XPost: alt.true-crime, soc.culture.usa

On 19 Sep 2003 20:33:21 -0700, palmer.william@sbcglobal.net (Bill
Palmer) wrote:

Right now I am feeling a bit shaky, but I want
to set this story down for you, and fast, while
I still remember all the details.

Pure and simple, it is one of the scariest things
I've ever experienced. I WISH this was a horror
fantasy, but it isn't. In fact, I am going to offer
documentation (at the bottom of the post) so you
can check things out for yourself.

Earlier today I paid a visit to The Old Man's
comic horde, located beneath a deserted grocery
store in one of L. A.'s oldest neighborhoods.

I have written about this old guy in other
posts in alt.slack and in the comics groups.
Making a long story short, he owns the store
and the property it sits on, as well as the
house across the street, where he lives. He
keeps a very large, very valuable comic
collection in a basement under the store.

What does all this have to do with Charles
Manson, you ask?

Well, keep reading and you will soon see, and
if what I tell you leaves you shaken to the
core of your safe and sane existence, so be it.

Anyway, The Old Man was waiting in front of
the store to let me in as usual. (The only
way you can visit him is by pre-arranged
appointment. He had not let me visit for
a few months, but when I phoned him last
weekend, he relented.)

The horde itself probably comprises one of
the world's greatest collections of comics
published from the late 1940's to the
mid-1950's. As some of you know, this era
comes directly after the famous Golden Age
and before the Silver Age of superhero comics.
This was a little known period that, except
for the EC comics, collectors generally
ignore.

That gets into one of the Old Man's hang-ups.
He much resents the fact that for decades
collectors had little respect for his
collection, because most of them wanted
to see Golden Age or at least Silver Age
collections.

Well, today I found myself in the mood to
research crime comics. After all, crime
comics are very hard to find, and are
rarely reprinted, except for the EC's.

Alone in the basement (The Old Man
never goes downstairs with his visitors)
I started thumbing through a stack of
crime comics. The basement, deserted
except for me and the stacks of thousands
of comics seemed weirder than ever. Every
once in a whole, I could hear the boards
above me creak. When you are down there,
you know that The Old Man is watching, though
I have never figured out where he is spying
from.

Taking a closer glance at a comic which
caught my eye, my vision grew blurry, my
knees began to buckle, and I nearly passed
out on the concrete floor.

Featured on the cover of the comic I gaped
at was an unmistakeable depiction of Charles
Manson.

Dressed in a standard hippy costume of
ragged cut-offs and tank top tee shirt,
Charlie crouches in a menacing fashion,
wielding a wicked-looking pocket knife
in his left hand.

Charlie's terrified female victim, a
well-endowed young woman dressed in
a house coat too short to reach her
knees clutches at her scanty garment
protectively with one hand just below
her bosom, while she flattens herself
against a wall in sheer terror of the
moment. Her body laguage suggests that
she is edging away from this smirking,
murderous maniac Manson.

I said Manson has a knife in his left
hand, but it is what was in his right
hand that is the most terrible sight
of all.

Tongues. Sliced out.

A hideous collection of bloody human tongues,
that's what he proudly exhibits to his prey.

Gloatingly, Manson warns his victim:
"I know you are a mute, Miss Kimberly.
But even if you COULD yell, the people
downstairs couldn't call the police...
you see, I already cut all their TONGUES
out!"

What is also amazing that the room is the
spitting image of a late-1960's "hippie pad,"
with the burning candle dripping wax over
the wine flask that holds it, etc.

Okay, so you are wondering why Bill Palmer
is so terrified about a comic book featuring
Charlie Manson doing something very Manson-
esque in a hippie pad.

After all, someone as notorious as Manson has
likely been featured on the covers of dozens
of comic books.

No, it was not simply the picture on the
cover that stunned me. It was much more
than that.

It was the date on the comic book.

1953.

It was that date, and the distinct impression
that I could hear The Old Man whispering, more
like hissing, actually, through some crack in
the boards above me: "That's Charlie all right,
boy."

Feeling like someone trapped in a hideous
time warp, I walked upstairs and staggered
past the leering Old Man. Neither of us
spoke. I walked out the door and headed
home.

Afterwoods, on the way home, I started to
look at all the angles of the thing. One
possibility that occurred to me was this:

Charlie Manson was known to have had a very
troubled childhood and had been in and out
of reform schools and foster homes. Perhaps
at some point of unusual torment, Charlie
stared at that very same comic cover, and,
gripped by hatred because of the abnormality
of his childhood, determined then and there,
"I am going to be just like that guy with the
knife when I grow up. I'll show all of 'em."

Maybe Dr. Wertham was right after all.

That is only one possible scenario, of course.
There are far more possibilities regarding
that Manson depiction, no doubt.

And you know what? Sitting here reflecting
on this, I'm no longer scared.

I'm terrified.

-----------------------------

If anyone wants to verify the details of my
account, I--a comic book fan/researcher--
distinctly remember the description
of the comic book. It was Charleton/Capital
Stories publication: LAW BREAKERS SUSPENSE
STORIES #11, 1953. I never actually opened
the comic book, so I know nothing about the
story. I don't need to, it is plain enough
that the cover artist--I believe it was Lou
Morales, it looked like Lou's art--was having,
in 1953, whether he was at all aware of it, a
terrifying vision of Charles Manson when he
did that horrifying cover.

Thank you for posting something relevant. Usually that asshole Carr is
posting off-topic nonsense.

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