Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery #19

 All right, after being largely disappointed by the first two issue of the new Boris Karloff Gold Key Mysteries title, I figured I owed it to myself to go back and read an issue of the ORIGINAL series.

Here's the (awesome) cover of my most recent acquisition, issue #19 of "Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery," published in 1967!

How freaking great is that? And, as I mentioned in the previous posts, doesn't logo look better with Boris's head incorporated into it, allowing the excellent cover painting to focus solely on some of the issue's actual story content? Yes.  Yes, it does.

AND, this being a classic Gold Key comic book, the back cover features that same painting, unobscured by trade dress:

We are already off to a better start here, folks.  At this point, the modern day version of the series should already be taking much better notes than it has been.

But okay, that's the cover. Common "wisdom" these days on the interwebs is that Gold Key books were filled with sadly disappointing content once you got beyond those beautiful covers.

I have always been bewildered by that nonsense, as I never recalled the Gold Key/Whitman books of my day feeling let let downs at all.

But, hey: my memory is pretty crappy, right?  So let's see what we find within the actual pages of THIS issue and find out if my nostalgia has been giving the new series a bad rap.

Spoiler: my memory is fine (in this case). The new series gets no slack here.

We open with the 13 page cover story about a strangler that has been terrorizing a hospital. Turns out, the killer WORKS there!

And he also looks almost exactly like Hong Kong Phooey's boss, as voiced by and modeled on actor Jon E. Ross:

 

A surgeon's hand is ruined in the shootout that ends the strangler's life, and as you may have guessed, an emergency operation is performed to replace that surgeon's hand with....one of the hands of the recently deceased strangler!

Over the course of the next several pages, our hand-transplanted surgeon ("Dan," apparently) is driven to despair by the strangler's hand, which apparently has a menacing mind of its own!

One visit to a fortune teller and one cruise ship voyage later, and Dan has the strangler's hand removed at sea! Upon its amputation, the severed appendage changes into a demonic claw!

And that's just the opener, folks. 

What follows is an actually interesting text piece telling the true life tale of a "jinxed" zeppelin, some pretty bad attempts at "humor" strips, and then a four-page story called: 

"The Dragon Tattoo." In this tale, a racist jackass of a white Navy sailor bullies a Hong Kong artist into giving him a Red Dragon tattoo that is only meant for members of the Imperial lineage. The surly sailor gets his supernatural comeuppance, and the very unfortunately drawn artist gets the satisfaction her deserves. A surprisingly anti-racist tale, hampered by, as I mentioned, the very much not okay way that the aggrieved artist is rendered. Ah, 1967.

The last story in the issue is "The Ghost Champ," an 8-pager in which a dirty boxer uses an inside tip that results in the accidental death of an opponent. "Accident" or not, that fallen foe returns to not only haunt our cheating chump, but to beat him til his ribs are broken, and then whisper a ghostly hint into the ears of the champ's next contender. Fallen but not fatally so, the ghost reminds the "champ" that he'll always be there by his side if he's somehow considering a comeback...

Three stories, all with actually satisfying narrative content!  And great art! Who'd'a thunk it? 

What's more, the issue features a one-page "picture dictionary" science fact lesson about the magnetic pole, as well as two short illustrated horror essays on the inside of each cover!

Gotta say, new Gold Key: OG Gold Key is making you look pretty bad.

Boris Karloff Gold Key Mysteries...issue number 2!

 Hey! I said I'd be back, and I actually am! Don't get used to it!

As the title of this post has already informed you, this time I'm letting you know my opinion on the second issue of the new Gold Key Comics "Boris Karloff Gold Key Mysteries" series.

I wasn't all that impressed with the debut, so let's see if things get better in the follow-up, eh?

Kicking things off, here's our cover:

It's a wee bit similar to its predecessor, and I do hope that the series starts refraining from emphasizing Mr. Karloff's mug so much on future covers. The original series had his image built into the logo itself, and there's even some "shelf space" for his noggin to rest on right atop the "OFF" of his surname in the new logo.

To be fair, Boris's glowing eye socket and the eerie ocular orbs of the crowd below his visage DO tie into one of the stories beneath the cover, but still.

Speaking of the stories, let's get to one of them, shall we?

As indicated in issue #1, we begin with another chapter of "Where House," this time with a flashback to William's (later "Boris") childhood in 1893.  He befriends two women who live alone in a strange house, telling them stories to entertain him, while at home, his family barely has time to notice him. 

Superstitions build in town, and one night, two angry drunks burn the strange house down with the two women trapped inside.

William's life goes on, and he's performing in Canada under his more famous pseudonym when it happens. He sees the strange house appear before him, standing tall in the aftermath of a cyclone in a country that the women never lived to see.

The house continues to haunt Boris, reappearing to him again and again, with the voices of the two women reminding him that their "door is always open." In 1941, Boris witnesses two men enter the house, only to watch as the house slams its doors behind and disappears in a swirling vortex of ravenous force.

We are told that the tale continues on Page 26...

As you may have guessed, what follows are two short stories.

I'm gonna be brief: they are both disappointing. Maybe not as much so as the two tales from issue one, but the frustrations they share are similar.

The art is great in both offerings, but the stories read more like introductions to stories than full stories on their own.

"Where House" can get away with this, since it's obviously going to be continued in every issue of the series.

These short stories, however, need to have beginnings, middles, AND endings. So far, none of them really do. They have "revelations" at best.  Also, each of the supporting stories in this issue say that they will be continued on Page 26, but they are not.  That page simply brings us the continuation of "Where House."

Mind you, that continuation of "Where House" is really cool; bringing us to 1969, the year of Boris's death, and also the year that he petitions to be reborn in the House. His true mission in the House is made clear, as is his plan to finally contact the outside world in the "present day."

So, once again, I am intrigued by the tale of Boris and the Where House, but utterly frustrated by the barely-written supporting stories.

I will give this series one more chance, but that's probably gonna be it.