Creepy Things: A Spell of Misery!

[alicemacher]

In my previous post, sindra pointed out that the victim's retribution on the protagonist was disproportionate, in that he claimed he merely wanted to teach him a lesson, via a "Hollywood Voodoo" (i.e., not real-life Voudon) spell, but in fact ended up killing him via reverse ageing. Instead, sindra argued, the protagonist should've been punished in a way that would spare his life and allow him to mend his ways.

My initial response was "Then it wouldn't be a horror story!" But then I remembered "A Spell of Misery!" from the obscure Charlton comic, Creepy Things (#2, Oct 1975), in which a villainous protagonist also finds himself on the receiving end of a "Hollywood Voodoo" spell, but gets a second chance to make amends. (Script: Joe Gill, art: Rich Larson.) The story even has a socially-relevant topic: the deplorable living conditions in inner-city slums. Unfortunately, like many a well-meaning "social relevance" story from the Bronze Age of comics, it contains flagrant racial stereotypes. Consider this a trigger warning.


Mr. Ruggles is a slumlord who deliberately fails to maintain his buildings and employs lackeys to beat up tenants who complain. As for those who fall behind on their rent, well, let's see:





That night, Mama Carafino reluctantly performs a clearly unresearched-by-writer "Voodoo" ritual: beating drums, chanting gibberish, invoking "Jambala" (who is in fact a Hindu deity, not a Voudon Loa) and alternately burning and striking the head of a small straw effigy. As a result, Ruggles wakes with the feeling of "smoke" in his lungs, a searing headache, and a summons from Jambala to go see Mama Carafino immediately.







I'll give the writer this much: the prospect of becoming small enough to be prey for rats and roaches is scary. And the wealthy, privileged, abusive Ruggles is clearly meant to be the bad guy here. Even so, the story portrays the "hero" as a fiendish-looking, "minstrel" dialect-spouting West Indian woman who returns to her former "evil" Voodoo practice as a last, desperate resort, and when that achieves its result, resumes her practice of "good" Christianity. Thus, this story is a poster example of the well-known social justice saying, "Intent isn't magic" (no pun intended).

Comments

[kamino_neko]

... That baby has 3 eyes. Why does that baby have 3 eyes? That is the scariest thing about this story, the three-eyed baby going completely uncommented. >_>

[drtechnobabel]

I think that 'third eye' is supposed to be a band-aid, on account of it getting bitten by a rat. Although I will admit that the coloring and art don't really help there.

[kamino_neko]

Ah! That makes perfect sense.

[kamino_neko]

Also, I wonder if the colourist wasn't trying to fix some of the racial aspects...

Mama Carafino is clearly being written and drawn as stereotypically black, but coloured as very white.

[drtechnobabel]

Maybe, though it seems like a couple of the panels, particularly in the dream sequence, still have her look black (though that may just be a weird effect caused by the shadows/shading combined with the other exaggerated racial features on her).

[kamino_neko]

That's pretty much all the linework's doing, yeah. Mistake, or attempt to unfuck the racial aspects, the colourist consistently colours her as though she were white, although the penciler and inker were doing their damnedest to make it obvious she was supposed to be black.

[donnblake]

Huh. How about that.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Vodoun is properly a religion, and what they properly wanted here was probably Hoodoo or Conjure (not that it would have been an accurate description of those either, but closer, anyways). Neither of those, as far as I'm aware, involve shrinking people, but nightmares don't seem out of the question (or putting scorpions inside people. Read a couple accounts of conjure women and hoodoo doctors putting scorpions in people).

[alicemacher]

I haven't read much about Hoodoo myself, so the best I can do is refer you to this section of the Hoodoo in Theory and Practice website by catherine yronwode, who's a recognized expert on it: http://www.luckymojo.com/hoodoohistory.html .

[donnblake]

I know a little about hoodoo (read a couple books, a couple articles), but not much about Vodoun/Voodoo, actually. (I know that it involves veneration of the Loa, who are sometimes identified with Catholic saints, and ritual possession by them, but that's about it.

[bradygirl_12]

I'd just seen The Incredible Shrinking Man a few weeks ago and then read this. Never go small! ;)