What was it over at Weird Science? Did the spirit move Bill Gaines about once a year to shout across the office to Al Feldstein, “Al, we really need another story about a melting woman. Write one up and get Jack Kamen to draw it, stat!”
Well, maybe so. From Weird Science #6 (March/April 1951):
Similar conceit to that of “Something Missing,” down to the agreeable fetishist’s detail of her melting out of her clothes.
Here’s the context, taken from the story “Divide and Conquer.” A middle-aged scientist is working on a technology — in this case, some sort of drug — that causes living organisms to dissolve, divide, and re-form. Consistent with the principle of conservation of mass (Science!) the re-formed organisms will be copies of the original, but half-sized unless they do so in the presence of an appropriate nutritive medium.
Our scientist is married to a beautiful woman and, because he lives in the EC fictional universe, it’s a horrid marriage. She’s cheating on him and plotting murder. She discovers to her considerable sorrow that it’s pretty tough to murder someone who can copy himself, and it’s even tougher when the surviving copy returns to exact retribution with his copying formula.
(Ah, suggestions of comic book nudity. And created by science! And of course entirely-necessary-as-part-of the-plot-nothing-exploitative-here-please-move-along.)
Of course, since there are now two Glorias, this isn’t just the liquid girl fetish in action, but an early example also of personal identity porn. The question of which is the “real” Gloria is just as salient here as the questions of which is the “real” Iris or the “real” Jill in the Gnosis College scripts.
Sometimes, I’m almost afraid that someday I’ll be perusing Weird Science and come across the trope of a whole college full of reckless, oversexed students and a faculty which regards them as experiment fodder…
A point about melting away from ones’ clothes: The famous Left Behind series of Christian adventure novels begins with the Rapture, when most of the righteous are taken directly and bodily to heaven and their reward, while the less rightous and the Jews are left behind to fight out the battle of Armageddon. The hero is an airline pilot getting ready to land at O’Hare when the Rapture strikes and many of his passengers and at least one stewardess simply disappear, leaving a pile of clothes on the deck. However, he mentions finding shoes, skirts, wristwatches, stockings, even false teeth sitting on the floor, but no underwear. Apparently the Godly will be welcomed to the Prescence of the Almighty in their bras and panties, and not their birthday suits.
Well, give those Left Behind folks points for attention to detail, I guess.