I doubt that over the years, since starting the mythcomics project, I've done many celebrations of "Halloween Month." Nevertheless, at least for this October I'll shoot for doing more mythcomics, or near-myths, on a horror theme.
I've devoted a lot more mythcomics posts on the Archive to heroic adventure than to horror. This could be the result of my simply having read more of the former than the latter. However, on my film/TV review-blog, I doubt that there's as much of a disparity, though I'm not likely to do a statistical calculation any time soon.
Anyway, my first October surprise comes from the horror-anthology THE BEYOND, published by Ace Magazines. A few of Ace's publications were trashed in SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT, but otherwise, the company's most notable publications from a modern POV are probably the superhero features "Magno" and "Lash Lightning" and the teen humor series "Hap Hazard." The company, which closed its doors in 1956, also published pulp magazines about such heroes as "The Moon Man" and "Secret Agent X." The story I've chosen bears no writer-credit, so as I've done in past, I'll treat GCD's attributed artist, Louis Zansky, as the sole creator, purely for narrative convenience.
One of the most interesting things about "Finger" is that it's a werewolf story in which the werewolf doesn't eventuate from a bite, a witch's curse, or a Satanic conjuration-- but from a moral imbalance in a "family romance."
In a story that appears to take place in early 20th-century France (going by the fashions and automobiles), the action opens on a deathbed curse. The caption tells us that the harridan in the bed is Marie, who was divorced years ago from the well-dressed, forty-something man, Aristide Chauvet. (The name sounds a bit like "aristocratic cavalier," even though the caption tells us he's a self-made man.) After Aristide cut himself loose from drunken shrew Marie, his fortunes improved as he built a successful business, married a second wife, and sired other children. However, on the occasion of her death Marie has invited her ex to her room just to place a curse on him before she passes, claiming that Aristide's first born should be his heir, and any other heir will die horribly.
The next two panels clarify the other figures in the room. The guy in the sailor-outfit is Jean, an aide to Aristide. The sinister-looking boy, whose real name is never spoken, is Aristide's first born, and on the next page Jean claims that the the kid's extra-long ring finger means that he's a born werewolf.
The kid's apparently been filled with resentment of his absent father by his late mother, as he hurls a dart at Aristide's face and rants about wanting to kill him. Aristide, though presented as a generally good guy, doesn't exactly win any good parenting awards with his next move: he won't take the boy into his own home, to imperil his new family, but he makes clear that he will pay Jean to be the child's guardian. Zansky implies that this state of affairs takes place over the next twenty years, for we never see Jean again or hear anything about the raising of the first-born Chauvet.
A panel or two later, Zansky relates with admirable celerity that by the time Aristide's two children have grown to adulthood, the rich man's fortunes have become more mixed. Though his daughter Denise is a generous, refined soul, his wife and grown son Jules exist merely to waste the money Aristide worked to accumulate. (It's almost as if Aristide is "destined" to have one bad wife and one bad son.) While Aristide and Denise discuss their family problems, the reader sees a werewolf break into Aristide's barn and ravage his livestock.
While Aristide and his servants organize a hunt for the strange intruder, possibly a madman rather than an animal, Zansky introduces the reader to Eduardo Valin, who's been engaged to live at the estate while teaching music to Denise. However, once all the men have left the house, the werewolf invades the house and kills Madame Chauvet. The surprisingly talkative beast-man explains his intent to knock off anyone in line for the Chauvet fortune, and even indulges in a little irony, observing that the older woman's cries will be "smothered in these garments you admired so much." (To be sure, she isn't smothered, as the next page testified that Madame's throat was torn out.)
By page 5 Zansky is all but stating outright the true identity of Valin (whose name comes from a Germanic word for "stranger.") Aristide keeps thinking he recognizes Valin somewhere, and Valin even gives him a photograph to jog his memory. Spendthrift Jules has returned for his mother's funeral but is anxious to be off again on his wastrel endeavors, and Valin even taunts Jules with the possibility of werewolves. Later, as they ride together in a car, Valin transforms "on-camera" and slaughters his second rival for Aristide's money.
Page 7 then delivers the quick wrapup. The clue of the overlong finger finally bears fruit, for that's one of the ways Aristide figures out Valin's true ID (though technically, he first realizes that Valin bears the same features as Marie). But the long finger has one more role to play. Valin has driven Denise off to a lonely area and transforms again. He apparently stalks his half-sister a while to "prolong the agony, " but this allows the local constables to overtake the malefactor with their "vicious hounds." No silver-bullet rule here; the hounds treat the wolf-man as he treated his victims, and a French cop observes that Denise "missed death by a finger-- a third finger!" (I've heard of missing something by a hair, or a whisker, but-- a finger? I think Zansky made up the expression for the sake of his ending.) And so Aristide's good relative lives and all his bad ones die-- though it's interesting that even though the rich man refused to let his first-born be part of his family, evidently Valin and Denise share a genetic patrimony. The one thing that links them is musical talent, though in this world, music has no power to soothe the savage breast-- or beast, for that matter.
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