Monday, August 4, 2008

Knight of the Living Dead


The Skeletal Spotlight shines this time on:
"Knight of the Living Dead"

"Knave, thou art going down!"


The spine-tinglingly-cool image above (visit the link for the source and even higher rez image) is really just a good way to introduce the comic I'm actually spotlighting, which is "Doomed To Battle" from Gold Key's Mystery Comics Digest #6, published in August 1972.

I scanned it in from my copy in large format so you can enjoy the artwork without squinting your eyes at the reduced size that the digest shrunk them down to.

The MCD issues alternated between three comics that they reprinted from: Ripley's Believe It or Not!, Boris Karloff's Tales of Mystery, and Twilight Zone.

I've posted some covers before from the Mystery Comics Digests I have, but this is my favorite story from this particular edition, which collected the stories from the Twilight Zone comics they had put out in the past.

Hope you enjoy the story as much as I did, when I first got the book in 1972 as a tender young lad of 13. I remember I drew a picture recreating one of the panels in it, as I liked to do when an image caught my eye. The art is uncredited, so if you know who drew it, clue us in! Oh, and if anyone else has already posted this, sorry, I didn't see it!










And so, Sir Duane The Obnoxious must battle it out in limbo like Lazarus from Star Trek. Not a shocking twist, just a simple straightforward story of skeletal revenge. Sweet.

4 comments:

Mr. Karswell said...

I always felt cheated by Gold Key comics... the insides never lived up to the awesome painted covers. This story wasn't bad though, horror lite is better than no horror at all.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Fred - I was having a bad day and avenging skeleton knights made it better! :)

Frederick said...

It's true that it was more of a TZ story than a TFTC kind, but skeletal knights made up for the lack of horror with coolness.

And at the time I first read it, it was creepier than now, when I've read so many skeleton-revenge stories.

The sad but true fact of this blog is, that a lot of stuff wil get posted not because it is inherently great, but because of the nostalgia factor the original item holds for me. If someone shares in the memories, they will enjoy it more than coming in cold... but I hope most of the stuff is still fun for the readers!

Dave Tackett said...

This one was definitely a fun one for me. Knights and skeletons are always a good combination.