Hello, kiddies! It’s that purveyor of putrid poltroonery, the Crap-Keeper. I’ve got a supremely savory saga of sickness for you saps today. It’s a yellow yelp yarn I like to call… SHIT FOR BRAINS!
Thoughts about “Ghastly” Graham Ingels: There’s very little information available about him, really. What there is creates only a sketchy, but suggestive impression of who he was & from where his formidable gifts came. I believe that Ghastly was an artist of the highest order. That he happened to work in the medium of comics is incidental, as in my opinion, his images of evil, decay & madness easily rank alongside those of, say, Bosch or Grunewald.
Maybe it’s a sign of the limitations of my imagination that I can’t think of more disturbing graphical images than these guys provide—at least, not at the moment. The almost medieval sensibility of Ghastly’s E.C. stuff becomes especially apparent in the magnificent black & white reprints from Gemstone Publishing, where his drawings become something like demented woodcuts. His vision that elevated the often-simple stories he illustrated to the level of a pervasive myth—a universal vision of his culture’s obsessions & fears that, nevertheless, bore his unique, personal stamp.
(I’m writing, of course, of his best stuff. As a working illustrator, Ghastly had to churn out drawings. So plenty of tossed-off mediocrities bear his signature, as well as the really stunning stuff,)
But, so, Ghastly the man: Who the fuck was he? Here’s what we know: He was a devout Catholic, forced to enter the work force in his early teens, due to his father’s untimely death. During World War II, Ghastly serves in the Navy, but sees no combat (or even makes it to sea). After his discharge, he bounces around as an illustrator & somehow ends up in comics. He even lands a few editorial gigs. He has a dense style with lots of line work.
He finds his way to E.C., just before Bill Gaines restructures the company. Then along comes the New Trend. As Gaines rotates the artists to see where they best fit, Ghastly illustrates his hand at a horror story or two. Gaines & Al Feldstein are pleased with the results, though they haven’t quite solidified into the style seen in Ghastly’s best work. He becomes a regular fixture in all 3 horror books—netting the lead-off story & cover of The Haunt of Fear—as well as a frequent contributor to the suspense titles. He evolves quickly & is soon producing some of most disturbing images that E.C. will ever churn out.
Behind the scenes though, Ghastly has a problem or two. There’s no way to establish how deeply these may have run. All we have is office party pictures, in which he lurks, sad-eyed & tight-lipped, smiling shyly, & the remembrances of his co-workers, none of whom ever got to know him. They did know that he was drinking—a lot. Feldstein routinely set fake deadlines for Ghastly that were 7-10 days early to make sure his stuff got in on time.
It seems to’ve been an act of kindness on the part of the editor. Before that, he’d call the Ingels residence, wondering where the artist was, as a deadline had come & gone. The lady of the house would tell him she didn’t know where Ghastly was. Feldstein knew damn well that Ghastly was passed out in his bed, sleeping off another bender.
This way, Ghastly would show up 3 days “late” & apologetic, when really he was early. On the surface, he was mild-mannered & quiet, but Feldstein says he sensed an underlying core of anger, & so he never pushed him. Ghastly began to express some misgivings about the growing degree of moral perversity in the horror titles. He was repelled by stories in which the violence was gratuitous. He liked stories with an emotional basis—a heart, of sorts.
After EC imploded, Ghastly disappeared. For years, no one could find him—not the cult of fans or even Bill Gaines. Once he did turn up, in Florida, where he gave art lessons in his own home, he refused to discuss his time at E.C. He would not give interviews or attend conventions. Eventually, he agreed to do a few E.C.-themed paintings, but soon after, he died.
Part of what fascinates about him is this: Did his anger & alcoholism fuel his art or inhibit it? Did his inability to accept what he was, the form of his genius, limit his happiness? No way to know, though it seems sorta plausible to me…
New case. It wore me out. Haven’t posted in a while. I feel bad. ‘Cause, like, I’m so sure that people sit around thinking carefully about my insights & lauding them to friends, relatives, & anyone else who might pass them on the street or whom they might run into in a public restroom.
Like, say it’s a day during which my friend P. has really bad diarrhea. It’s embarrassing, because he keeps getting this horribly urgent jolt of pain & pressure, as though a large, strong hands were holding his prostate & wringing it like a damp rag, which, when you get down to it, is sort of a turn-on for P. Takes him back to those days in the ‘Nam, when sexuality was fluid, both literally & figuratively. Old P’s prostate took a pounding on a coupla memorable occasions back then.
In this case though, he’s lacking the excitement of a partner, & the only fluid here is the steaming shit that’s filling up his rectum. What a parody of the acts of love he knew in the ‘Nam, in which other, more beloved fluids pumped into the same fleshy corridor!
Thing is, in spite of his troubles, P. has to be out of the house today. See, he’s got some important errands to run. So he’s repeatedly obliged to find a public restroom, if he doesn’t want to noisily mess himself, because, as grumpy ol'Ingmar Bergman once wrote of his own digestive difficulties, the attacks come “like lightning, & the pain was difficult to endure.”
Now to make matters worse, P. is stuck in traffic court for most of the afternoon. He’s there to contest a parking ticket some overzealous cop stuck him with, when his meter expired just as he was pulling away from the curb. The bitch just walked right up & stuck this ticket on his window. P. had called after her—fat piece of white trash—but she’d just kept walking, like he wasn’t even there.
So now P.’s in traffic court, & it’s really backed up. He’s been waiting for 2 hours, & they’re finally ready to hear his case. He’s got no evidence. It’s just his word vs. the cop’s, but P. plans on winning the day through eloquence. He knows he can speak beautifully. It’s just a talent he has. When writing fiction, he’s tried to bring this same gift to the page, but so far, he’s only been able to capture brief glimmers—reflections on a rippling lake.
But when he speaks, it’s different. He can feel the power issuing forth. He’s seen it grasp a listener’s head, turn it toward him & then hold it rapt, as he held forth on, say, for instance, Dostoevsky. In writing workshops, he’s knocked ‘em dead with his Crime & Punishment routine. At times, he’s been unable to resist pushing it a little with some of his classmates, adding a sexual charge, which, he knows, makes them want to fuck him, & there are always at least a few of either sex he’d like to be fucked by.
But then, when he’s done speaking, he’s too spiritually depleted to want to fuck. He finds himself aware of a growing alienation—a yearning hatred for all of their stupid, listening faces, their sweating bodies hidden under lifeless clothing. Then he can’t stand them, let alone, dream of being fucked by them.
Nevertheless, every time he’s in a public bathroom this day, & there are many times, he can’t help but admit that he's lucky to know me, because I’m a real clever soulful genius & an all around swell human being.
Yep. Say that happened…
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