Sam Kieth readthru

Tales of Terror 7, Eclipse Comics

I’m not a horror comics fan nor am I a huge anthology comic reader. In this instance I am familiar with the predecessor of this title from a previous incarnation published by Pacific Comics that I podcasted about on Neswprint Commando, Twisted Tales.

If the original comic is not available this reprinted in first issue of I Before E published by Fantagraphics. This is the final story (4th) in the issue. It was scripted by Paul Alexander, colored by Philip Dewalt, lettered by Carrie Spiegle and penciled and inked by Sam Kieth.

Man do I remember the things my young-ish brain was exposed to on the front of VHS covers at the local VHS rental store. Not the chains they filtered appropriately but the mom and pop that had a store display section behind a curtain hanging from the ceiling. Or maybe those places were just in my more rural area. Either way…life altering.

The bottom row of this page quickly triggered me into an American political left/right comparison. Your mileage may vary but for me man the current political climate in the US keeps me on edge, maybe seeing things where they don’t exist. Thoughts?

George Robinson is most definitely practicing what he preaches. His wife has already had enough but his kids are too young to really understand what their dad is doing. Today it’s Instagram, Whatnot and Tiktok, for these kids potentially inappropriate videos. We see though that George is suffering from something we would be lead to believe is connected to his views on video viewage.

Dad seems to be delivered from the effects of the physically debilitating sound by being dropped into the very video his children are watching, Cannibal Deathcamp Bloodbath. Kieth shows us that both side of our morality tale afflicted family see each other. Dad is worried but the children, not so much.

George, in video, realizes he can still hear the sound(?) of the video and beseeches his children to turn off the video and save his life. Would that save his life or just freeze the scene until next viewing? We will never know, the children choose to let run the video. Jaded by previous exposure to violence? Watching revenge on their Dad? Some other reason?

I find I need more story development, which is my normal take on anthology stories. The artwork is really starting to look like Kieth to me. The limited, compared to today, color palette and the newsprint will always be a favorite of mine. Thanks for reading.