When you say a movie is underrated, you’re usually just trying to sound cool, and you’re usually some asshole talking about Donnie Darko, but this movie is really underrated.
Maybe the fact that it’s more accessible, not as aggressively “weird” or obscure means you get less brownie points for liking it, so nobody’s not fond of it, but few people will wear this movie as a badge of honor the way they will Eraserhead and Inland Empire. I actually think of it as one of his bravest because it’s an embarrassing childhood fantasy about love and adventure.
This is just about the least offensive panel in the story, Banjo Lessons from Twisted Tales issue 5, but I don’t want to spoil the whole thing. From the next issue’s letter column:
“I’m afraid that Banjo Lessons… reminds me of a tabloid that prints photos of mutilated bodies of accident victims… On the positive side, I think Bruce did manage to skillfully touch on the Lovecraftian monstrosities that often slither about the base of the human brain, cowering from the light like insects under a rock.”
Anybody can offend parents, idiots, political and religious extremists, and people who just don’t “get” what your genre or medium or style is all about, but Bruce Jones offends his devoted fans. These are intelligent, well read horror lovers, and they are left unsure of whether to call for boycotts or a Pulitzer.
Some people write horror to make you jump, horror to make you think, horror to make you puke, Twisted Tales, at its fiercest, is horror to make you hide under a rock so that a bigger animal doesn’t eat you. This is horror for the brain stem.
Skip Williamson is one of those subversive geniuses behind the underground comix scene.
I really love the minimalist horror here. The image is as immediately striking as any of the more vicious covers from the EC crime comics, but on closer inspection, all you’re looking at is a simple home burglary with a man snatching some pearls.
This is a triumph of style. In a single grin and an overturned chair, Williamson does what it takes even masters like Johnny Craig or Jack Davis a severed head, a mangled corpse, or a leering madman to accomplish.
“Hill 203,” from Two Fisted Tales 24.
This is one of the more brutal action stories they did. It’s sort of an Alamo story: A bunch of GIs guarding Hill 203 from NK troops. One gunner dies after another, but as the last man finally bleeds out, he sees American jets flying overhead, he held them off for just long enough to hold the point.
The whole story is basically just 8 pages of Americans dying, North Koreans getting gunned down by the dozen, blurry red eyes, crying, bleeding, sweating men, it’s just angry, angry stuff.
If you asked me to choose a favorite cartoonist of all time, I really don’t think I can choose between Jack Davis and Tony Millionaire, but Harvey Kurtzman is far and away the greatest editor the medium has ever seen.
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If I had the cash on hand I’d be buying these up. Henderson is a national treasure.
This is from “Process of Elimination” in Creepy issue 83 with art by Russ Heath.
While reading Creepy and Eerie, I briefly considered putting together a list of my favorite stories to send to friends, but ultimately concluded that that would be a lot of trouble for nothing, because honestly, no disrespect to some of the other great writers who have worked for Jim Warren, but if you want the best stories he ever published, all you have to do is look on the contents page for “Bruce Jones.”
Jones has noted that the only story anyone ever talks to him about at cons is “Jenifer,” which was adapted into a Masters of Horror episode by Argento. Jenifer is fantastic, and a great introduction to Bruce Jones, but this one right here is probably the coldest, meanest story I’ve ever read in a horror comic.
I won’t spoil the ending save to say that the first six or seven pages are about a man who comes home from work, kills his entire family with a handgun, and then runs away to a hotel with his mistress. From there, the story escalates the cruelty and crushes every trace of hope and optimism underfoot.
Bruce Jones has his own version of the O. Henry twists that E.C. loved so much. Rather than giving with a neat little ironic finish, his reveals let us know that we’d actually been reading something very different all along, that we’d been misinterpreting the entire story, and best of all, he never cheats. He never does some bullshit like hacking a scene in half to complete later in a flashback like some piece of shit Hollywood thriller, he tells us the truth for 8 pages and then turns that truth upside down with a single panel that doesn’t even need any dialog.
“Yellow Heat” gives us a story of heroic adventure that quickly turns ugly, “Process of Elimination” starts mean and gets meaner. Even knowing that my education isn’t complete, I feel confident in saying that there has never been a horror comics writer on the same level as Bruce Jones.
