The Witching Hour #11 Nov 1970

A man looks down on the bizarre scene below him-- a group of black robed figures dance with abandonment before an altar. Behind him another robed figure is pointing a long-nailed finger in his direction, commanding a red-eyed demon to advance. Neal Adams' cover for the November 1970 issue of DC Horror Anthology THE WITCHING HOUR introduces a story illustrated by Alex Toth, and for once Adams contents himself with a fairly straight representation of the narrative. 

Unfortunately, when compared against the story itself, I can't help but be slightly underwhelmed by this cover. That's of course mostly due to the high standard of Toth's work, much more effectively capturing the energy and sinister atmosphere of the satanic ceremony than Adams manages here. It's also partly due to Adams' own decision to divide the page almost in two vertically, creating the idea that this is possibly two different stories, one about an old man and a demon, the other about a satanic coven. And he's in no way assisted by his colourist who has elected to leave the entire background to the sabbat uncoloured. This is quite a baffling choice, leaving the whole image seem unfinished and diminishing any sense of menace. Regular readers of this blog will know that I usually have only superlatives to offer in my admiration of Neal Adams' work. Indeed, I have highlighted many of his covers and devoted three whole recent posts to his art in my recent Advent calendar series. If you have missed these, please check them out here--

Regular readers will also know that one of the key discoveries I've made in my journey through Bronze Age comics is the artwork of Alex Toth. Again, if you have not yet read my previous entries on his remarkable work, please check them out here--

THE WITCHING HOUR #11 starts as usual with a Toth illustrated framing sequence, this time suggesting that one of the three witches, Mildred, has in fact died and is being mourned by her associates Cynthia and Mordred who introduce a pair of stories in her honour. The first of these, THE MARK OF THE WITCH, sees Toth switching art styles to suit the narrative, again as is customary in this comic. Jack Oleck's script is a tightly written tale of the occult influences within the higher echelons of the establishment, itself a subtly subversive subject for a comic aimed at young readers in 1970.

The narrative involves a man named Thomas, who is being scrutinised within his cell in an asylum by a pair of white-coated doctors. He has been declared insane, having apparently murdered a girl, but claiming she was sacrificed by witches and warlocks.

As Thomas narrates the events as he remembers them, we learn he is "a student of the occult" who'd discovered a ceremony taking place in a cave. Toth allows the suspense to unfold effectively as Thomas approaches the cave, using shadows and silhouettes to hide details and compliment the sense of secrecy and obscurity. 

Once inside the cave the colourist sympathetically uses a reduced palette consisting solely of green and yellow, giving Toth's images an eerie, sick green glow. The moment Thomas sees the coven and their ceremony is a starkly fearsome portrait of a man who is suddenly out of his depth and irrevocably doomed.

But the page is dominated by the spectacle of the frenzied collective of hooded figures, dancing before a satanic altar. Toth dresses the entire ensemble in black featureless robes matching the altar coverings and frames the image with the jagged black outlines of the cave formation itself. The whole piece is made more sinister by two specific details. First the robed figure standing with his back to the altar is in sharp contrast with the ecstasy of movement before him. Toth draws him in such a way as to make his form disappear into the blackness of the altar, only his bare feet clueing the reader in as to his shape. His bowed head renders any facial features hidden, all we can see are his hands and the inverted crucifix he is wearing. The second detail is the shape of the goat tethered to a post. Toth draws the animal straining at its bonds, and although the animal is no more than a few black clobs, he manages to imbue it with a real sense of terror as it awaits its awful fate at the hands of these crazed humans.

I can't help thinking that had I encountered such an image as a child it would have disturbed me so much that I possibly would not have continued reading at this point. Like the character of Thomas I would have agreed it was 'a repulsive nightmare' (although I happily watched the likes of DOCTOR WHO, that was happily within the realms of Sci Fi, but I was terrified by the idea of the devil, seances, the end of the world and even vampires). Similarly the sight on the next page of the chief wizard, whose eyes are the only recognisable feature, would have been somewhat troubling. It's a lesson well worth noting for those wishing to terrify their readers or audiences-- the blank, hidden face is infinitely more chilling than the sight of what's beneath the mask.

I am not sure if my nervousness might have been diluted by the colourist's choice of bright red and pink tones to enhance the demonic faces conjured up by the magus's incantations.

After the otherworldly atmosphere so effectively constructed a moment previously I feel that the colours used here, rather than suggesting the infernal, seem instead to conjure up associations with strawberry icecream. 

This is a real shame, because I think it reduces the impact of the story somewhat. And maybe as a child reading this, that would have been ok, preventing it from being even more alarming to read, but looking at it with adult eyes I'd rather see it rendered more effectively. So the colourist perseveres with these confectionary-compliant tones on the following page as the demon Asmodeus appears and brands his followers with marks to the neck.

Which is then followed by another panel which I'm confident would have provoked horror in my innocent mind, the offering up to Satan of the girl. Now we're firmly on Hammer Horror territory as the shrouded lovely is passed by the satanists over their heads, her arms hanging limply at her sides. The way her body is depicted lifelessly, lit with that unpleasant green glow, coupled with the enlarged lettering for the word "SATAN!" is distinctly unsettling.

A couple of pages later we are once again outside the cave and as Thomas flees from the coven Toth again uses plenty of silhouettes and shadows to obscure details and enhance the suspense. 

The climactic moment when the satanists catch him is a perfect panel. The whole thing is rendered solely in silhouette, a yellow moon creating a giant halo around Thomas's head, as like a martyred saint he is surrounded by his enemies intent on his destruction.

As he stares into the eyes of the Chief Wizard Toth borrows an idea from Hitchcock's VERTIGO, specifically the outline of a figure falling into a spiral. As in the movie, this is the moment of the character's descent into 'madness', a confused state brought about by the malicious deceptions of others.

Waking on the mountain, Thomas finds the dead girl beside him. There's no happy ending in this story, the girl wasn't rescued, the bad guys don't get caught and uncovered. The contrast with the rest of the story in these two panels creates quite an impact. The only panels in the story which are set away from the cave and the coven or the asylum where Thomas is incarcerated are depicted with tranquil colours as an expanse of pale blue sky interrupts the darkness of what precedes and follows them. But undermining any sense of peace or relief is the shape of the girl's murdered body, shown from two different angles to emphasise the fact that she is not moving and another factor which makes this tale quite unsavoury for a young audience.

But, as I suggested at the start of this piece, perhaps the most 'adult' idea of all in this story is the assertion by Thomas that influential figures in society are themselves evil and involved in the satanic activities he has witnessed.

This knowledge has come to him at the moment when the girl was to be sacrificed. "Our kind is already in high places," declared the Chief Wizard as he held the knife above her sleeping body, " They rule-- they make war-- evil thrives!"

Whether or not those who rule and govern us are in fact satanists or involved in human sacrifice is quite a topic to be introduced in a comic sold to young people, some of whom would have been quite young children. This cynical unexpected element seems quite challenging and corresponds with other polically subversive ideas being sneaked into DC titles around this time, evidence of their creators' dissatisfaction with the status quo.

Mainstream texts, especially those written half a century ago, usually propagate the broad idea that those in authority warrant respect and obedience, while also asserting that those amongst them who are evil or corrupt will always get their comeuppance. This story suggests otherwise, ending with the chilling notion that those who would expose the corruption within the establishment are more likely to end up in an asylum than be allowed to share what they have learnt. The final three silent panels, effectively a zoom-in, leave a bitter taste, surely challenging an impressionable minded reader to view the establishment figures around them with suspicion. Their doctors, dentists, teachers, religious leaders, the politicians they saw on TV. And all stamped with the Comics Code Authority's seal of approval.

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