Number 404


Mr. Green and Tubby's ghost


Here are a couple more entries in our Halloween theme week.

I've shown a couple of stories from the John Stanley scripted Tales From The Tomb #1 (and only) giant comic from 1962. I don't know why this comic didn't continue. It could be that even though the stories are great, the artwork can be at times indifferent. "Mr. Green Must Be Fed" is the lead story, drawn by Frank Springer. The green monster ("Mr. Green") looms up much the same way the mud man did in this story from the issue.

If Dell had been under the Comics Code they probably couldn't have shown Mrs. Wittly getting away with feeding Mr. Grimes to Mr. Green. She doesn't seem too concerned that young Harry gets away, even gets away in a police car, because she knows no one will believe him.

The second story is "The Ghost", one of my favorite Tubby stories, from Little Lulu #86, August 1955, drawn by Irving Tripp. Stanley doesn't make it easy for the reader by showing us whether the ghost is real or in Tubby's head. The important thing to the plot is that the ghost is real to Tubby. We're seeing it from his point of view. His parents are puzzled observers while Tubby is on his own, in a desperate struggle to get rid of an apparition. It's funny, but there is an element of paranoia in the situation.

Mr. Green is murderous and violent, but the ghost is benign. Mr. Green wants to eat young Harry, but the ghost seems content to just sit and look at Tubby. Either seems creepy to me.