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!
5 comments:
Black Ceremonies, Rog!
I can understand why you made the mistake of calling it Black Carnival though. Obviously, you were understandably distracted by those damsels in distress.
'Black Ceremonies' it is. I'll change that in a moment, Charles.
Quite apart from the Scream girls, this blog has presented more than its share of problems this past week. For one thing, I had to save this post as draft for a week, until Wanadoo sorted out its problems, so that I could utilise extra pages there for the expanded pictures. There was more, but I won't go on. I'm actually beginning to like the Spanish text that's mysteriously appeared here... unless no-one else is seeing it?
Suddenly I feel afraid. Very afraid...
Thanks, Rog.
Spanish? I see no Spanish.
'Tasteful'. You're right. It's not a nice thing to say about anybody and I apologise unreservedly.
I've not seen any Spanish text but the page sure displays weird in Firefox so I switch to IE for it now. i figured I'd best mention it.
Hi Charles. Glad to see it's going well with you mate!
Well, I'd been thinking about putting this Skywald stuff on the net for ages, so the 'tasteful' remark gave me an excuse I didn't even need. :)
Actually, I must admit that the page I put up to your site was a bit too nice - OK, *gulp*, too tasteful - for a Not at Night portal. Possibly it needs a blood smear right across it. That would help.
You can't see the Spanish text?
Strange. I figured Charles was just winding me up. Now I'm not sure.
You say the page displays weird in Firefox. From curiosity, I just tried viewing it with Opera, and with that, it sucks! Apart from the required higher screen resolution - not good for my eyes - I notice that the 'alt' messages that should appear when the mouse hovers over links, don't work! All that appears is the link address.
I found this problem first when I viewed this page of my other site with Opera. It looks horrible in high resolution, with text overlapping the pictures. But at 800 x 600 pixels, it's fine. I shall however avoid that particular coding in future!
But it's a mystery that you can't see the Spanish text!
Time to Publicar un comentario en: Dreaming of Babylon. But first: Escriba los caracteres que vea en la imagen de arriba.
Cut and paste is a marvellous thing... and if I can do that, it must be here!
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