. Did I miss a title you feel warrants inclusion? Do you disagree with my choices for worst artists? Have any great memories associated with these funny books? Write in! Where artists are credited (on GCD), I've noted that and each story has been rated (★ through ★★★★), even if not mentioned (for those of us who are completists). And now, on with the show...

Amazing Mysteries #32 (May, 1949)

“The Thing at Chugamung Cove!” ★
“The Menace from the Past” (art by Gene Colan) ★ 
“With Intent to Kill” ★★★

Like a lot of these 1940s'-1950s' Atlas titles (and comic books in general), Amazing Mysteries started life as another book, in this case Sub-Mariner Comics! Only the first two issues were horror-oriented, with the detective genre winning out after the 33rd issue. The entire enchilada was axed with #35. #32 was the first Marvel/Atlas/Timely comic book to feature horror stories and its cover must have been startling to fans who were haunting the stands looking for that elusive Sub-Mariner #32. Oddly enough, that eye-catching cover (the GCD indicates it might be the work of Martin Nodell) illustrates the text story rather than a featured tale!

In “With Intent to Kill,”  Lothario Charles Redmont has met his match in the lovely Jeannie Lockhart, but Jeannie has a deep, dark secret: she’s a very sick woman. One night, when the gorgeous blonde has one of her “incidents” and pulls a no-show at Charlie’s favorite spaghetti restaurant, the irate Redmond bursts into Jeannie’s apartment to find her there with another man. Our heroine tries to explain that the man is her doctor but Charlie is having none of it and ends their blossoming relationship with a slam of the door. Jeannie rapidly deteriorates and is given “ten more months to live,” while Charles finds it impossible to get the girl out of his brain. The only way to cleanse his memory of the beauty is, obviously, to kill her. He sets up plenty of alibis, sneaks into Jeannie’s room, and ventilates her, only to be surprised by the entrance of the girl’s doctor, who informs the cad that it was the unnamed illness, and not Charlie’s bullet, that rid the earth of an angel. Jeannie had died hours before!

My three-star rating is not based on the quality of this work but, rather, on the entertainment value it provides. There are wacky diversions and groan-worthy dialogue strewn throughout the nine pages narrated by host, “The Witness,” that can’t help but produce a smile on the face of even the most stubborn pre-code horror fan. Charlie’s roller coaster emotions regarding Jeannie are head scratching and the ding-dong-daddy-O dialogue (“Whales? Heck, Jeannie, I don’t bait for blubber! Mermaids — they’re my style! So how’s about flapping a flipper with your fisher boy?”) are laugh-out-loud loony. The art is hot and cold, with most panels laid out and drawn like 98% of all funny book strips of the late 1940s, very workmanlike and devoid of any originality or spark, and then there are instances dotted here and there with an almost Eisner-like flare.

“The Thing at Chugamung Cove!” (members of the St. Stengel family transform into frog creatures on their 25th birthday) is obviously “inspired” by Lovecraft but amazingly pedestrian with uninspired art and unfocused story. All his life, Phillip’s been a rotten, spoiled monster, killing his pets, assaulting childhood chums and, later in life, ruining his business partner. Now, Justice has come for Phillip. "The Menace from the Past" is way too wordy, but then that may be a plus since it crowds out the very early, very by-the-numbers Gene Colan art. There’s no indication here of the master that Colan would become in decades to follow.

“The Thing at Chugamung Cove!”

Amazing Mysteries #33 (July 1949)

“The Thing in the Vault!”  (a: Bill Everett?) ★★★
“Terror in the Tomb” ★ 
“The Monster That Prowled!” (a: Gene Colan)  ★

Two foolish American archaeologists choose to ignore the superstitions surrounding a Hungarian castle and unleash the terror of the three Horhaga brothers — all vampires! Despite evidence of nightly village feedings, the two explorers won’t give in to old wives’ tales and continue their excavations. A local Van Helsing-like doctor tracks two of the Horhagas to their lair and stakes them but misses out on the third, whose coffin and resting body has been loaded into a freighter by the glory-seeking archaeologists. Months later, the abandoned freighter is sighted by a ship near England and destroyed but the coffin surfaces, floating towards shore. Eleven pages of sheer delight, “The Thing in the Vault” is a well-written, suspenseful little yarn with above-average (for the times, at least) art and dialogue that doesn’t drown those visuals. The  explorers, Crane and Mencken, are more villainous than the Horhagas (who look very Nosferatu-ish with their bald domes and snappy dress), ignoring villagers and vampire hunters alike in their pursuit for glory. GCD credits Bill Everett with a question mark on the art chores but my untrained eye definitely picks up at least traces of Bill here and there.

Bill Everett?

"Terror in the Tomb" stars yet another archaeologist who ignores ancient warnings. Charles LeFoux releases the “ghost soul” of the “Witch Queen, queen of the darkness beyond,” and must pay the ultimate price to save his gorgeous young fiancé’s soul.

"The Monster That Prowled" by Colan

“World-famed ethnologist” Sir Geoffrey Horton is cursed by a Wattage witch doctor and transformed into an ape in "The Monster That Prowled." Horton's best friend and colleague, James Creighton, takes him back to England to seek a cure but the Horton-Thing wreaks havoc across the continent.
This was the last horror-themed issue of Amazing Mysteries and, with #34, the title shifted its focus to true crime stories; it survived two more issues and was then put to rest in January 1950.

Some nice atmospheric art from "The Thing in the Vault"

Marvel Tales #93 (August 1949)

“The Haunted Room”  (a: Gene Colan) ★★
“The Gool Strikes!” ★★
“Step Into the Mirror of Madness!” ★★
“Beware of the Cat!” ★★
“The Man Who Fled From the Future!”  (a: Gene Colan) ★1/2

Though the very first issue of Marvel Comics is one of the most famous and sought-after funny books (debuting The Human Torch, Ka-Zar, and Sub-Mariner and currently fetching somewhere near half a million for a decent copy), the powers-that-be at Timely decided the title Marvel Mystery Comics would jump off the stands more fiercely and so, after a quick logo change, it stayed for a further 92 issues, spotlighting the WWII (and post-war) adventures of the Torch, Namor, and Captain America. The Mystery was dropped with #93 and the series continued until it was axed with #159 in August, 1957.

Norman Raine, journalist of the supernatural, comes to the inn of Varno Kadarik to investigate strange goings-on in "The Haunted Room." Seems everyone who has stayed in this particular room has died and Raine wants to know if there’s an evil presence responsible. The writer sets himself up in the room and records every occurrence, including a couple of werewolf sightings. In the end, Raine is murdered by the innkeeper’s wife, who is secretly a lycanthrope. A la one of those fabulously creaky HP Lovecraft stories, Raine keeps writing even while he’s about to be eaten by a wolf and poor Varno doesn’t even know his spouse sprouts fangs every full moon. Oddly, the second werewolf (who shows up at the inn door) is not explained.

"Could you kindly wait until I finish writing
before you tear my throat out?"

The Gool was no fool

A giant blind monster climbs its way up from the center of the Earth to wreak havoc on mankind before curtailing his plans for unknown reasons. Possibly the first “giant monster on the loose” comic story, “The Gool Strikes” is a charming little sci-fi adventure with some interesting scientific notions (the Gool, though blind, “senses” there’s another race miles above him and then somehow finds the materials and builds a “mole-thing” vehicle to drill its way to us) and some typical egghead dialogue. Though the last panel promises a sequel (“The Mark of the Gool”), none was delivered.

In “Step Into the Mirror of Madness!,” Camille D’Amico becomes obsessed with a strange mirror in a curio shop in Milan, but the shopkeeper refuses to sell, so Camille convinces her cuckolded husband, Pietro, to murder the man. Once she gets the mirror home, Camille discovers she’s unlocked the gates to hell, and the devil himself has claimed her as his bride. Some nice graphics (especially Camille’s tour through hell) punch up a recycled plot.

"Beware of the Cat!"

In 19th-Century China, the most eligible bachelor in the village, Chi-Mi, decides to take Lotus Flower as his bride, but the lovely Sano has other ideas. She visits her mother, the banished witch who lives in a nearby mountain cave, who sends her shape-shifting feline off to bewitch Chi-Mi. A change of pace, “Beware of the Cat” is like an ancient fable, with its gentle story-telling and pleasant art. It’s a bit too long and the attention wanders at times but a charmer all the same.

A doctor (whose face is kept in shadow) comes upon the bleeding and exhausted Arnold Borgasia, who tells of a strange experiment with a local scientist, an egghead who claims he can bring the dead to life. Though the story is filled with such scientific oddities as time travel, the man believes Borgasia’s tale. In the end, we discover that the mystery man is the doctor who was conducting experiments on Borgasia and proves his theories correct (no surprise if you read the story’s title). Overlong and padded with silly dialogue, this one suffers most from Gene Colan’s hot-and-cold artwork (the same goes for "The Haunted Room") which runs the gamut from scratchy and almost illegible to atmospheric and sleek. 52 pages and no cover price increase! Oh, those were the days!

Captain America’s Weird Tales #74 (October 1949)
“The Frozen Ghost!” ★
“The Thing in the Swamps!” ★★
“The Tomb of Terror” ★

By 1949, superheroes had become old hat and a dying breed. Captain America's circulation had plunged and Marvel was desperate so... why not Captain America's Weird Tales? Well, the public let Marvel know why not and the experiment only lasted two issues (the title was put on a four-year hiatus and returned as simply Captain America, but the title was axed after only three more issues in September 1954). The first story in each of the two issues stars Cap in a non-horror tale (although the Red Skull could be a pretty frightening chap when he wanted to be), with the adventure this issue titled "The Red Skull Strikes Again."

In “The Frozen Ghost!,” reporter Jack Davis is sent by his editor to investigate a series of killings, purportedly the work of an ice monster. When Jack gets held up at the train station, he queries a stranger about the murders and discovers that the monster is real! Yet another “reporter sent to investigate happens upon the creature itself” snoozer. There’s no explanation why the thing would want to eliminate Davis (all of his previous killings were of townsfolk who’d done the man wrong) but halfway through we know just what the “twist” will be.

John Vandiver has a really big problem: his family has been cursed by a swamp monster and all the Vandiver males become werewolves (or something looking like werewolves) on their thirtieth birthdays, and tomorrow is John’s birthday! He goes to see psychiatrist Paul Townslee to see if the problem is all in his head. Unfortunately for John, it’s all too real. Though “The Thing in the Swamps!” would never pass for great storytelling (or even mediocre storytelling), it’s still a lot of fun in an Ed Wood-ian way. There are so many goofy twists and turns that I defy you not to smile a few times. In a wordy flashback, the ghost explains his curse as he’s sinking below the murky swamp water:

“Forever after… the oldest son of your family will disappear on his thirtieth birthday! He will become a doomed thing, a horrible monster… condemned to dwell for a year in the filthy waters of this marsh… going forth only to kill! At the end of the year, he will resume his normal guise and return, hopelessly insane! Mark you well, Vandiver… this is the curse of a dying man! It shall come true…ugh…”

All that, made up on the fly, while the poor guy is drinking alligator wiz.

Not to be confused with "Terror in the Tomb" from Amazing Mysteries #33 a few months before, “The Tomb of Terror” concerns the 40th Egyptian expedition of 1948... which winds up just as the first 39 did: absent a few archaeologists. This is really bad, with a threadbare script and below-average (even for early Marvel) art.

SELECTIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bell, Blake and Michael J. Vassallo. The Secret History of Marvel Comics (Fantagraphics, 2013).
Daniels, Les. Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades (Abrams, 1991).
Sadowski, Greg. Four Color Fear (Fantagraphics, 2010). * Though Sadowski doesn't include any Atlas reprints in his volume, his listing of the company's pre-code horror titles was essential in my research.
The Atlas Tales website.
Dr. Michael J. Vassallo's essential Timely-Atlas-Comics blog.

In two weeks...
Suspense!

EC Comics! It's An Entertaining Comic! Issue 65

The EC Reign Month by Month 1950-1956
65: August 1955 Part I

Davis

Incredible Science Fiction 30

"Clean Start"★★★
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Wally Wood

"Marbles"★★
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Bernie Krigstein

"Conditioned Reflex"★★
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Joe Orlando

"Barrier"★★
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Jack Davis

All the aliens in the universal Federation agree that, while the Earth is getting close to the point in its development that it will need to join the Federation, mankind is too violent to fit in. Brx and Lth travel to the third planet from the sun to do two things: wipe out all human life and give mankind a "Clean Start" by going back to the moment when the species turned from peace to violence and guiding them down the right path. Unfortunately, the aliens travel through time and find that man has always been a warlike animal. They decide that it's hopeless and they will have to take one male and one female and start over. Brx and Lth disguise themselves as a man and a woman and bring back what they think are specimens of the human race. Unfortunately, they discover that they've brought back each other!

The staff of bare*bones e-zine gets together.
("Clean Start")

This was kind of a silly story along the lines of "we had to destroy the Earth in order to save it" until that final twist, which I admit caught me by surprise and made me let out a guffaw. Whoops! Guess that's it for the human race! I presume the aliens of the Federation weren't too broken up about it.

The Rocket ship X-17 is the first ship to be launched into space with men aboard, but the reports that come back are a surprise, since the crew say that all of the planets are no bigger in space than they look from Earth! The crew picks up Uranus, which is the size of a volley ball, plays ring toss with Saturn's rings, and plays "Marbles" with the stars. Unfortunately, the scientists on Earth realize that space travel has driven the crew insane.

A pretty dumb story, this one has decent art by Krigstein that looks to be in the style of mid-'50s science fiction paperback covers (the ship looks like the one on the cover of The Lights in the Sky Are Stars). The final panel joke, where a crew member sobs that he has lost his marbles, falls flat.

Obviously he's an alien.
("Conditioned Reflex")

A scientist makes a presentation regarding a far-off planet he calls Thor, which had an atmosphere made mostly of methane and which suddenly burst into flame. Why? He does not know that the tentacled inhabitants of Thor had sent one of their own, disguised as a human, to gather information before they could attack and obliterate Earth. The alien named Quor is accepted into a farming family and learns their customs, which include smoking a cigarette to relax when he gets tense. On returning to Thor, he is ready to present his findings to the council of leaders when he finds himself tense and nervous. He lights a cigarette and the methane gas atmosphere explodes into flame.

We always knew that smoking was bad for you! "Conditioned Reflex" is a long shaggy dog story to get to a so-so punch line, but for once the Orlando artwork seems only moderately annoying. He's better at drawing aliens than humans, I guess.

Jack Davis drew this panel???
("Barrier")

The Western Alliance sends its first spaceship hurtling toward Luna, hoping to beat the Eastern Alliance there in order to set up a base, but the ship crashes into an invisible "Barrier" and is destroyed. A second ship discovers the barrier and can't blast through it. Meanwhile, the Eastern Alliance is having the same problem. The two sides join forces and build a ship that succeeds in blasting a hole in the barrier, but when it passes through it sees a ship from outer space and turns around to head back to Earth. Realizing that the aliens have caged us, the military men ask what form of life would cage another. Then, the scientist points to a nearby monkey in a cage.

I don't think Jack Davis would be in my top ten choices of artist to illustrate a science fiction story. It doesn't help that "Barrier" continues the tired theme that Jack Oleck beats to death in this disappointing issue. Man is violent, Man should be confined to Earth. We get it.-Jack

Peter: Incredible Science-Fiction is the third (or fourth, actually) and final title change for EC's SF line, taking over from the seven issues published as Weird Science-Fantasy (which, in turn, took over from the 22 issues each published as Weird Science and Weird Fantasy) but not changing much else format-wise. The highlight this issue is the fabulous "Marbles," with its cinematic Krigstein art and its smart script that keeps you guessing right up to its grim climax. It's one of the best science fiction tales we've seen in an EC funny book in many a moon. Even though "Clean Start" is not graced with Wally's best work, I thought the climax was a genuinely surprising jolt. Never saw it coming and it left a very big grin on my face, remembering that Jack Oleck, now and then, could actually pull off the O. Henry without telecasting it pages before. "Conditioned Reflex" and "Barrier" are cut from the same cloth as "Clean Start": we Earthlings are a warring species and always will be. It's only natural other planets would want to shut us down. Three such tales in one issue is a little much.

"Marbles"

Bernie!

Davis

Impact 3

"Life Sentence"★★
Story by Al Feldstein(?)
Art by Reed Crandall

"The Debt"★★★
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Jack Davis

"Totally Blind"★★
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Jack Kamen

"The Good Fairy"★★★
Story by Al Feldstein(?)
Art by Graham Ingels

A real method actor!
("Life Sentence")

Paul's father is found dead in his hovel but Paul feels no sorrow for him. Pastor Edwards tells Paul that, years before, Paul's father was devastated when Paul's brother died of typhoid. Paul's father went off to attend a hardware convention but came back early, a changed man. He soon left his family and moved into a house on the other side of town. Paul and his mother struggled to survive and Paul grew to hate the man who abandoned them. Paul's mother died at 38 and Paul never forgave his father. Pastor Edwards reveals that he found a newspaper clipping in the dead man's pocket that explains the bizarre behavior. Paul's father had not known he was a typhoid carrier who caused the death not only of his son but of at least 15 people at the hardware convention. He came home and imposed a "Life Sentence" on himself to protect everyone else and to keep the world from knowing that he was at fault. Paul has to rethink his father's actions.

I'm still not feeling very sympathetic for Paul's father. I don't really understand how he was helping his family by keeping his illness a secret. Only in the '50s could this make sense.

"The Debt"

Wealthy banker George Ryder meets Joe Wiler as Joe is released from prison after eight years. Joe's son Ted had been a wild teenager, stealing cars and running with a bad crowd, but Joe kept sticking up for him and getting him out of trouble. Joe even got Ted a job at Ryder's bank, where Joe worked, but after a few months it was discovered that $5000 was missing. Joe took the rap for Ted and was sent to the big house. When he finally gets out, he sees that Ted has settled down and is raising a family. Ryder has a heart attack and confesses that he embezzled the money! Ted was honest after all.

Awww!
("Totally Blind")

Much better than the first story, "The Debt" has a neat twist and--unlike this month's science fiction comic--Jack Davis's art fits the mood perfectly. I did not expect Ted to turn out to be a decent guy. Joe did the right thing sticking up for him. The only false note is the last panel, when Joe attacks Ryder's dead body. The act doesn't fit Joe's personality as established throughout the narrative.

Mildred Wilson has a nice figure but an ugly face, so she never gets a man until "Totally Blind" Jim Shipley moves into the apartment next door. He falls for Mildred's great personality so, when she hears that a doctor can cure his vision for $1000, she agonizes but finally does the right thing and scrapes together the money. A fall down the stairs cures Jim for free and he tells Mildred he still loves her for her personality.

Whew! I needed my Kamen fix or the month. At least it's not a whole issue of it! I don't know if I could take that.

Mean old Sam Crowder is not thrilled when a poor little girl sets up a lemonade stand right in front of his candy store. The cop on the beat tells Sam to lay off and soon everyone on the block is buying from the ragamuffin and ignoring Sam. Things only get better for the gal when her lemonade pitcher is mysteriously filled overnight! Everyone wonders who could "The Good Fairy" be, but wouldn't they all be surprised to learn it's Sam? He has to do this act of kindness at night when no one is watching so he doesn't ruin his reputation as an old skinflint.

Awww!
("The Good Fairy")

Ghastly's art is really good this time out, and the story is not bad, though I can't help thinking that if it were a couple of years earlier, Sam's head would end up in the lemonade pitcher in the last panel! The New Direction EC comics are all sunshine and butterflies.
-Jack

Peter: "Life Sentence" is the usual "I saw the light in the end" nonsense, saved only by Reed Crandall (who has swooped in and saved many a maudlin script). "The Debt," on its surface is another of EC's studies of the ever-growing burden put on the parent of a 1950s' JD. I saw the twist coming a mile away but had a good long chuckle from those final panels. Joe's calm demeanor as he hears his dying boss's confession; his swivel to Ted with a father's pride in his eyes; and then, the crazed throttle, like in some Abbott and Costello routine. "Totally Blind," in the end, is sentimental pap worthy of the Hallmark Channel but I did like the way that Carl played with our expectations of an EC funny book story. The second Jim brought up the mysterious Dr. Svenson and his $1000 miracle operation, I was on to this con man. But then, nope, that wasn't it at all, was it? And when Jim fell down those stairs, I assumed he was getting a bit of EC retribution and was now really blind. But, nope, not that either! Extra star for fooling me twice. Graham Ingels proves there's still petrol left in the tank with what appears to be a Tale from the Crypt, but "The Good Fairy" ends with a monumental cheat. There's no rationale behind the old man's surliness nor his filling the girl's lemonade pitcher every night other than to give us a twist in the tail. Well, you can call me a grump but I don't buy it. Oh and, at first glance on the newsstand, that cover is more sleazy than anything that ever graced a Tales from the Crypt or caught Wertham's attention. You know the story behind the old man's gaze after reading "The Good Fairy," but it sure looks like he's licking his chops over some under-aged cutie, don't it? How the heck did it pass inspection?

Kamen

Psychoanalysis 3

"Freddy Carter. Case No. 101 - Male (Session 3)" ★
"Ellen Lyman. Case No. 102 - Female (Session 3)" ★
Stories by Dan Keyes
Art by Jack Kamen

"Mark Stone. Case No. 103 - Male (Session 3)" 0
Story by Robert Bernstein
Art by Jack Kamen

The last time we encountered Freddy Carter, the 15-year-old hypochondriac had revealed that his asthma was a put-on for attention, and that he'd stolen his best friend's watch "to hurt his parents in retaliation for pulling his personality in two different directions." Entering his office for Freddy's third session, the psychoanalyst notices the precocious teenager perusing the sports page but when the doc brings up the young man's choice in reading, Freddy goes all "Bwana Devil" on him. It just so happens that when Freddy opened the newspaper, it was on the sports page. That doesn't mean he likes sports.

"Oh, but on the contrary," explains our favorite shrink, "You love sports but so does your father and you hate your father. And the reason you hate your father is because he's always bragging about his college sports days and how successful he was at running the ol' pigskin down the field. And you're a mama's boy and your parents are always arguing about your lack of sports prowess and how that embarrasses your father and how Ma wants you to learn how to play the piano like that fine Liberace boy down the street. The piano is not a feminine instrument. No siree." Freddy counters with the time he played high school football and broke his leg and how Pop told him he was a little girl for getting hurt and Ma told her sweet little boy that he was all she had in this world and why did she ever marry that jackass? The doc snickers and nods. "Well, you better grow up and stop being a little sissy hiding under mommy's petticoat," says the shrink, "but that's all the time we have for today." Freddy smiles (the boy is cured yet again) and asks the doc if he can take the sports page home with him.

Ellen sees through the facade and discovers
she's actually trapped within a really bad funny book

If you recall, we left Ellen Lyman completely cured after a lifetime of migraine headaches that actually masked her hatred of her (admittedly prettier) sister, Ruth, but as our hero, the Analyst, discovers, Ellen's even more screwed up than we figured. It all started back in the summer after she graduated high school and went to stay at her Uncle Mike's farm; that's when she met handsome pig farmer, Ted. This strapping bruiser asks her to the hoedown but Ellie declines, citing her two left feet. Ted, never one to leave things at "No!," plants a kiss on the shy young blonde and tells her she's soft an' purty just like the buttermilk biscuits his Ma makes for the county fair.

Ellen flees and finds solace in her bedroom, crying into her pillow, allowing how Ted couldn't possibly think she's pretty as she's the ugliest girl she knows. Then she tells the doc about the weird nightmare she has where she gets dressed up in a ball gown in a house of mirrors and Ted visits her and tells Ellen she's actually as ugly as that old sinkhole he and Pa found behind the outhouse (and you can tell Ted is a really mean guy because he gets those bulbous eyes Jack Kamen gives to all his baddies). The psych nods and snickers, explaining that Ellen actually enjoys having these feelings of homeliness and remember how dreams always play a part in our deep subconscious and that her conscious mind is censoring her true feelings and that all this guilt and self-loathing can be diagnosed as neurotic behavior. If Ellen wants true happiness, she shouldn't deny herself that true happiness. Like the sun rising on a new day, the clouds are lifted from Ellen's vision and she tells the doctor that she is, indeed, fully cured! Case #102 is officially closed.

After abandoning hope of finding interesting
panels, Enfantino just grabs one at random

And, finally, we revisit Mark Stone, a Hollywood writer whose overeating may be the cause of his anxiety attacks. Or it may be the fact that he's an embarrassed son of an immigrant in a land of bigots. As we zoom in on Mark (not too close, though, as he's a whopper), he's having a conversation with America's hardest working psychiatrist . . . The Psychiatrist . . . who quizzes Mark on the wallet he'd left behind after last issue's session. Oddly, the billfold contains no pictures and that tells the shrink that Mark Stone is a very lonely man, a man with no direction . . . with no purpose. Mark allows that he's "given up on the accomplishment of satisfaction!" (Whatever the hell that means.) The doc says a man of Mark's prestige must have a lady love and Mark brags he's got several but he quickly becomes bored with them and dumps them like a bundle of unsold Panics. This intrigues the over-paid head shrinker and he has the overweight scribe lie on the couch and use stream of consciousness to reveal his thoughts on women. As suspected, there's a deep-seated hatred of the opposite sex highlighted by a dream Mark continues to have about a female car cornering him in a deserted alley and calling him by name before transforming into a beat-up jalopy. (Whatever the hell that means.) The doc smirks and nods and tells Mark that, of course, the automobile symbolizes Mark's mother and therefore all women! That explains Stone's contempt, cruelty, hostility, and fear towards women. Just then, Mark jumps up and admits he has a picture of a girl in a secret compartment in his wallet! "I know," laughs the doc, "But your time is up!"

Oy, my head hurts after reading this psychobabble hogwash, and I would eat pickled Freddy gonads to see the issue-by-issue sales figures for Psychoanalysis. Surely, the numbers dwindled to nothing by the end (which is, thank Odin, only one more issue away); what kid, or right-minded adult, would waste time with this cliched nonsense? The dialogue is more wooden than Captain Storm's leg; the only one left smiling after this one must have been Jack Kamen, who continued to line his stencils up and pump these strips out without having to strain his brain on minor things like choreography or depth illusion. You know, the kind of thing that kept the other EC artists up at night. As a fascinating aside (just about the only fascinating tidbit I could come up with for Psychoanalysis), editor Al Feldstein had a boatload of problems with the then-new Comics Code Authority concerning the Mark Stone character. Evidently, the CCA had a problem with Stone's being a Jew and rejected Feldstein's use of the character's original Jewish name! The whole story can be found in the Von Bernewitz/Geissman volume, Tales of Terror! (Fantagraphics, 2000). -Peter

Jack: Peter, your summaries and comments were way more entertaining than slogging through Psychoanalysis #3! The psychiatrist is a pushy jerk and Freddy's Dad is kind of pathetic, too, with his room full of college trophies. These stories sure don't make me wish I lived in the 1950s! The Carters are one heck of a family. While we're on the subject of decoding, why does the Psychiatrist always have a pipe stuck in his mouth? Hmm? Oral fixation?

Reading the Ellen Lyman case after the Freddy Carter case made me start to worry that I was seeing aspects of myself in these characters and stories, but then I remembered the same thing happened when I took Psych 101 in college and I found out that everyone feels that way. At least, that's how I remember it. I'm glad Ellen is cured and can go to the concert with Paul.

In the Mark Stone case we learn that the Psychiatrist is also a snoop! Mind your own business, shrink! Mark is a creep and the (presumably Freudian) dream symbolism is ridiculous. Of course it's all Mom's fault! By the way, I kind of like Kamen's swipe from Hitchcock's famous dream sequence in Spellbound on the cover.

Next Week in Star Spangled #138 . . .
Has the Haunted Tank met its match?

And this Thursday . . .
Something Old is New Again