“The Patience of a Cat” Originally Published: “Red Circle Sorcery” issue 6, Archie Comics Publications Inc. (Red Circle Imprint), Apr 1974 Script: Carol Seuling Pencils: Howard Chaykin Inks: Howard Chaykin Colors/Letters: ? Editor: Gray Morrow Cover Art to ‘Red Circle Sorcery’ #6: Gray Morrow Greater Comics Database Link: http://www.comics.org/issue/27288/ Submitted by: E.M. Tonner Preface

It’s 1974. What are the odds of this happening?

1. Howard Chaykin does the art for a horror comic. 2. Gray Morrow edits and draws the cover for that horror comic. 3. Carol Seuling wrote the horror comic story. 4. The horror comic was published by Archie Comics.

Astronomical?... Hardly. Howard Chaykin had already worked with Gray Morrow as his assistant, and at the age of 23 was taking on all assignments. Before ‘Women Of Marvel’ (thirty-some years later), Carol Seuling was married to Phil Seuling, the founder of the direct market distribution system for comics with his East Coast Seagate Distribution company (which also distributed Archie comics). Carol had already written some issues of “Shanna the She-Devil” for Marvel. And comic book legend Gray Morrow, well, he did it all. What was originally called “Chilling Adventures in Sorcery as told by Sabrina” for the first two issues became “Chilling Adventures in Sorcery” for issues 3, 4 and 5. As of issue 6, it became “Red Circle Sorcery”. In 1974, everyone was publishing scary comics. Even Archie.

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The following content contains mild violence and graphic content.

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Afterword In ancient Greece, hubris referred to actions that shamed and humiliated the victim for the pleasure or gratification of the abuser1. At it’s very core, Seuling’s tale “The Patience of a Cat” is a tale of Hubris. Linette is too proud of her beauty and power. She is wicked, fickle in love and abusive. She magically transforms her too fervent admirer Tom into a tomcat and proceeds to parade a steady stream of lovers to further torment him to bask in his ‘catty’ jealousy. Like all good Hubris plays, there are foreshadowed warnings along the way, “You’d better rid yourself of that cat, girl, before he does you harm!” And like all good villains guilty of hubris, Linette believes herself beyond reproach because of her power and beauty. As with the majority of code-approved horror tales from this era, Seuling does not stray from the O. Henry style twist-ending, clever word-plays and the mandatory morality lesson. Tom has his revenge (even though he’s still a cat), the wrong-doer Linnet becomes a Linnet Bird and we learn well-dressed Arabs are not to be trifled with in matters of magic. The Olde English dialogue is a bit hokey, but this was written for kids after all. What’s of great interest here is the early Howard Chaykin art (he was 23 when he drew this). It’s well documented that Chaykin is one of the preeminent artists of ‘wanton’ women (‘American Flagg!’ ‘Black Kiss’), but what is also of interest is his graphical design. Look at those panels. The inset action panels surrounded by dialogue, the bubbles that bleed directly into the gutter. Even the old script look of the captions. Chaykin put in a lot of great touches and pulls off a dialogue-heavy 5-pager admirably well. What’s most interesting is that great scare stories can come from unlikely places. Sometimes it’s better to follow the talent rather than the title. “It betrays hubris on the part of the artist to think his medium is limiting him, and I think we all recognize this.”

~ Steve Albini

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