Matthew Sunrich Presents...Creatures on the Loose #10
By Matthew Sunrich
Berni Wrightson is considered by many to be the greatest horror artist
of the modern era. Inspired by the gruesome (and eventually banned) splendor of
the EC Comics of the 1950s (Tales from
the Crypt, The Vault of Horror,
et al.), he rose to prominence during the Bronze Age on the strength of his
work on Swamp Thing and various "mystery"
titles for DC. He later attained further fame by providing illustrations for
Mary Shelley's seminal science fiction/horror novel Frankenstein and for various projects in collaboration with author Stephen
King, including The Stand and, most
notably, Cycle of the Werewolf.
While he is most frequently associated with the macabre, Wrightson is,
perhaps not surprisingly, also a sword & sorcery enthusiast. It's easy to
see the influence of Frank Frazetta in Wrightson's work, and one can make a
reasonable case of attributing the enduring popularity of Robert E. Howard's
Conan to the former's remarkable paintings. When Marvel acquired the license to
produce comics based on the barbarian adventurer in 1970, Wrightson expressed enthusiastic
interest in drawing the title, but it wound up going to Barry Windsor-Smith
instead. Marvel decided to throw him a bone, however, offering him the
inaugural King Kull (another Howard character) story in Creatures on the Loose #10 (formerly Tower of Shadows). Even though he was not particularly a fan of the
character, he accepted.
"The Skull of Silence" is a mere seven pages long (the rest
of the issue consists of a Jack Kirby reprint from the early 1960s), but it
represents the work of an artist on the verge or greatness.
(Incidentally, as far as I'm concerned, this comic has one of the
worst-looking covers of all time. I don't know why they didn't just have
Wrightson draw it. After all, he had provided the series' two previous ones.)
The story opens with King Kull of Atlantis and his warriors returning
home, presumably after a battle. The monarch spots a castle, which he suggests
as a good place to seek refuge for the night. He is, however, warned by a wise
slave in his entourage that the structure is The Skull of Silence, wherein an
ancient wizard imprisoned "silence" itself. Undeterred, Kull approaches
the castle gate, ignoring the admonition carved on the seal: that opening it
will unleash the evil force locked within.
When Kull throws the doors wide, all sound melts away, and tendrils of,
well, silence ensnare him. He fights against it and ultimately manages to drive
it away by banging on and ultimately shattering the jade gong next to the
entrance. It seems that the "silence" was some sort of otherworldly
entity beyond human ken, which somehow possessed the nature of absolute
silence, a terrible thing indeed. (I read recently about a group of scientists
who had constructed a room capable of absorbing all sound. No one was capable
of spending more than forty-five minutes inside when the lights were turned off.)
It's not much of a story, to tell you the truth, but Wrightson manages
to make a silk purse out of sow's ear, even if things didn't turn out the way
he had planned. In Berni Wrightson: A
Look Back by Christopher Zavisa, the artist explains:
"One of the features of the story was a
skull [sic] which, when the door is
opened, robs all sound. How are you going to do this in a comic book? Since you
cannot play with sound effects in a comic book, I figured out a way—slowly
drain away the color until the scene ended up being black and white. […] I took
the completed job in to Marvel and was told it was fine. Months later, the
comic comes out and everything has color on it."
Thanks to this fiasco, he refused to do any more work for Marvel for
years. Can you blame him?
As far as I know, this story has never been reprinted anywhere, which I'm
sure suits Wrightson just fine. I think it would be a nice gesture for whoever
has the license to Kull these days (if anyone even does) to offer him the
opportunity to color it the way he originally intended and publish it in a
collection (like DC did for Brian Bolland with The Killing Joke). I don't think there's a lot of interest in the
character these days, though (the horrible Kevin Sorbo movie notwithstanding),
so it's not likely to happen.
In any event, Wrightson completists will want to track this one down.
In any event, Wrightson completists will want to track this one down.
Matt Sunrich, a great fan of the Bronze Age of comic books, maintains two blogs: The Other Other Castle, about Bronze-Age sword and sorcery, and Forging the Dark Knight, concerning Bronze-Age Batman.
Labels: Berni Wrightson, comics, Creatures on the Loose, Matt Sunrich, Swamp Thing
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