Mephista
Page 37
All the covers of the Angoisse novels were drawn by French illustrator Michel Gourdon, 14 justifiably famous for his pin-up art. Limat brought Verano back in Le Marchand de Cauchemars [The Nightmare Peddler] (N° 90, 1962) the third novel he wrote for the imprint, about an evil spell caster. Verano then appeared in most, but not all, of the succeeding novels, running through the gamut of supernatural themes: Mandragore (N°101, 1963), Lucifera (N°107, 1964) (about second sight), Le Miroir [The Mirror] (N°112, 1964) (schizophrenia), La Prison de Chair [The Prison of Flesh] (N°114, 1964) (hypnotism), Le Moulin des Damnés [The Windmill of the Accursed] (N°121, 1965) (evil mutations), La Mygale [The Mygalomorph] (N°123, 1965) (monstrous tarantulas), Moi, Vampire [I, Vampire] (N°127, 1966) (scientific vampirism), Les Jardins de la Nuit [The Gardens of Night] (N°129, 1966) (nightmare creating drugs), L’Aquarium de Sang [The Bloody Aquarium] (N°144, 1967) (more monsters), En Lettres de Feu [In Letters of Fire] (N°150, 1968) and Amazone de la Mort [Amazon of Death] (N°154, 1968) (the afterlife).
During the events depicted in Mandragore, Verano married Yvonne Parmier and adopted her son, Gerard, whom he trained to become his assistant and follow in his footsteps.
In 1969, Limat embarked upon the thirteen-volume series-within-the-series of Mephista, which is reviewed separately in our next article. After the cancellation of Angoisse, Teddy Verano made one final appearance in Une Morsure de Feu [A Fiery Bite] (N° 1063, 1981) in the Anticipation imprint, a tale about a Greek mythological monster which turned out to be the last survivor of a prehistoric creature.
Whence Mephista?
by Artikel Unbekannt
Mephista was more than a femme fatale—she was two femmes fatales, as shown in the second novel of the series, in which the tragic figure of Mephista was split into two characters: (1) Edwige Hossegor, the kind-hearted actress who created the evil Mephista for the screen, and who remains plagued by visions, dreams and premonitions throughout the cycle, and (2) her evil, would-be replacement, Olga Mervil, who signed a pact with the Devil, and who, after being disfigured at the end of Volume 2, attempts to find some kind of redemption in the later volumes.
Throughout the series, these two women with their two nearly identical faces (Olga’s, however, remained concealed behind her mask) remained separate, but complementary, incarnations of the same evil that is Mephista. Together, they form a powerful archetype, just as “forked” as the Devil’s tongue is supposed to be, an evil entity lurking in the shadows, ready to reappear at any time.
For the pleasure of our readers, who may not get a chance to discover the latter volumes of the Mephista saga, here are brief summaries of the next ten volumes in the series:
4. Mephista et la Lanterne des Morts [The Lantern of the Dead] (N°190, 1970):
Chantal and her companion, Claude, have a car accident. However, if the young woman manages to emerge unscathed from it, her friend dies in mysterious, frightening circumstances. Chantal eventually comes to believe that she is dead, too. Her parents call on Teddy Verano, who soon discovers that a strange witchcraft artifact, the so-called “lantern of the dead,” is exerting a powerful occult influence on Chantal.
Teddy and his stepson Gerard investigate and find out that the sacred boundaries that separate Life from Death have been broken by Olga Mervil. However, this time, the evil incarnation of Mephista may find herself the victim of the forces she has unleashed, and she risks becoming lost forever between our world and the world beyond.
5. Mephista et la Croix Sanglante [The Bloody Cross] (N°197, 1971)
Liliane, the wife of the Jacques Valombré, is plagued by strange nightmares, identical to those suffered by a young woman from the local village a century ago. She believes that a vampire is lurking nearby, a belief strengthened by the discovery of a body with two bite marks on the neck in a local pond, seemed to be haunted.
As her husband is an old friend of Baron Tragny, Edwige Hossegor’s companion, he comes up with the idea of asking Edwige to recreate the ancient drama, hoping to create a psychological shock that will free his wife from her frightful obsession. Edwige, a.k.a. Mephista, agrees to try to break the ancient curse, but her talent only causes the ancient vampire to rise from the accursed pond. Only Teddy Verano’s intervention solves the mystery and banishes away the evil powers...
6. Danse Macabre pour Mephista [Dance Macabre for Mephista] (N°203, 1971)
Following several tragic accidents at the Monte-Carlo Opera, the dancer Rehann takes over the direction of a ballet adapting Edgar Allan Poe’s Masque of the Red Death. But if the young man proves very gifted at directing his fellow dancers, his strange interpretation of what the ballet should be about starts having nefarious consequences on the mental well-being of the other dancers.
After more dramatic incidents, the Opera calls on Teddy Verano. The detective decides to enlist the help of Olga Mervil, who is being treated in a private clinic since the terrible events of Book 4. Verano plans to use the young woman’s special connection with Evil to undo the spells cast by the malevolent Rehann.
7. Mephista et la Mort Caressante [The Gentle Death] (N°210, 1972)
Olga Mervil has not yet paid the price for the satanic pact that she signed in Book 2. She now falls under the sway of a strange, evil sect, the Servants of the Gentle Death, who uses special flowers, which emit a hypnotic smell, to disarm their victims.
Alerted by Olga’s disappearance, Teddy Verano must act quickly to save not only Olga, but also his wife Yvonne, from the cultists who plan to sacrifice both women to their dark, demonic masters.
8. Mephista et le Chasseur Maudit [The Accursed Hunter] (N°219, 1972)
Diane, the wife of rich industrialist Hugues Dambard, seduces a young writer, Patrice Mazeuil, who has been hired by her husband to adapt a local legend into a film. But suddenly the events of the legend come to life. Diane becomes a huntress who drags Patrice into a spiral of debauchery, virtually under her husband’s eyes. Hugues has vowed to save his daughter cursed with blindness. To do this, he does not hesitate to release the dark forces only hinted at by the legend.
Mephista, in the person of Edwige Hossegor, only makes a brief appearance in the novel, still plagued by her supernatural sensitivity to evil forces around her.
9. Mephista et le Guignol Noir [The Dark Guignol] (N°227, 1972)
A puppet show for children suddenly turns scary when the puppeteer is found strangled. Meanwhile, Edwige Hossegor is suffering from a mysterious illness against which the doctors are powerless. Teddy Verano and Gerard eventually discover a strange sculptor, Paul Setter, who has crafted a series of evil puppets, including a figurine of Mephista. Setter wishes to restore Olga’s beauty.
Setter eventually captures Gerard, and his girl-friend Gilda, and forces them to attend a horrific underground puppet show that reduces them to the state of puppets themselves. But the evil that is Mephista is not so easily controlled...
10. Mephista belle à faire peur [Scaringly Beautiful] (N°232, 1973)
Still seeking a cure for her “condition,” Olga teams up with mad Doctor Brénon, who believes he can transfer the curse of Mephista into the body of one of his patients, young Sonia, who has just been dumped by her boyfriend, Francis. But at the last minute, Sonia has a change of heart and rebels; however, it is too late and she has now become a terrifying wraith-like monster who now pursues revenge againt Francis.
Using his occult knowledge, Teddy Verano plans to conduct a ritual to separate the intertwined figures of Sonia and Olga, but Mephista does not necessarily wish to abandon her new vessel...
11. Mephista contre l’Homme de Feu [vs The Man of Fire] (N°239, 1973)
Veronica, a starlet; Ghislaine, a sales clerk; Flora, a young widow. Three women who have met Thierry, a former stuntman, obsessed by an insane passion for fire, who seems unscathed by flames.
Edwige Hossegor, who wishes to help Veronica, decides to confront this dangerous man and goes to the river boat that serves as his lair. There, Thierry has surro
unded himself with women, whom he calls the Devil’s Vestals, and has learned to command the mystic properties of fire itself. A terrible fight ensues between Thierry and the Mephista...
12. Ton Sang, Mephista [Your Blood, Mephista] (N°246, 1973)
Edwige Hossegor has agreed to play the part of a mother who, in order to save her son, must agree to sacrifice another boy. Meanwhile, young Luc is saved from death by receiving a blood transfusion from Hervé, another dying man. A series of sadistic crimes occur afterwad, for which Luc is the prime suspect, but he claims to have been compelled by Hervé’s ghost.
What game are being played by the mysterious Dr. Macchi, who seeks to revenge himself on Edwige for her supposed past betrayal? Or Evelyn the nurse, Hervé’s former fiancée? This time, Mephista must battle a psychic vampire in order to prevail.
13. Mephista et le Chien Hurlamor [The Howling Hound of Death] (N°252, 1974)
A dog, hitherto loyal and calm, starts howling at the moon. Young Victor Fleurion has his throat torn out, as if by a wolf, during a strange nocturnal hunt. Is a werewolf prowling the woods near the Chateau des Acacias, where Isabelle and her husband, the all too prone to anger Nicolas, are hosting a film crew that includes Edwige Hossegor.
The werewolf turns out to be a human being, heir of terrifying occult secrets, who can change into a beast at certain phases of the moon.
14. La Maison du Frisson [The House of Shivers] (Mémoires d’Outre-Ciel No. 24, Garry, 1981) (published under the nom-de-plume of Jean Scapin)
Luke and Gaëlle are a young couple returning from holidays when they are forced by a storm to find refuge in n old house. There, Gaëlle, entranced, is raped by a ghost, which leaves her with a bite mark. They then meet the owner of the house, the mysterious Clara and her pet snake, Baal.
Months later, Gaëlle discovers she is pregnant. Luke hires Teddy Verano (rechristened Aldo Vernon) to investigate. He does so with Edwige’s help (rechristened Wanda and said to be Edwige’s personal assistant on her TV show, The Night of the Strange).
Gaëlle is hospitalized, but disappears. She is the prisoner of Clara, who believes that if she can bend the restless ghost to her will, it will provide her with limitless magical power. Clara is convinced that the ghost impregnated Gaëlle and will return to take possession of its unborn child.
Teddy and Edwige arrive just in time to rescue Gaëlle. Edwige uses her acting skills to pose as another ghost and drives Clara insane. Gaëlle’s pregnancy proves to be false; yet, the mystery of the bite mark remains...
(Note: Afer the abrupt cancellation of Angoisse by Editions Fleuve Moir, Limat resold this unpublished Mephista manuscript to another smaller publisher, merely changing the names of Mephista and Teddy Verano.)
Filled with references to classic works, such as Judex, The Vampires, Belphegor and Fantômas, Maurice Limat’s Mephista series alternates between detective and horror fiction, without ever taking sides. And that is a good thing, because the two genres blend perfectly. Further, that subtle combination is what really defined Fleuve Noir’s Angoisse imprint. Limat’s books were unjustly underestimated at the time of their first publication. This new translated edition has enabled me to correct this injustice to a certain degree, and I’m very very proud to close this book on an acknowledgement of their visionary quality, still much alive today.
Notes
1 The Office de Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française was the national agency charged, between 1964 and 1974 with providing public radio and television in France.
2 Annual Parisian social event which began in the 1950s. A “Lemon Prize” was awarded to a celebrity famous for his or her bad temper, and an “Orange Prize” to one famous for being pleasant.
3 In France, the police cannot visit a suspect’s home between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m.
4 Actor Edmond Duquesne played Napoleon in the 1911 film adaptation of Madame Sans-Gêne, an 1893 historical comedy-drama by Victorien Sardou and Émile Moreau, about Cathérine Hübscher, an outspoken 18th-century laundress who became the Duchess of Danzig. The play was revived many times in France and toured in the English provinces in 1897. It was also adapted as an opera, in 1915, and several times for film.
5 Parisian headquarters of the Police Judiciaire.
6 Marcel Cerdan (1916-1949) was a French world boxing champion.
7 Professor Henri Chretien (1879-1956) is known for his telescopes as well as the Hypergonar lenses for anamorphic movies. In December 1952, 20th Century Fox acquired his device and created the name of CinemaScope for it. However many years before, a few anamorphic movies had been produced with his Hypergonar lens in France and, at the Expo 1937 in Paris, Chretien presented two movies with a similar concept to Cinerama.
8 French pharmacist Antoine-Augustin Parmentier (1737-1813), mostly remembered today for his outspoken promotion of the potato as a food source for humans in France and throughout Europe.
9 French school exercise where a text is read aloud and the student must transcrbe it correctly.
10 Black Coat Press published a translation of Moselli’s Illa’s End, ISBN 978-1-61227-031-9. Doc Ardan’s forthcoming adventures The Troglodytes of Mount Everest and The Giants of Black Lake, were originally serialized in L’Intrépide.
11 Maurice Chambreuil (1883-1963).
12 The author of the Nyctalope.
13 René Brantonne (1903-1979) was one of the foremost French science fiction illustrators. Brantonne began his career as a commercial artist in the late 1920s, drawing French film posters for Paramount, MGM, Universal, Columbia, etc. and creating logos for Standard Oil (later Exxon). After the War, Brantonne began working as a comics artist on a number of adventure series for a variety of magazines: Fulguros and Johnny Speed for Artima, Praline and Buffalo Bill for Édition des Remparts. He even drew a short-lived French version of the American strip, Brick Bradford. During that time, he also became the cover artist par excellence of the Nyctalope novels and of the Anticipation imprint of Fleuve Noir, for which he drew over 500 covers.
14 Michel Gourdon (1925-2011) was a renowned cover artist and the brother of another famous pin-up artist, Aslan (Alain Gourdon), with whom he shared to technique.
FRENCH HORROR COLLECTION
14 Cyprien Bérard. The Vampire Lord Ruthwen
29 Aloysius Bertrand. Gaspard de la Nuit
André Caroff:
1. The Sinister Madame Atomos
2. The Terror of Madame Atomos
3. Madame Atomos Strikes Back
4. Miss Atomos
5. Miss Atomos vs. The K.K.K.
6. The Return of Madame Atomos
7. The Mistake of Madame Atomos
8. Madame Atomos Prolongs Life
9. The Monsters of Madame Atomos
10. Madame Atomos Spits Fire
32 Jules Claretie. Obsession
26 Harry Dickson. The Heir of Dracula
34 Harry Dickson. Harry Dickson vs The Spider
13 Jules Dornay. Lord Ruthven Begins
23 Norbert Sevestre. Sâr Dubnotal vs. Jack the Ripper
36 Norbert Sevestre. Sâr Dubnotal 2: The Astral Trail
12 Alexandre Dumas. The Return of Lord Ruthven
18 Renée Dunan. Baal
09 Paul Feval. Anne of the Isles
07 Paul Feval. Knightshade
08 Paul Feval. Revenants
05 Paul Feval. Vampire City
06 Paul Feval. The Vampire Countess
10 Paul Feval. The Wandering Jew’s Daughter
17 Paul Féval, fils. Felifax, the Tiger-Man
154 Fernand Fleuret. Jim Click
27 G.L. Gick. Harry Dickson and the Werewolf of Rutherford Grange
25 Léon Gozlan. The Vampire of the Val-de-Grâce
31 Paul Lacroix. Danse Macabre
16 Etienne-Léon de Lamothe-Langon. The Virgin Vampire
35 Maurice Limat. Mephista
01 Marie Nizet. Captain Vampire
24 C. Nodier, A. Beraud & Toussaint-Merle, V. Hugo, P. Foucher & P. Meurice
. Frankenstein & The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
11 J. Polidori, C. Nodier, E. Scribe. Lord Ruthven the Vampire
15 P.-A. Ponson du Terrail. The Vampire and the Devil’s Son
30 P.-A. Ponson du Terrail. The Immortal Woman
28 Jean Richepin. The Crazy Corner
33 Angelo de Sorr. The Vampires of London
02 Brian Stableford. The Shadow of Frankenstein
03 Brian Stableford. Frankenstein and the Vampire Countess
04 Brian Stableford. Frankenstein in London
19 Villiers de l’Isle-Adam. The Scaffold
20 Villiers de l’Isle-Adam. The Vampire Soul
21 Philippe Ward. Artahe
22 Philippe Ward & Sylvie Miller. The Song of Montségur
The Vampire Alamac (2 volumes)
Acknowledgements: Jean-Luc Rivera, Antoine Dumont, Philippe Heurtel., Philippe Marlin, Remy Lechevalier.
Mephista (Fleuve Noir Angoisse No. 166, 1969) 2015 by The Estate of Maurice Limat. English adaptation Copyright 2015 by Michael Shreve.
Mephista contre Mephista (Fleuve Noir Angoisse No. 171, 1969) 2015 by The Estate of Maurice Limat. English adaptation Copyright 2015 by Michael Shreve.
Mephista et le Clown Ecarlate (Fleuve Noir Angoisse No. 183, 1970) 2015 by The Estate of Maurice Limat. English adaptation Copyright 2015 by Michael Shreve.
Introduction Copyright 2015 by Jean-Marc Lofficier.
The Man of a Million Words 2015 by Maurice Limat & Philippe Heurtel; translation & adaptation 2015 by Jean-Marc Lofficier.
Teddy Verano afterword 2015 by Jean-Marc Lofficier.
Mephista afterword Copyright 2015 by Artikel Unbekannt; translation & adaptation 2015 by Jean-Marc Lofficier.