When I look back on the many and varied Traumafessions I have made lo these past few years, I notice two things: 1) I must have been a weird little kid; 2) they are not of your standard issue ghost/monster/haunted house variety. They're often caused by something fairly innocuous, or more accurately, the effect my mind superimposes over something harmless. (I'm reminded of how Stephen King was massively creeped out as a child by mis-hearing the movie line "It feels like living tissue!" as "It feels like tissue paper!") Although this one sure has its spooky roots, my brain ran with something else altogether. But first, some background…
Comic books were my gateway drug, and although I read more than my share of funny animal books, it was the horror titles of the late 1960s that were closest to my heart. Every Wednesday afternoon my dad would drive me over to Dean's Red Owl, the supermarket across the river, that I could pore over the new releases as they sat in a shopping cart, waiting to be placed upon the stand, but only after I got first dibs. The market's owner, Dean Farrier, was a kindly guy who wanted to make his little customer happy, even going as far as to contact his distributors to secure back issues that I may have missed – and in those days, that was not an easy feat. Thank you, Mr. Farrier!
The Red Owl also carried magazines, but since those were a bit more expensive, I would gaze at them lovingly and didn't ask my parents for the additional money until a few years later. Famous Monsters of Filmland was always in stock, and occasionally the store would get the Warren comic mags as well – Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella – but it was not on a consistent basis, and old issues would remain on the rack for months beyond their sale date, waiting for a haphazardly shipped follow-up. Now, if you know the Warren magazines of this time, they were in a notoriously bad stretch (the Frank Frazetta glory days were behind them), scraping by on a mixture of reprints and markedly substandard material.
Which brings us to Creepy #24, the December 1968 issue. The cover art is attributed to Gutenberg Montiero, who did but a few pieces for the company, and shares some elements with the uncredited cover to the Berkley paperback anthology Masters of Horror – also from 1968, but I'm unsure which came first. But Creepy's juxtaposition of two images, presumably in two difference places, was a common design for horror comics of the period; we have a man, profoundly distressed, seemingly driven mad by this resurrecting corpse.
What got to me? The wristwatch.
Why was this guy wearing a shattered wristwatch? What did it have to do with the hand coming out of a grave? And why was he sweating like a farm animal in August? And then I thought – what if he put it on, broken? What if he was so insane as to not care that his timepiece was incapable of telling time? My mind was blown, and the issue seemed to remain on the stand for months thereafter, freaking me out too much to ever purchase it, but having ample time to make its impression.
I still think there is a fantastic story to be told in the intersection of these two images; maybe a Kinderpal shall be inspired!
Any day that starts with a Senski Traumafession is a good day. Thanks for this! It brings back some nice memories of when even the smallest corner store might have a rack of Monster/horror magazines to peruse. When we went to visit my Grandmother as a kid there was a store called "Ben Franklin 5 & Dime" and that was the coolest place on Earth for a time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin_(company)
Ben Franklin was "da bomb'! Ours had everything – craft supplies, comics, magazines, model railroad stuff and, most importantly to me as a kid, it was one of the only places where I could go to buy Dungeons and Dragons stuff! I recall standing in line with some evil-looking D&D modules under my arm, the old lady in front of my giving me the eyeball (D&D=devil worship, you know) as she made her purchase of glitter, glue and styrofoam balls.
I had not seen a Ben Franklin in years but was in a microscopic town called Roseau in Minnesota a few months ago and behold – they had one! I had to go in and buy something for old times' sake. I even took a picture of it.
We had a Ben Franklin in our local mall while I was growing up. It switched from a dime store to mostly crafting supplies sometime around 1985 or so.
I live in Minnesota and see them now and then. There was one in New Ulm, MN, that lost its franchise rights a few years ago (because they never replaced the flickering light bulbs or cleaned up the feces from the resident pigeons), and were ordered to take down the sign. They simply rearranged (and rotated, when necessary) the letters to read "Zen R. Fanklib".
I'm so glad that I'm not alone with my Ben Franklin 5 & dime memories. I'm still irked I could never afford the Maxmillion from "The Black Hole" model kit I used to covet there!
Dustin, lol, I think Zen R. Fankllib sounds like an even better store!
Thankfully someone caught a photo of it before they closed the store altogether. Here's a pic:
http://derek.broox.com/photos/11936/at/44.314314,-94.459542/
Oh, that Zen R. Fanklib tale is a good one!
For that cover I'm assuming if the artist re-purposed the hand from that bookcover (let's assume he did both of them) then the man with the broken watch may also have some other incarnation where the watch makes more sense.
The art style totally reminds me of the artwork on the old Whacky Packages trading cards. I guess it's the high contrast and the super-saturated colors in what appears to be a highly detailed oil paint medium.