Sunday, May 20, 2012

Castle Of Frankenstein #18 (1972) With Ken Barr

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And we're looking at Castle of Frankenstein #18, from 1972. The front cover painting, "Mad Medico, Maiden & Monster" was painted by Ken Kelly.

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Page 2 (the inside front cover) featuress "Barr's Bestiary #1," a new feature for the magazine, by Ken Barr. Doesn't the King Arthur in this painting remind you how how Brian Bolland drew him in Camelot 3000?

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And we're at page 3, the table of contents, as well as Calvin Beck's "Editor's Eyrie" column, in which he noted that this issue, the Comix Reviews and the alphabetized SFantasy Film list was squeezed out. The column also talks about how bad things are in the comics scene at the time, saying it's in one of the worst ruts in years. While it may not have been as exciting as the Silver Age, this was the era I really started reading comics a lot, and I found it very exciting!

Anyway... names in the masthead of interest would be Joe Dante, Jr. again (who went on to a successful Hollywood career... and that's about it. Of course, layout maestro Bhob Stewart is still active these days with his own blog, Potzrebie!

I have no idea why that big block is filled with a line drawing of a pointing hand.

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Pages 4 and 5 start the "Headitorial," and I have no idea how anything could've been said to be "squeezed out" when so much of these two pages were filled with those pop-art graphics! Anyway, the "Headitorial" talks mostly about the revival movie houses across the country, especially those on the East Coast, where one could see genre movies after they were out of first-run circulation (remember, this was long before the days of home video!).

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Likewise, pages 6 and 7, covering "The Mephisto Waltz" (a movie I'd never heard of before) also feel like it was designed to fill two pages.. there's the five stills you can see, a cast listing, and a brief synopsis of the movie.

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