Unintended consequences

My favorite horror story, "The Monkey's Paw" by W. W. Jacobs, could serve as a definition of The Law of Unintended Consequences. It's one of the greatest short stories of all time, not just horror. This reprint is from Startling Mystery Stories #15, from 1970.

The Law of Unintended Consequences applies to the publication of this 1902 story as well: It may be the single story W. W. Jacobs is most remembered for, when stories of the macabre made up only a portion of his large body of work.










This story could also fit Murphy's Law: "If something can possibly go wrong, it will." Or even the bumper sticker, "Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it."

Booby blonde bubble butts!

I was going through some old files and found these pictures from a 1973 Esquire magazine. I remember clipping them out, but why I hung onto them is sort of a mystery, reason long since forgotten.

Maybe I don't need a reason. Cute girls. They'd be 35 years older now, maybe even grandmas, and wonder if all of those parts that are sticking straight out or up are sagging down. I'm 35 years older, too, so I guess if gravity has hit me, it's hit anyone else who is still around who was there in 1973. The partially cut-off caption says $10 secret from Frederick's of Hollywood!

I thought only Victoria had secrets…

Hey, man…speaking of Victoria's Secret, and grandmas, thought you guys might like to see the Hairy Green Eyeball's grandma, who is wearing the cute little outfit she got for Christmas. It's what keeps Grandpa home.

Po' man's Poe

A tender tale of a monster, revenge, but a little sweetness (after a fashion) at the end.

It reminds me of one of the best getting-even stories ever, "Hop-Frog" by Edgar Allan Poe.

Horrors of Mexico

There are things that scare me about Mexico: being caught in the crossfire of a drug war, the water, and being held in a scissor lock between a lady wrestler's muscular thighs. The Hairy Green Eyeball twitches with that possibility! The things I love about Mexico are sunny beaches, friendly people, Day of the Dead, tequila and Mexican horror movies. With that in mind, here are some great lobby cards found on the Internet:

I learned it from the comics

Everything important I ever learned I got from movies, television, pulp novels and comic books, like the lesson in this comic from 1947. I found out that really big fat guys shouldn't wear bright colors. Makes 'em look a lot bigger. They need to stick to dark colors, you know. More slimming.

Green Eyeball, Yellow Peril

After posting the Dracula and Fu Manchu movie clips a few days ago I dug around in my collection, coming up with some further examples of the Yellow Peril. Here are some of my Dr. Fu Manchu paperback editions which came out in the 1960s.

Ming the Merciless was the head villain in Flash Gordon, and he was right out of the Yellow Peril ilk. No one explained how he was the only Asian amongst the inhabitants of Mongo, but then the Mongoites (Mongoloids?) also included Hawk Men, Clay Men, etc., so in the scheme of that planet's diversity I guess Ming wasn't so out of place.

Comics did their share. These are from the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.

Nowadays people recognize how racist this portrayal of Asians was…or do they? I still see this type of image popping up from time to time. I also see how many of these old characters had names like "Fang" or "Claw."

Predator put the "Blam!" in Blamire!

I became familiar with filmmaker Larry Blamire years before I saw his film, The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra. In the early to mid-1970s Blamire drew extreme violence in some self-published comic books starring a vigilante called the Predator.

I enjoyed Lost Skeleton, and how funny a spoof of old horror movies it is, considering how deadly (and I do mean deadly) serious the Predator was. The artwork on the Predator may have lacked polish, but made up for that in the intensity of the action. In retrospect I can see how Blamire excelled at visualization. These pages I'm showing look more like film storyboards.

I also appreciated that he put his character in a 1940s setting, rather than trying to make him contemporary.

One of these days maybe Larry will take on a film version of the Predator. In the meantime he's finished up a sequel to Cadavra and is working on Dark and Stormy Night, which he announced in this posting from Karswell's The Horrors Of It All.

A green-eyed wink of approval from Hairy Green Eyeball, Larry! I can't wait for your new movies.