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 30 (Three panels)
Panel 1: Probably the largest panel across the top of the page. An institutional-looking room full of young women sitting at desks, filling out forms with pencils.
CAPTION – TURPENTINE NARRATING (1): We were surprised at the number of volunteers we got when word of our project got out on social networks.
Translation (1): Siamo rimasti sorpresi dal numero di volontari che abbiamo avuto quando la notizia del nostro progetto è apparsa sui social network.
CAPTION – TURPENTINE NARRATING (2): We did extensive psychological testing to root out cases of suicidality and mental instability.
Translation (2): Abbiamo condotto numerosi test psicologici per sradicare i casi di suicidio e instabilità mentale.
Panel 2: Turpentine in his office, being interviewed.
Turpentine (3): There were some legal issues, of course, but our philanthropic sponsor is well connected and found ways to deal with them.
Translation (3): C’erano alcuni problemi legali, ovviamente, ma il nostro sponsor filantropico ha buone conoscenze e ha trovato il modo di affrontarli.
Panel 3: A young woman wearing a hospital gown, sitting on an examination table and having her blood pressure checked by a nurse.
CAPTION – TURPENTINE NARRATING (4): We did rigorous medical screening.
Translation (4): Abbiamo condotto uno screening medico rigoroso.
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As with many other shudder pulp covers, I’ve blogged the January-February 1940 cove of this one before, but thanks to the Internet Archive, I can now peek under the cover to see what of interest might lie therein. I turns out that in this issue there was not one but two stories of aquatic monsters that lure comely young women to various kinds of watery doom. Here are my cross page composites for (1) “Girls Who Lust for Death” by “Russell Gray” (a pseudonym for Bruno Fischer, 1908-1992).
And “Pray That She Stays with the Dead” by “Donald Dale,” a pseudonym for Mary Dale Buckner, a writer about whom I have been able to find out very little, although it is possible to buy a contemporary collection of her stories.
There are no artist attributions, sadly.
This issue of Terror Tales is available to read or 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.
I liked this page enough that I am making it available in large-size/high resolution. Left click on the image to display, right click to download.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
PAGE 29 (Four panels)
Panel 1: Daphne, in the interview, now looking serious and pensive.
Unseen interviewer (out-of-panel balloon) (1): But that means the end of you!
Translation (1): Ma questo significa la tua fine!
Daphne (2): It is a choice between κλέος and νόστος.
Comment (2): The Greek text above (κλέος, νόστος) should, if possible, be left untranslated and untransliterated.
Translation (2): È una scelta tra κλέος e νόστος.
Unseen interviewer (out-of-panel balloon) (3): What?
Translation (3): Che cosa?
Panel 2: View of a vase painting showing the Greek hero Achilles.
CAPTION – DAPHNE NARRATING (4): In the Iliad, the hero Achilles faces a choice between either going home and living a long life – that’s νόστος – or staying to fight and living a short but glorious life – that’s κλέος.
Comment (4): See Comment (2) above for how to treat the Greek text.
Translation (4): Nell’Iliade, l’eroe Achille affronta una scelta tra andare a casa e vivere una lunga vita – questo è νόστος – o restare a combattere e vivere una vita breve ma gloriosa – questo è κλέος.
Panel 3: Daphne, leaning forward to engage more closely her unseen interviewer.
Daphne (5): Given the choice between a either a lifetime as a corporate drone after which I shall be forgotten or being part of something that will be in history books for centuries, the right answer seems obvious.
Translation (5): Dovendo scegliere tra una vita come drone aziendale dopo la quale sarò dimenticata o far parte di qualcosa che resterà nei libri di storia per secoli, la risposta giusta sembra ovvia.
Panel 4: Daphne sitting back, taking a sip from her cup of coffee.
Daphne (6): Or at least, the right answer is obvious to me.
Translation (6): O almeno, la risposta giusta per me è ovvia.
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I ran a version of the cover of the March 1940 issue of Horror Stories before, but at the time I hadn’t figured out how to peek beneath many of these pulp covers. Now I have, and I wasn’t disappointed by what I found a few pages in, which looks pretty damn mad science to me:
The image is my composite of one that stretched across two pages, a common practice at Horror Stories in those days. “Wayne Rogers” was a pseudonym for a prolific pulp writer whose real name was Archibald Bittner (1997-1966), and not they guy who played Trapper John on M*A*S*H (who would have been seven years old when this story was published).
Neither the cover nor the interior illustrations for this issue are credited, unfortunately.
This issue of Horror Stories 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 28 (Four panels)
Panel 1: DAPHNE BOSSELSEG (“Daphne”) sits in a coffeehouse, being interviewed. There is coffee on the table in front of her. Daphne is a dark-haired, dark-eyed, intense-looking youngish woman who wears a dark cable sweater and blue jeans.
Daphne (1): The bitter truth is, I’m facing a lifetime of asking “Do you want fries with that?”
Comment (1): “Do you want fries with that? Is a stock phrase in American English, the question asked by a fast-food counter worker. By extension, to have to ask the question means having a poorly-paid, unenjoyable, and low-status job. It can be translated either literally or with an equivalent phrase in the target language.
Translation (1): L’amara verità è che sto passando una vita intera chiedendo “Ci vuoi anche le patatine?”
SUBTITLE (2): Daphne Bosselseg, prospective subject.
Translation (2): Daphne Bosselseg, soggetto prospettico.
Panel 2: Front panel of the first edition of Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two World Systems, over which are layered the captions of Daphne speaking.
CAPTION – DAPHNE NARRATING (3): I wrote an award-winning Ph.D. dissertation in the history of science. “One of the best of your generation,” my advisors told me.
Translation (3): Ho scritto una dissertazione per il Ph.D. premiato in storia della scienza. “Una delle migliori della tua generazione”, mi hanno detto i miei consulenti.
CAPTION – DAPHNE NARRATING (4): But thanks to yahoo state legislators and asshole STEM billionaires, there’s no funding for humanistic research like that anymore.
Comment (4): “Yahoo” is an American colloquial expression for a crude, ill-educated, and unsophisticated person, usually one of rural or small-town origins. “STEM” is an acronym for “science, technology, engineering, and mathematics,” and in this context might refer to someone who got rich making technology, but who is ignorant and also likely contemptuous of humanistic learning.
Translation (4): Ma grazie ai rozzi legislatori statali e agli stronzi miliardari della Scienza, Tecnologia, Ingegneria e Matematica, non c’è più alcun finanziamento per una ricerca umanistica del genere.
Panel 3: Daphne back in interview position. She looks glum and pensive.
Daphne (5): No one with money wants to fund knowledge anymore. They all want universities that do nothing but make a compliant corporate workforce.
Translation (5): Chi possiede fondi non vuole più finanziare la conoscenza. Tutti vogliono delle università che creino solo una forza lavoro aziendale accondiscendente.
Panel 4: Daphne being interviewed. She has brightened up, just a little.
Daphne (6): But now I have a chance at something.
Translation (6): Ma ora ho la possibilità di fare qualcosa.
Daphne (7): If I can’t write part of the history of science, then perhaps I can be part of the history of science.
Translation (7): Se non posso scrivere una parte della storia della scienza, allora forse posso essere parte della storia della scienza.
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Running a bit late this morning, I know…
The June 1950 issue of Famous Fantastic Mysteries featured a cover by the great Norman Saunders, while Lawrence Sterne Stevens continued to do interesting things on the interior pages illustrating S. Fowler Wright’s story “The Adventure of Wyndham Smith.” The following, with its caption, feels very mad science.
While Stevens’s final illustration has a strangely decadent, almost Aubrey Beardsley-like feel.
This issue of Famous Fantastic Mysteries can be read or downloaded 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.