Tales of the Zombie suffered the same sad fate as we saw with Monsters Unleashed!--namely, no mention is made of this being the mag's last issue. TOTZ simply...disappeared.
As if that weren't bad enough, poor Simon Garth--the "zombie" of the mag's title--doesn't even get to appear in the final issue of his own magazine other than than on the (very nice) cover by Earl Norem! Man, what's a zombie gotta do?
The reason for that is mentioned in the editorial by Don McGregor. Apparently, scripter Gerry Conway wrote a 30-page Simon Garth story, which was sent to artist Rico Rival. Somewhere along the way, though, the script ended up in Guam(!), so...no Simon Garth story this time around.
Instead, we do get a Brother Voodoo tale:
...you can always rely on Doug Moench to turn out a great story, and Tony DeZuniga handles the creepy art quite nicely.
The story is full of zombies, witch doctors, beautiful lasses, and some stuff that's inadvertently funny, like when BZ boards a plane:
The story is full of zombies, witch doctors, beautiful lasses, and some stuff that's inadvertently funny, like when BZ boards a plane:
"...would you like a cocktail, Mr. er, Voodoo?"
The story runs 20 pages, and features lots of slam-bang action, like this very iconic sequence of Brother Voodoo:
The story runs 20 pages, and features lots of slam-bang action, like this very iconic sequence of Brother Voodoo:
Next is "Eye For An Eye, Tooth For A Tooth" by the aforementioned Gerry Conway with art by Virgilio Redondo and Rudy Nebres, featuring zombies and Mr. Scratch himself:
Next is "Malaka's Curse!" by John Warner, Carl Wessler, and Vincente Alcazar:
Alcazar's art here looks smoother, a little more Marvel-ized than it normally did. No inker is listed, but I wonder if someone else didn't have a hand with this story. It ends with a double electrocution, which is always fun.
Tales of the Zombie goes out well, with this final story, "Grave Business", written and drawn by the great Tom Sutton:
Sutton's stuff was always so distinctive, so fun, it makes me want to hunt down all those Charlton horror comics he did work for, since by his own admission (in Comic Book Artist) it was there he was the most unrestrained creatively.
As I said, "Grave Business" is a lot of ghoulish fun, and a nice way to end the issue, and the series.
Adios, Mssrs. Garth and Voodoo!
Tales of the Zombie goes out well, with this final story, "Grave Business", written and drawn by the great Tom Sutton:
As I said, "Grave Business" is a lot of ghoulish fun, and a nice way to end the issue, and the series.
Adios, Mssrs. Garth and Voodoo!
2 comments:
Rob - and gang - DO seek out Sutton's Charltons!
His art is Lovecraft-strange...
He often WROTE them, too...!
A few are BOOK-LENGTH...!
He did some great painted covers, as well...
Tom's stuff doesn't always make sense (!), but it's always terrific Halloweeny fun; truly, grittily, weird, in a way very few Horror Comics ever actually are.
(To me, that genre, more than many others, fits the "Jules Feiffer Rule" about comics: often promising more than delivering.
Best,
-Craig W.
A decent issue of Tales of the Zombie, shame it was the last one. I'm lucky enough to own the Essential Tales of the Zombie, which is a pretty good collection. Steve Gerber's Zombie tales, in particular, are all good stuff. Anyway back to #10, and Grave Business is a classic story in my opinion. Tom Sutton at his best, and you can't get much better than that.
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