Sunday, November 25, 2007

Beast From the Beyond

Prepare to blast-off into terror! This week will feature a corrupt mix of pre-code sci-fi stories that are definitely more horror oriented than science fiction (after all, this blog is called “The HORRORS of it All!”) So never fear, if names like Powell, Sparling, Wolverton, and Everett sound good to you then this is your week. And if you’ve ever wanted to see a Golden Age comic book adaption of John W. Campbell’s classic story “Who Goes There?” (which was also made into the film classics The Thing from Another World and The Thing) then I’d say we’re off to a great start. Thanks again to Brian Hirsch for the scans!

From the March 1951 issue of Adventures into the Unknown #17









7 comments:

Anonymous said...

DESPITE SOME SILLY AND REPETATIVE DIALOG THIS IS A VERY GOOD ADAPTION OF WHO GOES THERE. IT MIGHT EVEN BE MORE FAITHFUL THAN EITHER OF THE FILM VERSIONS.....OR AT LEAST CLOSER TO THE BOOK LIKE CARPENTER'S VERSION THAN HAWK'S.

GREAT POSTS TODAY, THANKS KARSWELL!!!

Dave Tackett said...

Yes!! I love this! The Thing is such a cool Horror/SF film and reading this interpretation of Campbell's story was great. I'm definitely looking forward to this week! I just rewatched The Thing Friday night so this is perfect timing!

Anonymous said...

awesome!! excellent post!

Anonymous said...

Yeah,i agree about the dialog,and the humorous ending isn't too good,but yeah,very faithful adaption except for the abscence of Macready(yeah,he IS a real character in the story).and the art may not be moody enough,but the snow & ice LOOKS like snow & ice at least.

Mr. Karswell said...

>the art may not be moody enough

In defense of the art, to me it's no less moody than Hawk's '51 film version which I feel has a chilling vibe all it's own. Carpenter on the other hand really captured the book's shivery atmosphere of isolation, confusion, and claustrophic terror better than them all. The only other film I can think of that even comes close to that atmosphere is A Cold Night's Death starring Robert Culp and Eli Wallach, an excellent and very scary made for TV movie from '73: http://imdb.com/title/tt0068390/

Unknown said...

Now that was scary. Although I was unsure if there were another page at first.

Max the drunken severed head said...

This adaptation conveys the paranoia of the original story very nicely.

The original by Campbell was a great tale, original and harrowing, but horribly written. He was a good editor and not so good a writer, IMHO.