Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Black and White Wednesday: "The Hacker Is Back" by Skeates and Toth

Hey, hey, hey, Groove-ophiles! We're truckin' back to January 1975 with Eerie #65! This short-shocker is a riff on Jack the Ripper, but "The Hacker Is Back" isn't a Jack the Rip-off--no way! Not with talent like Steve Skeates and Alex Toth behind it! Hacks those gentlemen never were!! Check it out...










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6 comments:

  1. UnknownJuly 15, 2015 at 3:46 AM

    Did AlexToth ever do a bad art job? His genius is further enhanced in this story by the black and white medium. I also enjoyed the few times he inked Carmine Infantino for Warren.

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  2. AnonymousJuly 15, 2015 at 8:03 AM

    Thank you,Mr Groove,for sharing.
    Yes,Mr Toth sure had an amazing talent.
    Miss him.
    Cheers!
    /Mr Anonymous

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  3. AnonymousJuly 15, 2015 at 11:25 AM

    Highly authentic cockney accent in the early pages.

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  4. AnonymousJuly 15, 2015 at 3:32 PM

    Toth reportedly hated doing these Hacker jobs because of the extremely violent nature of the stories, but he needed the money to pay for his wife's medical problems. Regardless, they are incredible pieces of work! - Jeff Clem

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  5. AnonymousJuly 16, 2015 at 6:30 PM

    Two full pages with the black Hacker silhouette behind the panels (pages 3 & 9) are overkill in a short story. Toth's surface rendering generally SUCKS, as it does here. He was always so blunt with pens and brush. Only in his early BLAZING COMBAT jobs for Warren does he produce some genuinely elegant and controlled line and tonework. Here he's already descending into self-plagiarism. Same old femme profile on page 4, panel 4 that I've seen rubber stamped across his '70s story. And same old Errol Flynn protagonist >yawn< with just a slightly larger moustache to throw the punters off the track. The last page is a complete mess---doesn't even unify at all. The grey silhouettes panel is gimmicky and really doesn't contribute to the story---unless someone took X-rays of the characters!

    Toth's best work is among the best EVER done in comics, but he has done a lot that isn't, such as this.

    Chris A.

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  6. AnonymousJuly 18, 2015 at 10:58 AM

    Warren not only published horror mags like CREEPY, EERIE, and VAMPIRELLA, or sci-fi mags like 1984/1994 and THE ROOK, but also, for a short time anyway, BLAZING COMBAT, a war mag. Alex Toth drew "Lone Hawk" in 1965 which saw print in BLAZING COMBAT #3, cover dated January, 1966. It is a masterpiece of comics art, of sustained intensity in drawing, illusion of movement, distribution of lights, darks, and greys, etc.---a genuine tour-de-force:

    http://pangolinbasement.blogspot.com/2012/05/toth-blazing-combat-2-lone-hawk-january.html

    Enjoy!

    Chris A.

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