The Chilling Art Of Pat Boyette!

Steve Ditko was at Charlton for two reasons, they paid promptly and they left him alone to draw his comics the way he liked. That combination drew many talents to Charlton, not the least of which was Pat Boyette. Boyette was a "Renaissance Man" of sorts, a maker of early radio as a performer and later television and even movies as a producer and director. His most famous movie The Dungeon of Harrow is a drive-in horror flick not without its charms.  (More on that below.) And those charms are also evident in his artwork, which was incredibly distinctive and ideal for rendering tales of gothic horror. I daresay no single comic artist of any era was better at drawing ancient castles and musty denizens of same.  A heaping helping of Boyette's most distinctive work is included in the 2003Vanguard Press volume titled The Nightstand Chillers. 

Most of the stories had appeared earlier in an issue of Vanguard's Tales from the Edge. That material plus more to plump it up a bit makes The Nightstand Chillers a nifty read. The stories included are from a wide array of publishers Boyette worked for through the 1970's. The list includes Skywald, Atlas-Seaboard, Globe Publications, Ace and of course Charlton.

Here are the covers of the magazines and comics the stories appeared in. They range from early in his career in 1971 to the early 90's. Two of them are from the period when Charlton was doing painted covers and Boyette was perfect for that kind of presentation.

Pat Boyette was one of the most distinctive and individual talents ever in the world of comics. He is most famous today for Peacemaker, the hero he created with Joe Gill. 

The story above for Charlton Premiere is considered his masterpiece. Written by Denny O'Neil, this is a bizarre tale of the future. "The Children of Doom" was cranked out very quickly, but between them O'Neil and Boyette captured something truly haunting.


Boyette began in radio and later in television working as an announcer, blessed as he was with a sonorously deep voice. He wrote, directed, and produced several movies including the bizarre Dungeon of Harrow. He was always an artist though and dabbled in comics eventually linking up with Charlton Comics. He became a workhorse for them, and his unusual gothic tones grace scores of comics, primarily in the horror and war categories. Below is a gallery of some more of his vivid covers with some additional notes.

Ironically though I'm a big fan of Charlton, the first Pat Boyette cover I ever chanced upon was this effort for Warren's Eerie magazine. The weird stylings of Boyette left a heavy impression from the first moment I saw them.

Here are some of his weirdly gothic ghost book covers.

He drew the first covers for three of Charlton's ghost hosts in their own magazines, specifically Dr. Graves, Winnie the Witch, and Mr. Bones.

Pat Boyette was a massive talent, with a vision unlike any other single artist. His work is instantly recognizable and because he labored in the ghetto of Derby much overlooked by many fans today. Like so many of his peers, he excelled at material other than superheroes, and alas that puts him on a second tier for many. Not for me for sure. He's one of my idols, a guy who did it his way and did it very well indeed.

The Spookman by Pat Boyette was apparently originally to be called "Sandman", but alas that name was taken. His presence brings a little heft to a comic which had real diversity. I'd have loved to see some more Spookman stories, but I can't imagine anyone but Boyette drawing them. (Some relatively recent efforts to revive the hero have proved to me that Boyette is a hard act to follow.)

Now that's a hoot! And a face only a mother could love. We wrap all this up tomorrow with The Shape. 

But as mentioned, he did more than comics. Boyette also wanted to make movies, and he did make one called The Dungeon of Harrow.

This is really a pretty terrible movie by any absolute standard. The sound and picture quality are suspect, but that is the poor quality of the print really. The color drops out periodically and sometime that helps. This might've been better in B&W actually. The sets are meager, making Ed Wood's stuff seem polished in places. It all does have a claustrophobic feeling, but that' because the rooms are just tiny. I'm afraid the ubiquitous torches are going to incinerate the place any minute.

The story is pretty slim. Without spoiling anything, I'll just say the hero gets stranded on an island with some pretty insane characters and there's some torture, killing, and ghostly visitation before it's all said and done. But aside from the visuals, which from time to time do deliver a compelling sense of drama, the thing that makes this movie flow like molasses is the horrible acting. Boyette's voiceover is the best acting in the thing, making me wish he'd dubbed the main hero. This guy is wretched. He never seems to know what to do with his eyes, seems unclear of where to put his hands, and his delivery of dialogue is sometimes painful. His acting makes me yearn for the subtle nuances of Sven-Ole Thorson! The "Captain" who is stranded with him is better but not by much. The others are better than these two leads, but it's likely because they have somewhat less to do. Now though, I think of the henchman "Mantis" and I take that back; he sucks too. I'll let other reviews give out more painful details, but suffice it to say, this is perhaps the worst acting I've seen in a professional movie. It's dreadful.

 

That said, there is an offbeat charm to this movie, a quaint dreamlike aspect that makes it better than the sum of its parts. But sadly, when it comes to Pat Boyette, I'll take his comics work anytime over this example of his cinema work.

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Ditko At Charlton - 1973!

Tonight I'll Dream of You - Ditko at Charlton: 1973 is the largest of the volumes in this series coming in at near three hundred pages. Once again, we have stories from Ghostly Haunts, Ghostly Tales, Haunted, The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves and Ghost Manor. In addition, we get two stories from Haunted Love and one from E-Man. (More on the latter below). Back also are Winnie the Witch, Mr. Dedd, Impy, Dr. Graves and Mr. Bones. All the stories are of course drawn by Steve Ditko and all but two are written by Joe Gill. That story was written by Bhob Stewart and Russ Jones, and deals with a jealous comic strip artist who deserves his grim fate. All the stories are pretty darn good and deal with classic supernatural happenings and justice from beyond the grave. 

Killjoy both written and drawn by Ditko debuted in the second issue of E-Man. And this is pure Ditko, offering up a chaotic protagonist who is giving the pugilistic putdown to those he deems to be abusing the just economic system as judged by Ditko. It's a bit ironic that this Randian notion of economic fair play is undermined by several of the supernatural stories by Gill which see greedy bastards get their comeuppance and justice is somewhat meted out to downtrodden masses. Unlike many of Ditko's Objectivist heroes, Killjoy has the benefit of being funny. 

Here are the covers in this issue. 

More Gill and Ditko to come next week. 

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