Ryan B does Sea Of Graves

Web of Horror was a very short lived and often overlooked little horror mag from the late 1960's. It was launched around the same time as Warren's books, CREEPY and EERIE, and in the same black & white, magazine-sized format in order to get around the Comics Code. It only lasted a measly three issues with a fourth one produced, but never published, yet it still deserves a place in the catacombs of horror comic history for two reasons:

One: It featured the talents of many established as well as up and coming artists such as Mike Kaluta, Frank Brunner, and Bernie Wrightson.

Two: It had a unique and memorable host in Webster, a surprisingly cute, pie-eyed spider who for some reason only had four legs.

Today we're going to be revisiting a story from this great anthology that I'm sure will leave you dripping with fright. So bring your beach blanket on down and lay it next to the...

Sea Of Graves.


Webster starts out the tale by informing us that we're off the misty coast of Yucatan. A small schooner sits off shore from a deep hilly jungle and two men stand aboard. They are Arliss Crawford, Archaeologist, and his assistant, Hal Denby. Apparently they are in this hemisphere to excavate some Mayan ruins, but are taking a fishing break. The locals call the area they're fishing in the "Sea Of Graves". Probably not a good idea to be fishing in such a place, but people in stories like this tend to be incredibly genre blind, so they have no qualms about hunting in the Forrest Of Death! Or flying through The Sky Of Horror! Or taking a piss in the Pool Of Murder!

Oh well.

So the two fish when all of the sudden Denby spots a bottle floating by and scoops it up. It's ancient, so he hands it to Crawford who opens it to find an old Mayan treasure map to an undersea treasure.

The professor says that the map promises jewels, gold, and riches and speculates that there may even be some medicinal elixirs, and... and... and he wants to give the map to a museum. He says a find like this will make him and his young assistant famous, but Denby would rather be rich than famous, so he picks up an oar and gives his mentor a paddling in the back of the head.

Denby ties the old man's body to an anchor and sends him to Davey Jones' locker, then he checks the map and is able to follow the instructions pretty well, so he throws on his scuba gear and jumps overboard. He takes the parchment with him and apparently it's waterproof. Those wacky Mayans and their scientific advancements. So he checks his wrist compass and heads due East to find the first landmark that the map mentions, a totem-pole, made of coral that points him in the right direction.

He heads in the direction it points and it isn't long before he comes upon another landmark. Crawford's body floating next to a sunken ship. Denby reasons that it's pretty weird Crawford could have drifted this far, but figures, what the hell, it's probably nothing.

He continues on, following other markers until finally he gets to the treasure which is housed in a giant underwater Mayan temple. He stops on his way in to read a tablet that says, "Defilers of this temple will meet watery doom!" with the exclamation mark and everything. Not only were the Mayans innovative scientists, they were also quite dramatic. He ignores this too and pulls a lever that opens the temple. Inside is the usual rich stuff: the gold, jewels, and candelabras that the map promised. Denby grabs an arm load and swims back outside only to be confronted by...

He pushes past the body, more perturbed than disturbed and takes his booty back to the boat where he realizes that he only has one air tank left. He heads back to the temple to loot more and comes across those elixirs that Crawford was talking about earlier. An inscription on one says, "Underwater elixir! Drink and be safe from drowning." He takes the potion back to the boat with him and his second load of treasure. Once there he slips off the scuba gear and drinks the elixir, not believing it does what it claims, but figuring there must have been some way those Mayans built that pyramid underwater. He jumps in the water to test out it's effectiveness and finds that he can now breathe underwater. He's amazed and can now take as long as he wants plundering the temple. He goes and grabs another load. When he comes out he sees Crawford again watching over him, but doesn't care because he's almost finished cleaning out the place.

He swims back to the boat and decides it will be quicker to just stick the loot in the underwater net and then haul it all aboard once he's done. He heads back for the last of the loot, Crawford's body following him all the while. He grabs the last of the treasure, brings it back and puts it all into the net, then he pulls himself out of the water only to find... he can't breathe.

That's when he takes his mind off the treasure long enough to notice his webbed hands and feet and his new slimy, amphibious body. So, a little while later Denby, now a creature from a Mayan lagoon, sits at the steps of the ancient temple starring at Crawford's body with large fishy eyes. His treasure is worthless now, and he is forever trapped in a watery doom like the warning said. Crawford's rotting body is his only company.

This is a perfect example of the quality stuff Web Of Horror was capable of at its best, and an example of why it's such a crying shame that it only lasted three issues. Kaluta's artwork is solid as always and the story has the perfect kind of twisted karma that the classic horror comics like EC and Warren perfected. It would have been a great contemporary of theirs and in a way it still is. It's just too bad the spider got washed out while still in his prime.    

I give it 7 out of 10 Werthams.