(Click on images to view Giant-Mummy-Sized)
In August of 1970, when this comic was published, I was 11 years old and living in Parkersburg, West Virginia. We rented our house from the owner of a convenience store which we lived behind, and I would sweep his store and parking lot to earn some extra money, which quickly went back to the store for candy, soda and comic books. This was one of those I bought there, and stands out in my memories of that time. I mean, really; vampires, werewolves, mummies; what wasn't there to like about it?
The photo cover was cool, although I thought as a kid that the boy in the picture had a pointed ear, and must be a mini-werewolf like Eddie Munster. But I realised years later in looking at it, the it's only a leaf in the way. I remember holing up in my hideout, which I had cleared out under an overgrown thicket of wild bushes covering a small gully, and reading it while I nursed a cinnamon Square-Shooter sucker and a peach Nehi.
In the story, a downright hefty and obviously well-fed mummy ends up in Collinsport. Barnabas, turning into a detective, only needed to don a deerstalker cap and smoke a pipe, while wielding a magnifying glass to be Sherlock Holmes. There's a lot of running, and finger-pointing, and Barnabas is suspected; while he blames poor lycanthropic Quentin for the mummy's misdeeds. Ol' Barney, being the good guy that he is, prepares to poison his pal to help him out. After all, what are friends for, if not to show tough love? Quentin has a killer hangover and just wants to be left alone. As for the mummy's murderous ways, there's never any reason for the bandaged one to attack those random people, but I guess it's just what he does, being a mummy and all. Maybe his weight causes him to be insecure and the killing is just a way of compensating.
Anyway, here's the first part, scanned in and formatted for your maximum viewing pleasure; a story I call "The Case of the Howling Mummy!"
Now, that's what I call a mix-up... switching the bodies of the old man and an Egyptian mummy! How does something like that happen? The overweight mummy would had to have been removed from his sarcophagus (by several strong men) and put in the modern coffin, and the dead American placed in the ancient tomb. Somebody would have HAD to have done it on purpose. But why?
And look at the body of Capt. Collins; nearly a hundred years after death and not a sign of decomposition! Why? Or am I thinking too much about it? Surely, if I can swallow a vampiric hero and a living mummy I can overlook a slight plot hole or two.
To Be Continued next time... same Monster-time, same Monster-channel!
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