Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
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In fact, I had several, what with me being a fan of horror comics and a determined admirer of Charlton.
But one of those issues was different.
For I read it in the days before I took to collecting comics. Which meant I read it once and then it was disposed of, leaving nothing behind but vague memories of what it had contained.
Now, after all this time, I think I've tracked down that issue and I think it was 1971's Dr Graves #26 whose cover, by an immense coincidence, just happens to be to the left of these very words.
So, now that I've been reunited with my long-lost love, will that love be rekindled?
We kick off with The Arrival of the Innocent, as brought to us by Joe Gill and Pete Morisi.
In it, an American woman inherits a big old house in England and is warned, by the locals, not to risk living there, due to a ghost infestation.
Needless to say, she ignores such superstitious twaddle.
But, when she moves in, the ghosts' best efforts to scare her out of the building fail miserably.
To be honest, when I say she's a witch, I'm not really sure about that. It's never actually explained just how come she can exist in both the realm of the living and the realm of ghosts. We're also told she's thousands of years old but aren't told how she's achieved that feat either. It's all extremely vague and, possibly, not too well-thought-out.
Morisi's art, as is the case with all the samples of his work I've ever seen, has a look that makes you suspect it's traced from photographs and, thus, has a very static quality to it. But, having said that, it also has an appealing simplicity.
Sadly, for both of them, he quickly falls victim to a murder plot by his sister.
However, when our heroine finds herself back in the present, she meets the house's current owner who's, presumably, the reincarnation of Lord Cecil. Romance is, thus, guaranteed.
Again, things are highly vague. It's not clear whether he is a reincarnation or just the same man who's, somehow, still with us. Joe Gill's clearly not in the mood for explanations, this issue.
It also has to be said the tale looks very mechanical in both its art and its lettering, as though produced by some sort of machine.
And he's currently using that power to try to prevent a road being built in the area.
When a daring young local investigates, it turns out the weird old bloke and his dog have been dead for many years. And so it is that a quick funeral for the pair puts an end to their road-sabotage campaign.
Well, that's all that wrapped up. So, is the comic any good?
Not really. It's mostly a lot lighter in tone than I'd expect but lacks the charm a comic like Midnight Tales employed to make up for such frivolousness.
Also, all three tales have confusing or not properly explained elements to them, with the final one being particularly confusing to me on first reading. The artwork's inoffensive throughout but only Ditko's has any kind of verve to it.
Still, it's a Charlton comic.
That makes it a plucky underdog.
That means I'm on its side, even when it fails.
And it kind of does fail.
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18 comments:
Steve I'm sure Charlie speaks for all of us when I say we are sorry your long lost love was not all that.
None the less you pretty much summed up Charlton comics in the main, quite nicely: plucky, underdog, marginal art, stories with potential.
How did you find this comic - online or did you buy it or was it perhaps on the shelves of your local library?
MP - Regarding ice fishing and gold fish from yesterday... As the great Ted Lasso said in the past year or so, "The happiest animal in the world is a gold fish. He only has a memory of 10 seconds."
Don't laugh at that quote! I was just watching Chelsea - Tottenham and the Brit announcers used it!
I suspect anyone who sits on a block of ice in sub-freezing temps for hours on end is either totally stoned or... has the DNA of a Goldfish as well?
b.t.w Ted Lasso is highly recommended. Maybe get the free 1-week trial subscription and blast through it? Now if only Disney would give a one-week trial b/c Charlie really, really wants to see the Let It Be series!!! I keep hearing nothing but great things!
Charlie, I found an online copy of the comic. I'm not totally sure where but it was one of those sites whose adverts make you worry your computer's going to get some dreadful STD from them.
While being a early Marvel "zombie" starting in the 60's into the early 80's, I ended up with a few handful of Charlton comics in my collection. For some unknown reason my sisters would buy an issue when I bought comics, and it was usually The Many Ghosts Of Dr. Graves. They weren't even horror fans. My sister's would throw them on my bed or desk after a week or so. Being a voracious reader that was very welcome.
The stories were usually interesting,and seeing Ditko was great. Plus Charlton had alot of ads that were different. I sent away for a few t-shirt decals & posters from their books. Also my membership to the Farrah Fawcett fan club. ��
Charlie, Oh my brother, I absolutely LOATHED ice fishing. It was bad enough my father would drag me out deer hunting at 2:00am in blizzards & sub-freezing temps after I spent all summer, after school & my partime job, chainsawing trees & splitting dozens of cords of wood with an axe, to stay warm in the winter.
The only time ice fishing was almost enjoyable to me was when my ad and I did it with his best friend, my godfather. He had a tent, a propane heater, and plenty of wine.
Charlie, Oh my brother! Thanks for the remind on the Beatles series.
A barmaid granted me access to her Disney+ account, and I really hadn't found a whole lot of good stuff on it. The MCU series' are horrible, I own all the "good" movies on DVD, and BLACK WIDOW was "errrr".
Willing to give Shang-Chi a view, but only cause I'm a old school Kung-Fu movie fan. I have zero interest in watching ETERNALS.
This whole Charlton = unrequited love makes Charlie think of someone with a case of "the chubs." Sorry...
KILLDUMPSTER - Where have you been amigo? Are you back for the long haul or are you just teasing us? (I sent you a few emails inquiring about your existence. Junk mail? I was afraid you ran head on into the Great White Buffalo or something and had a case of amnesia!)
FARAH FAWCETT! Got THE poster for xmas from my family around 1976? They must have sold a billion of them! I still catch the occassional Charlie Angel rerun on MeTV or the Heroes channels which are just 1950s - 1970s series. Very cool! Love me some HAWAII-50 in Winter!!!
Charlie, Oh my brother-
Just had a bit of drama to overcome (much like most folks nowadays), but I'm trying to shake it off.
I'm screaming to be back-in-form, though. For good or ill.
Like the Goose said in MAD MAX , "Big as life, AND TWICE AS UGLY!!!" �� �� ��
My mom tore my Farrah poster off my door. She said it was porn. I believe it still may be the best selling poster of all time.
When I heard she passed, on my way home from work on the radio,I was really bummed-out. 5 minutes later they announced Jack-o died. I said to myself, " She'll hardly get a second thought".
If that woman went back in time 600 years she wouldn't be able to understand a word Lord Cecil was saying because he'd be speaking the English of Chaucer, incomprehensible to modern ears. And even if she could speak to him she'd probably say "You stink to high heaven - have you had a bath in the last decade?" rather than fall in love with him (because nobody took baths in those days y'see, not even the rich).
KD, it's nice to know you're still with us. Even though I wasn't particularly a fan of Farrah Fawcett, the lack of media coverage her death received did always seem unfair.
Colin, also, his house wouldn't have had any toilets.
You gotta love these old Charltons! Cheesy as heck. Those "horror hosts", always lurking around the panels with blazing eyes. I'm partial to Ditko's stuff here.
They spooked me a bit when I was a kid. I think I have the reprint of this with a different year and cover, which doesn't surprise me. Those guys reprinted everything.
M.P.
Thanks for another dose of Bronze age mystery, Steve! I too have amassed a few Charltons. Never cared for the mechanical (as you appropriately put it) lettering. Have the same problem with some old Dell comics. But the Ditko art is enjoyable!
One other regrettable feature of Charlton- really rough paper quality. Made Marvel and DC page stock seem luxuriously refined...
Good to hear from you KD! And yes, that Farrah poster was everywhere. It's almost emblematic of the 70's, right there with disco and Pet Rocks...
I remember as a kid our neighbor lady whose family lived down the road chatting with my mom.
She complained about her sons putting that infamous Farrah poster on their bedroom wall.
Good grief, you could almost see her nipples! Gasp!
God knows where they got it. I wonder if she tore it down or not.
I remember around that time one of my older sisters had a poster of Fonzie on the wall.
No nipples, though.
M.P.
Redartz:
Yes, that Charlton paper felt cruddy to the touch — kinda grimy, i guess you could say — even the covers felt sort of bumpy and weird. But I have a deep soft spot for the comics themselves.
Ditko and Tom Sutton could almost always be relied upon to bring something fun (or at least interesting) to the party. Joe Staton and Pat Boyette could be hit or miss, and Pete Morisi’s stuff was a strange mix of stiff photo reference, abstract backgrounds, static compositions and the occasional George Tuska swipe. I rarely liked any of the stories he drew all the way through, but there were usually a few panels in each one that made you think ‘If only the entire thing looked as good as THAT…’
I wanted to like Wayne Howard’s stuff but usually didn’t. There were definitely some heavy Wally Wood-isms in his art but the under-lying structure was lacking. I felt bad, because you could tell he definitely put a lot of effort into his stuff, but to me his work never rose above ‘mediocre’.
The ‘Charles Nicholas’ team (penciller Charles Nicholas Wojtkowski and inker Vince Alascia) were super-prolific but man, their stuff just lay there. Not actually ‘bad’, just utterly lifeless.
Late in the game, John Byrne and Don Newton both drew some terrific comics for the company before graduating to the Majors. Writing-wise, Nick Cuti was probably their best writer, Joe Gill probably their weakest (but most prolific by FAR).
b.t.
My understanding is that unlike the big two Charlton did their own printing and distribution in house, which I guess explains the different feel. And editorially the company was relatively hands off, and gave their creators a fair bit of leeway.
All of which makes me wish I liked their comics more than I actually did.
I sympathise with your outlook here Steve, but how ever much we might be on side with Charlton in theory they did, generally, fail. It's a hard world.
-sean
You guys summed it up. Sean was the icing on bt's cake.
I would look at Charlton but only eagerly bought E-Man and Vengeance Squad for the first few issues.
O/wise they just had to have a compelling war cover and a compelling internal story. This sort of suggests Charlie read the thing half way through at the spinner rack before buying a Charlton... and that would have been true.
Never touched a horror / ghost comic. Scary Monsters and Super Creeps didn't do it for me.
And then... there were the sudden reprints of Captain Atom, Judo Master, Pace Maker, et al. around 1975? I assume it was by Charlton? That lasted for a few months one summer... not sure what triggered it. Perhaps the success of Atlas a few years earlier?
Charlie:
If you don’t dig Ghost / Horror comics, then yeah, you’re not gonna have much use for quite a huge chunk of Charlton’s output. But outside of the spooky stuff, what DO we have….
The early to mid-60s ‘Action Hero’ comics — my favorites are Blue Beetle, The Question and The Peacemaker. I like Pat Boyette’s quirky Flash Gordon too, but they’re a decidedly acquired taste. They kinda look like Alex Raymond’s pretty people and exotic settings and critters got hammered by The Ugly Stick. Doesn’t sound like much of a recommendation, I know, but they’re actually kinda cool.
There’s YANG, by Joe Gill and Warren Sattler, a pretty blatant knockoff of the KUNG FU tv show. I have a few issues, but almost never look at ‘em. It spawned a spin-off book, HOUSE OF YANG, with kinda/sorta manga-ish art by Sanho Kim, whose stuff I never warned up to (tho he does have his admirers).
Towards the end of Charlton’s run, six or seven really cool issues of THE PHANTOM beautifully drawn by Don Newton. Best Phantom Ever, in my book. DOOMSDAY + 1 and a few issues of SPACE: 1999, all nicely drawn by young John Byrne, transitioning from ‘Talented Fan’ to ‘Promising Pro’. As you mentioned, E-MAN and VENGEANCE SQUAD, yup. And after E-Man’s book was cancelled, Staton did a few pretty good issues of SPACE:1999 and SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN right before jumping ship to Marvel, Star Reach and DC.
Charlton also published b/w magazines of both SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN and SPACE :1999. Both are more ‘interesting’ than ‘good. Of the two, I like SPACE : 1999 better. Lots of tasty Gray Morrow art.
Charlton’s various War comics don’t interest me much. I have six or seven that I only got because they have Tom Sutton stories in ‘em. I have exactly one Charlton Romance book (with a really nice Alex Toth story). They published scads of Westerns too, but I don’t have any (unless Yang counts, which I guess it kinda-sorta does).
b.t.
B.t.- nice call on Charlton's b/w magazines. They also published several issues of "Emergency " based on the tv show. Nice covers and interiors by Neal Adams and Continuity...
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