Wednesday, February 9, 2022

HOUSE OF WHACKS

HOUSE OF WAX (1953)
dir: Andre de Toth

That trailer doesn't tell you anything, it's just a bunch of words. Here's some clips.

HOUSE OF WHACKS
Eh! #1, December 1953
a: Lou Morales

Has nothing to do with the movie which is about a sculptor who is a murderer and passes his victims off as statues. It begins with the 3-D motif though. I'm guessing it was a humor story they had on file they added the name to cash in on the movie. The artist who drew this, like many of the artists in the MAD imitations of the 50s, obviously had no sense of humor.
Charles Atlas was a bodybuilder who advertised in comics such as this.
Atomic Mouse was a funny animal superhero published by the same company.
The bottom panels parody the Camel cigarette ads and their slogan "I'd walk a mile for a Camel" and the long cigarette. It also makes a reference to the brand Old Gold.
Professor Sculptoni is supposed to be a parody of Vincent Price, but looks nothing like him.
Johnny Craig was an EC Crime/horror artist. Was his name on one of the scripts supposed to be a reference to him?
WHACKS' MUSEUM
Crazy #3, February 1954
w: Stan Lee
a: Bill Everett

This wasn't even meant as a parody of the movie, but actually has more to do with it than the other story, and Stan Lee at least knew how to copy things.
This was made when fascist dictators could still be a joke.

1 comment:

  1. In the Crazy story, the figure of Casanova on page 2 looks like Sterling Hayden. At first, I assumed that they were cribbing from Panic's parody of Beau Brummel, but that movie hadn't come out yet.

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