November 11, 2009

Unusual Tales - Through The Walls






"Unusual Tales", a series presenting Steve Ditko's comics from 1957 to 1959 that are in the public domain.  Another never-reprinted one here, as they'll be for a while.


The 5-page "Through The Walls" is one of four Ditko stories from OUT OF THIS WORLD #7 [1958]. It's the story of Paul Corrida, a man jailed in Brazil for a murder he didn't and the inexplicable way he gains his freedom.

A decent enough story, though I'd have liked to see more done with the Brazilian setting.  The few hints of it are nice, but the vast majority of the panels might as well have been set in a US prison.

Of course, in retrospect the main point of interest in this story is the visual gimmick, referred to as a "strange thing" on page 3, which a few years later became very much a "Strange thing", a ghostly projection of a person rising from their body, depicted by a sparser line style with no shading.

Some links to check out:
Buy Ditko's creator-owned work
Excellent MR. A. reprint now available, plus over 1000 pages of other stuff
Find out about the fanzine DITKOMANIA
#76 just around the corner
Check out new and upcoming Ditko publications
If you're jonesing for some Ditko Indy, you're in luck
Download public domain comics, likely including the one this story is from
(scans in this series generally adapted to my personal tastes from those copies, most scans cover to cover so go see the stories in their original context)

Click images to embiggen.


 
 

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