Sunday, May 17, 2020

MONSTER MASHUPS #47

The cover to 1964's CREEPY #7 looks like it's going to invoke the standard images of vampire vs. werewolf in a big fight:



However, even the title of the interior story, "Duel of the Monsters," is a cheat, since it's just another extended EC-style joke tale, taking place in medieval Spain for a change of pace. SPOILERS before anyone reads the big reveal below.


ANTI-MASHUPS (-3)



Just screened the 1964 FLINTSTONES episode "The Gruesomes," and decided that this one does not meet my standards for a mashup. The three members of the Gruesome Family-- pretty transparently modeled on the Addams clan-- are all the same sort of green-skinned freakazoids, so they all belong to the same species of whatever-they-are, unlike, say, the Munsters.

The family does have a menagerie of monsters-- "crocosauruses," octopi, a killer plant, and even a couple of giant furry hands that may or may not have hairy bodies attached. But all of these are just various types of animal, not monsters, and so they don't register, any more than the various fauna of Skull Island register as distinct from the monsterhood of King Kong.