Longbox Junk Halloween Retro Review - Marvel Classics Comics #28 (1977)

Welcome back to Longbox Junk, the blog stuffed absolutely FULL of comic reviews you never asked for!

It's October!  That great time of year when you see people wearing shorts AND a heavy jacket at the same time.  It's also the time of year when we celebrate spooky comics here at Longbox Junk!  

This year, I'm mixing it up a little by shining the spotlight on some of the older and/or more "valuable" comics in my collection with a supernatural twist.  It's been a bit of a mixed bag so far, but I've been having fun with it.

The comic at hand is part of Marvel's attempt to pick up the mantle of the long-running "Classics Illustrated", which stopped publishing in 1971 after a very respectable 169 issues adapting various literary works into comic form.  

Marvel Classics Comics lasted for 36 issues and ( if you like this kind of thing) are well worth keeping your eye out for.  They feature a "Who's Who" of great Bronze Age comic talent. . .this particular issue features the first published comic work of superstar artist Michael Golden on the third story.  

SO. . .

A Mighty Marvel adaptation of three of the creepiest stories ever written and featuring the first comic work of a notable Bronze Age artist?  How can this NOT be good?  Let's do this!

MARVEL CLASSICS COMICS #28

THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM

MARVEL (1977)

COVER: Gene Colan

THE COVER:

We start things off with a cover by one of my personal top ten Bronze Age artists, Gene Colan.  I have to admit that I don't like this cover as much as I feel I SHOULD, but it seems like there's a bit too much wasted space.  The terrified face of the victim is great, but it's sort of hidden away down in the corner.  Not a BAD cover (I don't think I've ever seen anything by Gene Colan I'd call bad), but it could have been better.  Let's get inside!

THE STORIES:

Although this comic's title and cover leans heavy into "The Pit and the Pendulum", there's also adaptations of "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Cask of Amontillado" in here by the same writer, but with different artists.  Let's give them each a turn. . .

THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM

SCRIPT: Edgar Allan Poe, adapted by Don McGregor

PENCILS: Rudy Mesina

An unnamed man is brutally tortured by the Spanish Inquisition after being sentenced to death.  Relying on his wits and pure determination to live, he manages to avoid a terrible fate several times before being rescued.

Widely-regarded as one of Poe's greatest stories, this short tale of terror and torment is a simple one at heart, with no named characters and a pure focus on the torture endured and the mental toll it takes on the main character.  This is actually one of the best adaptations of the story I've seen.  

Don McGregor maintains the rambling first-person narrative of the original tale, condensing it down to the bare essence needed to translate into comic form.  Rudy Mesina backs the writing up with dark, horrific art that perfectly captures the desperate, helpless tone of the story.  

A simply fantastic re-telling of a classic tale!

NEXT!

THE TELL-TALE HEART

SCRIPT: Edgar Allan Poe, adapted by Don McGregor

PENCILS: Yong Montano

After a caretaker murders an elderly man, he cleverly hides the body, but while being interviewed by the police, he is so tormented by the perceived beating of the dead man's heart that he confesses his crime.

Don McGregor knocks it out of the park a second time by stripping down the original narrative JUST enough to adapt it to comic form, while artist Yong Montano provides some fantastic visuals that take us on the narrator's journey to madness through some really interesting panel forms and layouts.

Together, the creative team gives the reader a dark trip into a twisted mind that makes even a story as well-known as this one a gripping read!  Very nicely done.

AND FINALLY. . .

THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO

SCRIPT:  Edgar Allan Poe, adapted by Don McGregor

PENCILS: Michael Golden

After being somehow insulted, the injured man lures the perpetrator deep into a family vault, where he walls him up alive. . .

Once again, Don McGregor strips a classic tale down to the terrifying essence, taking just enough of the original narrative to adapt the story to comic form, and leaving the rest to the artist. 

I mentioned above that this is Michael Golden's first published comic work, and as you can see from the page scan above, he arrived with his unique style already fully-formed!  Often, when you see an artist's early work compared to their later, there can be a significant difference.  This is not the case here.  

Golden's signature realistic-yet-exaggerated and darkly-inked style perfectly compliments the horrific tale of a man lured to his death.  He deftly takes over where McGregor leaves off, providing the reader with a fantastic rendering of what normally must be created in the mind's eye.

Overall, a practically perfect comic adaptation of what is already a practically perfect story.

CONCLUSION

When I was ten years old, my introduction to the world of horror was with a gigantic illustrated and annotated volume of Edgar Allan Poe's stories that I got for a Christmas present.  The Pit and The Pendulum and The Cask of Amontillado were two stories that gripped my young attention , and they remain two of my favorite stories today.  Both of them short and simple, but terrifying in a way that no vampire or ghost story could ever be.

This comic adaptation of three stories that I have read and enjoyed MANY times are of such quality in both writing and art that they once again gripped my imagination and seemed almost new!

Bottom line. . .if you are a fan of Edgar Allan Poe or horror comics (or both), then you should have this comic in your collection.  Despite being Michael Golden's first published comic work, it's not anywhere close to being "valuable" to collectors, so copies can be found cheap. . .I paid one lousy buck for mine.  Plus I see it's on ComiXology, so there's that as well.  

If you're looking for some creepy Halloween comic reading, you can't do much better than this.

Up Next. . .

It's time to invite a Werewolf to this Halloween Party!

Marvel's Werewolf By Night #11 from 1973.

Be there or be square!

Longbox Junk - Edgar Allan Poe's The Premature Burial

Welcome back to Longbox Junk, the place to find comic book reviews nobody asked for!

There's still a couple weeks left in October, so we're still having some Halloween fun here at Longbox Junk by looking at some of the spooky things hiding in the dark corners of my (and my daughter's) comic collection.

This time out, we have a Dark Horse one shot adaptation of a couple of Edgar Allan Poe's shorter works written and illustrated by comic legend Richard Corben.

If Halloween were to have a central figure. . .a mascot, if you will, like Christmas has Santa Claus or Easter has the Easter Bunny, or. . .er. . .okay, that's all I can think of.  ANYWAY. . .if Halloween were to have its own mascot, in MY extremely humble opinion it should be the grumpy ghost of Edgar Allan Poe.

For the sake of TRYING to keep my introductions to a manageable length I won't go too far into the history of Poe. . .he basically lived a short, tragic life and died a mysterious death, leaving behind a body of some of the darkest literature ever written that is now regarded as the work of a mad genius, but was mostly ignored during his lifetime.

Poe's life story is one of heartbreak, death, poverty, and unappreciated genius.  If you really feel like loving the life you have, then read Poe's life story and then thank God you aren't him.  

SO. . .

We have an undisputed comic book legend adapting two short tales by one of the undisputed masters of dark and creepy literature.  How can this NOT be good?  Let's take a look!

EDGAR ALLAN POE'S

THE PREMATURE BURIAL

DARK HORSE (2014)

SCRIPTS: RICHARD CORBEN

PENCILS: RICHARD CORBEN

COVER: RICHARD CORBEN

There's two stories in this one-shot and, as you can tell from the credits above, this is pretty much a one man show with Richard Corben wearing all the hats.  Before we get into the comic, let's take a brief look at the cover. . .

Now THAT'S a Halloween cover!  I love Corben's use of negative space to frame the ghoulish scenario in the center.  The dreary colors highlight the living flesh of the man in the coffin as well as the title.  The supreme attention to detail in things like the terror in the eyes of the living man lets you know before you even open this comic that there's a master at work here.  

Wait. . .did I mention I'm a big Richard Corben fan?  No?  Well there it is, then.  This isn't Corben's best cover ever, but it's still a great cover.  Let's get inside.

THE PREMATURE BURIAL

We begin the tale in a graveyard where Lucian and his fiancee, Victoria are having a picnic.  Victoria rebuffs Lucian's advances and leaves him without realizing that Lucian has given her poisoned wine.

Appearing dead, Victoria is buried in the same graveyard.  Lucian digs up her grave the night of her burial, but Victoria wakes up as he is groping her body.  In a panic, Victoria flees and Lucian hits his head on a gravestone as he tries to pursue her. . .

A funeral is held for Lucian as the blow to his head has made him appear dead as well, but Victoria realizes he's not actually dead and hires the gravediggers to dig the terrified man who has been buried alive back up. . .

As Lucian recovers from his ordeal, he is informed by his outraged father that Victoria has told him exactly what happened and that, for some reason, she still wants to marry Lucian.  The two are married, but Lucian can't find happiness because he's become obsessed with his short time of being buried alive. . .

As Lucian sinks deeper into his obsession with being buried alive again, he takes many precautions to avoid that horrible fate. . .an above-ground tomb with a bell he can ring, a coffin that comes easily apart, a supply of food, and so on.  

Even so, he finds himself unable to sleep, terrified that he will wake up in a coffin again.  Victoria gives him tea so that he can sleep, but he finds himself having a horrible nightmare of being buried alive. . .

In Lucian's nightmare, he wanders a hellish landscape of the tormented dead who have been buried alive.  Their screams are relentless.  He spots Victoria and runs to her, hoping she can help him escape the nightmare. . .

But instead of helping him, Victoria grins wickedly and ignores his cries!

Lucian's worst nightmare comes true as he wakes from his dream confined in a coffin!  But he is quickly relieved to hear another voice as he realizes he's not in a coffin, but in a small berth aboard a ship he is travelling on for a hunting trip.  

Relief turns to horror as Lucian realizes the truth. . .the ship is a fantasy and he is indeed buried alive after being drugged by his wife.

The End.

For those who haven't read Poe's original "The Premature Burial", it's less of a story and more like what one would hear at a lecture, the sort of which were popular entertainment in his day.  An introduction to the subject, several short examples, and then the speaker's personal experience.  It's a very matter-of-fact piece, compared to Poe's other tales, and there's actually not much narrative to it at all.

What Corben has done here is to meld the various elements of the original piece together and add to them in order to create an actual story out of what is more of a dry lecture on Premature Burial.  So this becomes less of an adaptation and more of a re-imagining.  

For someone who's read Poe's work many times such as myself, this is a fantastic interpretation of what is really one of Poe's less memorable works.  The moving and combining of the separate elements of the original by Corben in order to make an actual story out of them is brilliant.

Corben's reliably outstanding artwork is in top form here.  The wicked grin of Victoria as Lucian realizes she's purposely buried him alive is probably the creepiest thing in the entire story.  Corben's use of the comic panel itself as Lucian's coffin on top of the final page is another standout moment, as is the small image of the terrified Lucian enduring his awful fate at the bottom of the final page.

What we have here is a fantastic re-imagining of one of Poe's less memorable works, backed up with some top-notch art by one of the most legendary comic illustrators in the business.  I can find nothing wrong with this chilling little tale.  

THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO

We begin our tale with the Lord Montresor leading the widowed Madam Fortunato into his family crypt, promising to shed some light on the mysterious disappearance of her husband nearly 50 years ago. . .

Montresor tells her that many years ago, he found her drunken husband celebrating at a carnival and invited him to his home. . .to the very crypt they are in. . .to sample some Amontillado wine, for her husband was a great lover of rare wines. . .

As they traveled deeper and deeper into the depths of the crypt beneath the Montresor Pallazo, her husband was offered several times to turn back, but Fortunato greatly desired to sample the Amontillado, and so the pair pressed on, deeper into the crypt. . .

Finally, Montresor led Fortunato to a small alcove, promising the Amontillado was within.  But there was nothing in the alcove but a chain, which Montresor quickly used to bind Fortunato within the dark alcove. . .

Once Fortunato was securely confined, Montresor began to brick the alcove up.  Fortunato thought Montresor was playing a cruel joke right up until the time that Montresor placed the final stone. . .burying Fortunato alive within the walls of the very crypt they now stood within, and where Madam Fortunato's missing husband has been for the nearly 50 years since!

Madam Fortunato is understandably horrified by Montresor's confession.  She demands to know what her husband did that so wronged Montresor that he did such a thing.  Montresor thinks a moment, but is unable to remember!  

Montresor explains to the horrified Madam Fortunato that he merely wanted someone to know the truth after all the years had passed, and that he has come to the crypt to die. . .a glass of poisoned wine and Montresor falls dead beside the tomb of Fortunato.

The End.

"The Cask of Amontillado" is one of Poe's better known works, and one of my personal favorites.  It's basically a very short, very simple tale of one man luring another into a crypt and walling him up alive.  

What Corben does here is add a framing device to add more depth to the original tale.  In the original story, beyond vague insinuations of insult, it's never explained WHY Montresor walled Fortunato up.  Here, the lack of explanation becomes truly horrible as Montresor confesses to Fortunato's widow that he can't even remember why he killed her husband in such a cruel way.  

It's a brilliant touch by Corben that makes a great story even better!  The confession of Montresor becomes even more horrifying than the deed itself, due to the absurdity of his not even remembering why he did it.

The art in this story is simply fantastic!  This is a tale that has very little action or supernatural elements to it, so facial expressions need to do a lot of the heavy lifting.  Corben delivers in a big way here.  Fortunato's manic grin as he walls up Fortunato, as well as the insanity in that same grin as he makes his confession are real standout moments in a story full of great art.

What we have here is a brilliant expansion on an already great story, backed up by some extremely detailed and creepy art focusing on facial expressions.  For me, THIS is the definitive adaptation of Poe's classic tale.

CONCLUSION

If you're looking for a good horror comic, look no further.  You won't find gore or monsters here, but what you WILL find are two creepy little stories of madness and revenge that use the primal fear of being buried alive as their foundation.

In the first, we have a brilliant re-structuring and re-imagination of what is otherwise one of Poe's less memorable works, turning it from a dry lecture and into an actual story.

In the second, we have more of a straight re-telling of a classic story, but with an outstanding framing device that makes an already great story even better.

In both we have incredible artwork by one of the undisputed legends of comic art.

If you are a fan of horror comics, Richard Corben, Edgar Allan Poe, or any combination of those things, then do yourself a favor and grab this comic if you happen to spot it in the bargain bin.  It's pure Longbox Junk Halloween gold.

Up Next. . .

MORE Halloween fun!  That's right. . .MORE!

Be there or be square.

Longbox Junk - Haunt of Horror: Edgar Allan Poe

Now that I think of it, I PROBABLY should have done this entry for Halloween.

BUT. . .

What we have here is a 3 issue black and white series adapting 10 of Edgar Allan Poe's shorter works, featuring the art of the legendary Richard Corben.  Edgar Allan Poe and Richard Corben. . .how can this NOT be good?

Let's check it out!

HAUNT OF HORROR: EDGAR ALLAN POE

Marvel (MAX) 2006

ISSUE ONE

Fair warning. . .if you're prone to depression, do NOT read this comic (or the other 2 issues in this mini)! Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but this comic is unrelentingly grim. That said, I liked it a lot.

Basically, it breaks down to adaptations of three of E.A. Poe's shorter works. The Raven being the best known. Conqueror Worm fairly well known, and The Sleeper probably known mostly to people who dig deep into Poe's catalog. All of them illustrated by comic legend Richard Corben, whose work is a bit polarizing.

With Corben it's either love him or hate him. . .not much in between, so your enjoyment of this mini will depend entirely on your opinion of Corben's art, as it is almost completely his show. Let's take a look at the 3 adaptations separately. . .

THE RAVEN
Art and Script by Richard Corben

Probably the best known of Poe's works, and brilliantly adapted by Corben on both art and scripts. Stepping outside the bounds of the original poem (which is also included in its entirety. . .a very nice touch), The Raven becomes a grim and claustrophobic journey into the mind of a man living with the guilt of murdering his one true love. I really liked this reimagining of an already dark work, making it even darker with its brutal new ending.

THE SLEEPER
Art by Richard Corben
Script by Rich Margopoulos

This is one of Poe's less well known works. . .a short poem that is used word for word in this adaptation (unlike The Raven, where Corben used only short phrases) where it is imagined as a modern vampire tale where a priest is unwittingly dragged into a dark and bloody battle to save the soul of his murdered niece.

The ending to this one is particularly horrific, as the priest becomes the thing he has been hunting. These aren't sparkly, romantic vampires. . .these are bloodthirsty creatures illustrated in gruesome detail by Corben. A very nice story told in a very short space. . .and once again, the original poem included at the end.

THE CONQUEROR WORM
Art by Richard Corben
Script by Rick Dahl

The final adaptation in this first issue is one of Poe's better known works, but is also the one taken furthest from the source material. Corben and Dahl imagine Conqueror Worm in the far apocalyptic future decades after humans narrowly won a victory against invading aliens that devastated Earth's environment with terraforming during the long and brutal war.

 In the time of the story, the few human survivors are barely surviving in isolated fortresses. A delegation to the remains of Philadelphia discovers to their horror the secret of that city's prosperity.

This was my favorite story of the three. It reminded me a LOT of something that would be in Heavy Metal magazine, with the truly horrific reveal of Philadelphia's secret and the brutal ending. Like I said above, this is the farthest departure from Poe's original work (once again, included in full for comparison at the end), but I thought the apocalyptic science fiction take on Conqueror Worm was brilliantly done in every way.

CONCLUSION

As I said at the beginning of this review. . .the reader's enjoyment of this mini will entirely depend on their opinion of Corben's artwork. I'm on the "love it" side of the fence, so I found this issue to be fantastic in almost every way.

I particularly enjoyed the dark science fiction adaptation of Conqueror Worm, but all three of these stories were winners in my book. But like I also said at the beginning, be warned. . .these tales are dark and unrelentingly brutal.

There are NO bright moments to be found here. There is NO victory for any of the protagonists. There is NO hope. This is an extremely dark and depressing collection. . . but in a good way?

ISSUE TWO

This issue adds an entry over the first for a total of 4, of which the best known one for most readers will probably be The Tell-Tale Heart. Like the first issue, each of the works these interpretations are based on are also included in their entirety at the end of each one for comparison. A very nice touch!

Let's get into each one of these entries separately. . .

THE TELL-TALE HEART
Art by Richard Corben
Script by Rich Margopolous

The longest of the original works in this issue is given only 6 pages, and unlike the other entries, is paraphrased instead of word for word. It is presented in fantastic style by Corben, with each of the 6 pages being a single page panel without interior borders so the captions and illustrations flow together in a way that is extremely easy to follow and truly showcases why Corben is a comic legend.

 It's pretty much a straight adaptation of the story, but the ending goes beyond the original story with the protagonist realizing after he confesses his crime that the beating heart was his own, and he dies of a heart attack from the stress. I'm sort of on the fence about the departure from the original ending. It's not BAD, but Poe's ending was perfect already.

SPIRITS OF THE DEAD
Art by Richard Corben
Script by Richard Dahl

This very short Poem is interpreted by Corben and Dahl as a revenge story where black soldiers slaughtered in an ambush during the Civil War rise from the dead decades later to save a black man from being lynched by the KKK. The captions are the poem word for word and they fit the idea and illustrations very well. . .at the same time, this story could have been told without captions at all, Corben is THAT good at visual storytelling.

EULALIE
Art by Richard Corben
Script by Richard Dahl

Although the script is another word for word captioning of a very short poem, the visual adaptation is probably the most disturbing of the 4 entries in this issue. Corben and Dahl re-imagine Poe's ode to the beauty of a woman as a short tale about a lonely old man who orders a blow up doll and has a heart attack while having sex with it. The image of the dead man laying next to the staring, open-mouthed doll is truly horrific.

Once again, this story could have easily been told without captions, thanks to Corben's fantastic visual storytelling. The beauty of Poe's words alongside the utter visual horror of dying alone makes this entry one of the darkest in this whole series.

And finally. . .

THE LAKE
Art by Richard Corben
Script by Rich Margopolous

Another word for word adaptation of a very short poem, this entry is imagined as the story of a serial killer whose victims finally rise from the dead to take their revenge. This was probably my least favorite of the 4 entries in this issue. Corben's art just didn't seem on point in this one. . .especially with the killer, who is sporting a 90's-tastic blown out blonde mullet.  That said, a single panel showing his previous victims weighted down and rotting at the bottom of a lake is one of the best in this whole series.

CONCLUSION

Despite a BIT of a stumble with the final entry, this was another fantastic issue. Like the first, it is unrelentingly brutal and dark. There are several places where the illustrations lingered in my thoughts for quite a while. . .and not in a particularly good way. This series so far has been top-notch horror.

ISSUE THREE

The final issue adapts 3 of Poe's lesser-known works. . .a very short story (Berenice) and 2 poems. Israfel is probably the best known of these to the casual Poe reader. Let's take a look at each one on their own. . .

ISRAFEL
Art by Richard Corben
Script by Rich Margopoulos

While the original poem is about the beauty of music sung by angels in heaven, Corben's visual interpretation is about the dark and ugly side of the music business, with rival rappers and their posses getting into a brutal gunfight when they end up at the same fancy restaurant.

While the story is well told visually, the distance from the original material wasn't a very good fit, making the words and pictures two separate things entirely. Maybe that was the point. With some of these adaptations, it's a bit hard to tell.

THE HAPPIEST DAY
Art by Richard Corben
Script by Rick Dahl

This early work by Poe was originally a meditation on how happiness never lasts long. . .Corben visually interprets the poem as a man attending his 10th high school reunion and encountering the same bullies who brutally mistreated him in school. It ends with him pulling a gun and taking his revenge before he is shot down himself and dies with a smile on his face.

 Reading this story now, in the age of regular mass shootings, makes the horror of a man who can only find happiness in death and violence even darker in its timely nature. It really made me think and wonder about WHY some of these shootings happen.

And finally, we come to the end of this series with. . .

BERENICE
Art by Richard Corben
Script by Rich Margopoulos

Like The Tell-Tale Heart in the previous issue, Berenice is paraphrased and adapted beyond the word for word captioning of the other entries in this issue. In Corben's interpretation, a dentist who regularly molests his cousin while she's under anesthesia accidentally kills her with an overdose and is slowly driven mad by visions of her teeth until he confesses his murder.

In many ways, this interpretation by Corben resembles The Tell-Tale Heart in tone and subject. Unlike that interpretation, which was pretty faithful to the original, Berenice strays a good distance from the original work. Unfortunately, it's not as good as some of Corben's other re-imaginings of Poe's work in this series. The art is definitely the strong point, with Bernice's haunting grimace. . .especially when she lays dead and staring on his table. . .being truly nightmarish.

CONCLUSION

Overall, I found this final issue to be the weakest of the three.
Don't get me wrong, it's not BAD at all. Just not as good as the other two issues. There are some really great moments here. . .the way Corben reflects and contrasts past and present in The Happiest Hour, Berenice's horrifying smile, and so on. It's just a shame that this issue is overall not nearly as good as the previous two.

CONCLUSION

If you are a fan of Edgar Allan Poe, Richard Corben, Horror Comics, or any combination of those three things, do yourself a favor and find this mini-series.  I'm not going to say it's ALL great, but there's a lot more to like than dislike in these three issues.

While some of Corben's interpretations of the source material are a bit off the mark, there's no denying that when he nails it, he nails it HARD.  This is brutal, dark, and unrelentingly depressing horror and a fine little piece of Longbox Junk well worthy of your attention.

Up Next. . .

ONE SHOTS, SON!

Aliens! Assasin! Suicide Squad! Batman! Predator! Conan!

One shots are like the Pu-Pu Platter of comic books. . .a little of this, a little of that.

Be there or be square!