(Non-comics readers probably shouldn’t bother reading this entry, but feel free to do so if you want. Just don’t bother complaining in the comments about how you wasted your time. Or do complain; I don’t give a rat’s ass either way. You’ll be the jackass who wasted his or her time reading this and then wasted even more time complaining about it to someone who doesn’t give a shit about your complaints or your wasted time.)
Now, with that bit of hostility out of the way, this one goes out to any comics reader who stumbles across this blog and does more than spare it a glance and say, “This is retarded,” and move on.
To you, I put forth a request for assistance.
When I was a kid there was a comic that I acquired in one of those three for 49 cents bags of comics that had either part of or all of the cover missing that had a story in I that’s stuck with me ever since, despite the fact that the already mutilated comic either fell apart completely or was simply tossed away more than 20 years ago.
It was one of DC’s horror comics. I’m fairly certain it was Ghosts, though I suppose it could have just as easily been House of Mystery or House of Secrets. However, I remember the narrator part as being a ghost, not Cain or Abel, so I’m tending to rule out it being one of the latter two.
The particular story, set, I think, during World War I, involved a simple but beautiful peasant girl in a small village in some generically European country who was in love with an officer stationed near her village. I think her name may have been Rosalie, or something similar. In any case, the officer, a cruel, heartless aristocrat who has simply been using the girl, lets her know that she never meant anything to him and that, despite her belief to the contrary, he has no intention of marrying her, and that he’s leaving her village and fully intends to forget all about her. As I recall, this event actually occurs on what she thought was going to be her wedding day.
Still dressed in her gown, she throws herself off a cliff to her death. I vividly recall the surprisingly graphic depiction of her body lying dashed against the rocks below.
Her younger brother finds her and swears he will have his revenge on the officer who brought her to this unfortunate end.
Time passes, and the officer is once again back in this small village, leading on some other young unfortunate. I’m a little fuzzy on exactly what happens next, but ultimately the brother leads the officer to the graveyard where his sister is buried. There’s an altercation that leads to the brother’s death, but this is followed by an earthquake that opens up the Rosalie’s grave and causes the officer to fall into her waiting arms, where her rotted corpse locks him an a deadly embrace and he is trapped for eternity as the ground swallows them both up.
As I said, this story had quite an impact on young Jon, who had been rather entranced by the beautiful young village girl, appalled by the shabby treatment she received, and horrified by her decision to end her life, and I felt that the justice that was meted out to the cad who brought about her misfortune was nowhere near sufficient.
The truly gruesome imagery of her lifeless form at the base of the cliff, her wedding gown hanging in tatters from her broken body, and later, her skeletal remains, rotting flesh still clinging to her to her bones, taking the officer in her arms and pressing her absent lips to his in a horrible kiss that stifled his screams also had quite an impact.
The point of all of this is that I would like to have this comic in my possession once more.
In doing some online research, I’ve determined, based on the title of one of the stories and the year of its release, that the most likely candidate for the comic this was in is Ghosts #99.
However, I’m not entirely certain of that, and even the lower-grade copies cost more than I’m willing to spend on a hunch.
So I’m – most likely pointlessly – throwing this out there on the off-chance that some kind soul who is knowledgeable about this will leave a comment telling me that, yes, this story is contained in Ghosts #99, or, if it isn’t, what comic it does appear in.
Thanks in advance (or in vain, as the case will most likely be).
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