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If you want or need to, you can catch up on the entire story to date by either going to the first page and navigating through page-by-page using the arrows at the top, or you can read the story ten pages at a time by opening the Learning from Elders category on this site.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
PAGE 40 (Three panels, with Panels 1 and 2 probably stacked on the left-hand side of the page, with Panel 3 taking up the right-hand side of the page. Do Panel 3 in color.)
Panel 1: Professor Turpentine, holding up a syringe which he is pointing to.
Turpentine (1): Of course, we are taking measures to reduce any possible distress in our subjects. For example, we intend to give them an injection of this…
Translation (1): Certo, stiamo prendendo delle misure per ridurre ogni possibile pericolo per i nostri soggetti. Ad esempio, intendiamo fargli un’iniezione di questo…
Panel 2: Eliza, her sleeve rolled up receiving an injection from a NURSE.
CAPTION – TURPENTINE NARRATING (2): …a solution of nanocytes that are thousands of times more efficient than human blood cells at storing and transporting oxygen.
Translation (2): …una soluzione di nanociti che è migliaia di volte più efficiente dei globuli umani nella conservazione e nel trasporto dell’ossigeno.
Panel 3: Eliza, sitting in a crossed-legs position at the bottom of cylindrical tank wearing a one-piece bathing suit, with a number of sensors attached to wires attached to her. She has her eyes closed.
CAPTION TURPENTINE NARRATING (3): With this injection, an inactive human subject can remain submerged for up to four hours.
Translation (3): Con questa iniezione, un soggetto umano inattivo può rimanere immerso fino a quattro ore.
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By May 1940 Terror Tales was nearing the end of its run (as were most shudder pulps), but it still had a great issue that begins with this cover by Rafael DeSoto and included some pretty classic pulp stories with some pretty classic pulp interior art, for example Russell Gray’s “Mistress of the Dark Pool.”
But most mad-sciency of all is “Test-Tube Frankenstein” by Wayne Robbins (1914-1958), a pretty good yarn about biological mimicry (and probably what inspired DeSoto’s cover, even if that latter isn’t really what’s going on there).
This issue of Terror Tales is available to read or download from the Internet Archive.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
If you want or need to, you can catch up on the entire story to date by either going to the first page and navigating through page-by-page using the arrows at the top, or you can read the story ten pages at a time by opening the Learning from Elders category on this site.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
PAGE 39 (Four panels)
Panel 1: Something like a giant beach ball blowing up into the tank where Hiram dropped the capsule.
SFX – DETONATING CAPSULE (1): FWOOOM!
Translation (1): FWOOOM!
Panel 2: Hiram pointing to a projected slide. It shows a silhouette of a woman in profile. In the middle of the silhouette, mapped out in white space, is a representation of her digestive tract. A dotted line from her mouth down to her stomach indicates the path that the capsule has presumably taken. Hiram is pointing at a little capsule shown resting in her stomach.
CAPTION – UNSEEN INTERVIEWER (2): How is that supposed to help you capture the creature?
Translation (2): In che modo potrebbe aiutarti a catturare la creatura?
Hiram (3): Simple, really. Our subject swallows the capsule at the start of the exercise.
Translation (3): Semplice, davvero. Il nostro soggetto ingoia la capsula all’inizio dell’esercizio.
Panel 3: Hiram pointing to another projection. It is a large silhouette of the outline of the creature (or what the research team thinks it looks like anyway). There is a similar white space representing the creature’s digestive tract, and in the middle of that tract, another silhouette of a woman. There is also another dotted line showing the path that the woman took from the mouth of the siphon down to the creature’s stomach.
Hiram (4): In the course of her interaction with the creature, the subject will be ingested and then subsequently digested.
Translation (4): Nel corso della sua interazione con la creatura, il soggetto sarà ingerito e successivamente digerito.
Panel 4: Another projection, this time showing the creature, change will be detected by but with a FWOOM in the middle of its digestive tract.
Hiram (5): At a sufficiently advanced stage of the digestion of the subject, the chemical change will be detected by the sensors, setting off the explosive charge.
Translation (5): Ad una fase sufficientemente avanzata della digestione del soggetto, il sensore chimico rileva i cambiamenti, attivando la carica esplosiva.
Hiram (6): We believe the resulting explosion will both stun the creature and, by changing its buoyancy, force it to the surface, where it can be collected.
Translation (6): Crediamo che la conseguente esplosione stordirà la creatura e, modificandone la galleggiabilità, la costringerà a spingersi in superficie, dove potrà essere raccolta.
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Virgil Finlay was busy on this the April 1938 issue of Weird Tales The cover painting appears to illustrate Clark Ashton Smith’s “The Garden of Adompha,” one I had not previously read and which my attention was drawn by twitter user Perry Ruh:
You can read the story in the Internet Archive’s copy of the issue or, if the yellowed woodpulp is too much of a strain on the eyes, you can also read the transcribed version at Wikisourse.
Finlay was also busy on this this issue with interior illustrations, like this one for Seabury Quinn’s story “The Temple Dancer.”
It was a heck of an issue, containing not just these stories but others by Robert Bloch, Jack Williamson, Max Brod and Nathaniel Hawthorne (the last two reprints, obviously) and poems by both H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard! It is available to read and download at the Internet Archive.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
If you want or need to, you can catch up on the entire story to date by either going to the first page and navigating through page-by-page using the arrows at the top, or you can read the story ten pages at a time by opening the Learning from Elders category on this site.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
PAGE 38 (Four panels)
Panel 1: HIRAM WORTHINGLOCK (“Hiram”), a rat-faced little man who wears thick round spectacles and a labcoat, sitting on a stool in another laboratory. He is being interviewed.
SUBTITLE (1): Hiram Worthinglock, assistant to Professor Turpentine.
Translation (1): Hiram Worthinglock, assistente del professor Trementina.
Hiram (2): Of course, we have our bait, but you can’t just stick a hook through this bait, heh heh.
Comment (2): “Heh heh,” an evil little laugh.
Translation (2): Certo, abbiamo la nostra esca, ma non puoi semplicemente infilare un gancio in questa esca, hihihi.
Hiram (3): So we have a more elegant solution.
Translation (3): Quindi abbiamo una soluzione più elegante.
Panel 2: Close-up of Hiram’s hand, in which he is holding up something that looks like a Tylenol capsule at the end of a pair of tweezers.
CAPTION – HIRAM NARRATING (4): This capsule contains nano-sensors and a tiny but very powerful explosive charge wrapped in ultra-strong membranes.
Translation (4): Questa capsula contiene nano-sensori e una carica esplosiva minuscola ma molto potente avvolta in membrane ultra-resistenti.
Panel 3: Hiram standing over an open cylindrical metal tank about one meter across and one meter high. He has just dropped the capsule in the tank, as can be seen by a small drop of fluid rebounding back up and some ripples around it.
SFX – CAPSULE DROPPED INTO THE WATER (5): ploop!
Translation (5): ploop!
Hiram (6): The capsule’s sensors are programmed to be sensitive to chemical changes in the capsule’s environment, as we can see by dropping it in this tank…
Translation (6): I sensori della capsula sono programmati per essere sensibili ai cambiamenti chimici nell’ambiente della capsula, come possiamo osservare se la facciamo cadere in questo serbatoio…
Panel 4: Hiram pouring a flask of some sort of liquid into the tank.
Hiram (7): …and then inducing a chemical change.
Translation (7): … e poi induciamo un cambiamento chimico.
Hiram (8): You might want to back up a bit.
Translation (8): Potrebbe essere necessario puntellare un pochino.
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The unattributed September 1940 cover of Terror Tales suggests there’s some seriously dirty work afoot. (I regret that this small scan appears to be the available size for this issue.) What caught my eye in the interior was the art for the story “Bodies Born for Slaughter,” by “Donald Dale,” (pseudonym for Mary Dale Buckner). The image below is my composite:
The story looks like an early version on the plot of Get Out. But is it? You’ll have to read this old story to find out.
This issue of Terror Tales is available to read and download at the Internet Archive.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
If you want or need to, you can catch up on the entire story to date by either going to the first page and navigating through page-by-page using the arrows at the top, or you can read the story ten pages at a time by opening the Learning from Elders category on this site.