Found It!

A lot of the comics I got as a kid came in those bags that contained two (or was it three?) comics for like 49 or 50 cents.
You tended to find them on the magazine racks at little mom and pop grocery stores, gas stations, and department stores.
The contents of the bag tended to be a surprise, since the bag was sealed and you could only see the comic that was in front, and even that didn't help you much, as the cover of the comic was either missing entirely or at least torn at the top* and there was printing on the bag that obscured most of the cover anyway.
Fortunately it didn't much matter what was in the bag because, as I often say, there's one thing that can be said about my taste in comics when I was a kid: I didn't have any.
Sure, I liked some comics more than others, of course, but, in general, as long as it was a comic book at all I was happy.
(I developed some discernment and critical faculties as I got older, but up until the time I was around 10 or so? I'd happily read anything.)
In any case, there were certain comics I read when I was younger that left an indelible stamp on my brain - typically because they were disturbing in some fashion - and throughout the years there's been one story that I've often thought about.
It had been in one of the horror anthology books that DC was still publishing in the early 80s, but, since it came in one of the grab bags, it didn't have a cover, and while I'd probably read the indicia on the front page, I couldn't remember what comic it appeared in.
I did, however, remember the story, though I was a bit fuzzy on some of the details. It involved a young peasant girl in the 18th Century who lived in a small village somewhere in Italy who was engaged to a military officer who had been stationed in her village. However, when the day of the wedding came to pass, she learned that the officer had been stringing her along, had no intention of marrying her, and was, in fact, moving on to a new assignment, where he would no doubt seduce some other naive village girl. The young woman did not take this well.
Which is to say that she jumped off a cliff to her death (the panel showing her battered and bloody corpse is one of the things that burned itstelf into my brain. In part because it was surprisingly graphic, but mostly because it was just so sad, as she had been such a beautiful young woman.).
Her younger brother vows revenge on the officer, who is amused by the childish threat.
Several years pass and the officer is once again stationed in the village and is engaged to a wealthy woman. The now-grown brother, who never forgot his vow to avenge his sister, confronts the officer. However, he isn't up to the task, and the officer runs him through with his sword.
With his dying breath, the brother tells the officer that his sister is waiting for him.
At that moment, the village is rocked by an earthquake. The officer and his intended flee for their lives as the village crumbles and bursts into flames, and they soon find themselves in the cemetery, and, most disturbingly for the officer, in front of the grave of his jilted lover. Another tremor causes the ground to open, and the officer falls into the grave and into the waiting - and skeletal - arms of the woman he betrayed, who is clad in the tattered remains of her wedding gown.
The ground closes on the screaming officer, and the poor peasant girl is at last reunited - forever - with her beloved.
Somewhere along the line I figured out that it must have been in an issue of Ghosts, but, having no idea what the cover looked like, I was never able to say for certain.
Until now, that is, as, at long last, I've found it!
Ghosts #105, October, 1981.
So, yay!

*It was because of the damaged/missing covers that the comics were packaged in the bag and sold at a reduced price. Of course, if I understand it correctly, distributors were actually double-dipping, in that they'd been reimbursed for the cost of the damaged books by the publisher - which they were supposed to destroy, yet they went on to sell them at a reduced cost. In some cases, it was clear that the damage was inflicted after delivery. Every once in a while you got a comic that had no damage whatsoever, in which case the distributor just straight-up lied about the books being damaged, got reimbursed, and then sold it anyway.

Victory On TWO Fronts Or Secretly I'm Timid

By the time I went to bed last night I had completed all of the components of the Heroic Portrait request and figured out how I was going to put them all together, meaning that all I had to do today was actually put them together and perform a few touch-ups.
As this wouldn’t require the same sort of extensive use of my eyes that drawing all of the pieces had, I decided that after a week off of them I would give my Gentle Molding lenses another shot.
The lack of searing agony and vampire/mogwai/gremlin-like aversion to bright light meant that my eyes have finally sufficiently recovered that I can get back to wearing the lenses with regularity and be done with my glasses once more.
So that meant that I had achieved success on two fronts – finishing the picture and being able to wear my lenses again.
It’s weird; I’m not used to achieving success on even one front.
Calling the Heroic Portrait a success may be a little premature, though, as I’ve yet to hear back from the customer as to whether or not it’s suitable. Still, for good or ill, I did actually complete the picture, so in that regard it is a success.
(I’ll post the picture once I get an e-mail saying “It’s great!” or “You suck!” If it’s the latter response, I’ll post it so that you can judge my level of suckitude for yourselves, and if it’s the former, to show it off.)
I woke up early on Thursday morning, so, lacking anything better to do, I left work early, and, as a result, left work a little earlier than usual.
That night I decided to check my work e-mail and saw that I had an e-mail from my boss that had come in just as I was shutting everything down.
It was an invitation to a meeting on Friday. With his boss.
Given that there was no indication of what the meeting was about, I, quite naturally, got a little anxious. I mean, a meeting with my boss’ boss with no defined agenda is a little troubling.
Still, I clicked on the “Accept” button to add it to my calendar and to send a response back saying that I’ll be there.
A few minutes later I got an e-mail from my boss saying, “FYI – this is a cover meeting,” and telling me not to tell any of the other people invited to the meeting (I hadn’t noticed that everyone else on his team was also invited. If I had, the anxiety level wouldn’t have been so high in the first place.)
It turns out that there really was no meeting with the boss’ boss; it was a ruse to get us all together so that my boss could bring in this cheesecake he sometimes makes that the other people on the team are always complaining that he never brings in to share.
So that was a relief.
Friday was actually the first morning all week on which I didn’t wake up before my alarm went off, so when I heard music as I was lying there sleeping I was wondering why. It took a couple of minutes for me to figure out that the reason I was hearing Chopsticks was that it was time to get up.
And yes, I was awoken by Chopsticks, that piano lesson standard, playing on my iPod.
Sort of.
It’s actually a song by Liz Phair, in which she sings in a low monotone to the tune of a slowed-down version of Chopsticks, with a smattering of guitar feedback.
It goes like this:

I met him at a party and he told me how to drive him home
He said he liked to do it backwards I said that’s just fine with me
That way we can fuck and watch TV
It was 4 AM and the light was gray like it always is in paperbacks
He asked if I liked playing Jacks
I told him that I was good to sixes but all hell broke loose after that
I told him that I knew Julia Roberts when I was twelve at summer camp
We didn’t say anything after that
I dropped him off and I drove on home ‘cause secretly I’m timid

Rubbing It In Department:
In the Comments on a recent post, Scott mentioned that he misses Fables.
Just to be an ass, I’m going to rub it in and say that the issue I bought last week, which saw the conclusion of the storyline entitled “The Good Prince,” was awesome. Sure, it goes without saying – it’s Fables, after all – but this issue in particular was at even higher levels of awesomeness than usual. Like, way higher.
Sorry Scott, but it had to be mentioned, and you probably read the review on Chris’s Invincible Super-Blog anyway, which, among other things, says:

Let’s be real here for a second, folks: this is probably the single best comic book on the market today, and with “The Good Prince,” Willingham, Buckingham, and Leialoha have not only given us the happiest ending that the series has seen so far, but what might just be the best story of the run. Admittedly, it’s tough to beat Homelands (my reigning favorite), but starting with the shift in last year’s Christmas issue–and 1001 Nights of Snowfall before it–they’ve given us an incredible character arc that wraps up every bit as beautifully as it looks. It’s phenomenal stuff.

(Emphasis mine)
For a while now I’ve been posting little bits about Why I Love Fables, and there’s a reason that I do it: it deserves the attention.
If you read comics and aren’t reading Fables, shame on you. If you don’t read comics, you should start just so you can read Fables.
It really is that good.

That’s going to do it for this entry. I’ll be back later with a Keyword Kraziness post. (I promise!)
Oh, and for anyone interested, the episode of The Simpsons featuring, among other comic book personalities, Alan Moore, will be re-airing tonight on Fox.

The Hunter Becomes The Hunted

On two separate occasions today I managed to get to the bathroom and do my business before the cleaning crew moved in and closed it off. Invariably, as if they're spying on me and lying in wait, they manage to close it off just before I get there, forcing me to travel to alternative facilities elsewhere in the building.
Not so today; take that, cleaning crew!
(Hey, I have to claim my victories wherever I can get them.)