Todays story is Lip Service, from a 1958 issue of True Love. Lip Service is only a 5-pager, but it makes up for its brevity by the complete freakishness of its subject matter. I don't want to ruin the surprise, so I'll just say creepiest. story. ever.
Nice. Very nice, not crazy at all.
I think the reason most people find ventriloquists and their dummies so creepy is that we imagine the ventriloquist goes home and has a conversation with his dummy a lot like what you see above. 
Obviously, Harry has issues but Linda has ignored the subtle signs of his complete nutcakery. Watch in the next page how she very quickly dismisses his weird habit of talking about Charlie as if he were a real person with some quick rationalizing.
The panel where they're smooching with Charlie leering in background makes me a little queasy. How is this not a horror story?
Yiiiiiii.
"Loretta? Girl, did you hear about Linda's date with that ventriloquist?"
"Didn't be bring his dummy to the beach?"
"In a suitcase, girl. He had it ask her for a handjob!"
What cinches it for me is that Harry ends the story by doing exactly what Linda's been begging him NOT to do the entire time. That, and Harry's hangdog expression in the very last panel, where its clear that he is Charlie's prisoner and unhappy slave.
Shiver!
Monday, June 2, 2008
Lip Service, 1958
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2 comments:
I'd say this about locks in everything I have ever thought about ventriloquists and their dummies.
Was this a Romance comic, or Spooky Tales??
As disturbing as it is, Lip Service was scanned from a title called "True Love". You can tell that the 50's comics were much better story and art-wise when you compare them to the later comics. I'm fairly sure that's because at the time romance comics were still a huge business.
I do actually have a romance/horror hybrid comic, though... the stories are great, I'm saving them for October.
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