“The Curse of the Bulaga” is a strange Southern (a tale of the South Pole as opposed to a Northern) that appeared in Avon’s Eerie #8 (August-September 1952). The author is unknown but the art was penciled by Gene Fawcette and inked by Vince Alascia.
The tale begins with the police in a warm town discovering a grisly murder. Jon Norland is covered in ice in the middle of July. His throat has also been torn out. The investigator reads his journal in the hopes of an explanation.
Norland is a bored hunter, having shot and killed every kind of animal. Until he hears of the Bulaga of the Antarctic….
He goes to a village there (?) and meets the beautiful Althea. Jon hunts for the beast but no luck. He presses Althea romantically until she shows him a cave. Inside the cavern she shows him the monster, frozen in ice.
Jon foolishly chips the ice away, freeing the creature. The monster attacks Jon then turns to Althea. The hunter pumps bullet after bullet into the thing but it kills Althea.
Jon runs. He rallies his courage and goes back. When he returns to the cave, he finds Althea frozen in place of the creature. Jon flees the village. The girl’s father calls out, “What have you done with my daughter?” The men let Norland leave, since he is doomed to the curse of the Bulaga.
Jon takes the ship back to the States but sees the Bulaga resting on an ice flow. It jumps aboard, attacking him. The monster’s presence causes the ship to become covered in ice. The ship sinks but Jon escapes in the water.
Back home, Jon sells his home and investments and buys a big house in the South, where the weather is always warm. Relaxing on the patio, Norland sees Althea. She begs him to return to the Antarctic. When Jon tries to kill her, the ghost turns into the Bulaga. The curse of the Bulaga claims its victim. The police man closes the diary, ready to believe. On the ground, in the snow, is the track of no earthly creature….
A supernatural revenge story with no chance of escape, it makes me wonder why the writer felt he had to set it in the Antarctic? This doesn’t really make sense. Where would Norland hear rumors of the beast since nobody other than research scientists live there? Who were these people in the village? All that would have made perfect sense set in the Arctic, but I guess the South Pole sounded cooler. Perhaps the story was inspired by The Thing From Another World on some level. The movie appear in April of 1951, so the writer may have seen it.
Find this comic for free at DCM.
