Web of Horror, part 3: unpublished Wrightson and Kaluta!

The final stories we’ll be looking at from the unpublished fourth issue of Web of Horror come from some of the greatest to ever do it: Mike Kaluta and Bernie Wrightson. Kaluta is one of the coolest, funkiest artists in comics. It’s not just his style, but it is definitely his style: gorgeously pulpy when he needs to be, understated and refined when he wants to be, lurid and dreamlike when he can be, yet still able to knock out a righteous cover illustration of Batman outside a haunted house.¹

Web of Horror, part 2: “The Final Prophecy”

It’s time for the second part of the unpublished Web of Horror #4. If you held a gun to my head and told me to guess whether Mystery Science Theater 3000 ever riffed on a movie called The Final Prophecy, I would say yes. As it happens, I would be wrong, but I stand by my instinct. Anyway, that’s the title of the first of two Ralph Reese joints from the issue, so let’s get into it:

Web of Horror: the never-published fourth issue

I have the same relationship to horror comics that I assume horror fans must have to superhero comics. To put it bluntly, I can’t take them seriously and I have a hard time understanding how anyone could. It’s not just comics; the entire horror genre, across media, seems to boil down to either stentorian melodrama or disgusting grotesquery that people only enjoy when they can inflict it on their unsuspecting friends.