I’m told that I’ve been guilty of good taste, recently, so in case this was catching, I decided the world should be reminded of The Victims. Drawn by SU SO, for Sywald’s Scream magazine, the frames shown here appeared in the August and September 1974 issues, providing proof if any were needed that the ‘70’s was indeed the decade good taste forgot.
The story featured two young ladies being put through episode after episode, in which they faced perils worse than any Pauline ever dreamed of. Who the victims were, or how their ordeal began, I don’t know. But previous to their being grabbed by this giant squid, the two young ladies had been captured by a crew of rotting zombie pirates; later, they were to find themselves imprisoned beneath the waves by a Nazi dwarf submarine captain at the helm of his giant squid robot.
But you probably guessed that.
And getting back to the accusation of ‘good taste’?
Well, I was working on a web page intended to provide an extra portal for Gruesome Cargoes from my other site. I showed the page - which is still unfinished - to site administrator Demonik, whose comment was that it was... ‘very tasteful’.
Hmph! Talk about damning with faint praise! No one ever accused Christine Campbell Thomson or Herbert van Thal of being tasteful!
I also heard from Charles Black, whose collection of horror stories, entitled Black Ceremonies, is to be published by Wicked Karnival and Grafika Press in 2007.
Finally, saving the best until last, I’ve also heard from Magnetic Mary! Yes, a birthday card from her dropped through my letterbox! You see, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know that really counts. The card was a little late, but Mary says that she would find it easier to remember my birthday if I would just grow up…
Hmm…
First Dem' and now Mary. They're ganging up on me! :(
So I need to cultivate tastelessness, dust off my old fiction, and be a little more mature.
All right, a lot more mature.
Just don’t hold your breath! :D
For completists who would like to view the frames as they appeared on the complete comic pages, you can view the first page here, and the second page here.
Find out will the Victims learn that "Death by drowning is perhaps an easier, kinder, faster death than death by utter suffocation"? They sure knew how to write this stuff!