Ben & Jerry & Ernie's

Sally P found this cover very disturbing:

So, really, I have no choice but to share the whole story with you! (You're welcome!!)

It's House Of Secrets, so Abel introduces the story to us...

Oooh, Alex Toth!!

Now, the title of this story sort of gives the game away:

(Script continuity?? What's that??)

[Mark Twain aside: I'm pretty sure that if I found myself transported 1500 years into the past, I wouldn't have memorized millennium-old eclipse table for another bleeding continent. I'm just saying...)

Anyway, mild-mannered ice cream man Ernie Baxter is tooling down the boulevard, minding his own business...



Well, the inevitable happens:


Now, everyone decides that Ernie, commanding his "iron dragon," is an evil wizard there to assassinate King Arthur:

Ernie begs for his life:


Sorry, that line always cracks me up: "What are those words, 'ice cream'?"

Well, Ernie shows 'em exactly what ice cream is:



Well, Ernie's got it made!!

Ah, but these tales of supernatural comeuppance don't work unless the guy being punished is a real dickweed. So even though Ernie hasn't seemed like a good guy so far, being the Magical Ice Cream Wizard Of Camelot has gone to his head:

Oh, Ernie...

(Special note--see that harpist? She's no doubt your great-great-great-great-great-great-etc grandmother, and Ernie's probably your ancestor now. Deal with it.)

Then again, at some point Ernie's truck is going to run out of gas, there will be no more power for the freezer, and the Reign Of The Medieval Good Humor Man will come to an abrupt end. So some alternate career planning is in order.

Unfortunately, the alternate career is the one he was accused of earlier: assassin!

Dear Ernie: even though it is Olden Tymes, you shouldn't speak your dark plots aloud, and maybe check to make sure no one is at the window listening.

So, wait--an ice cream truck guy keeps rat poison--ON THE TRUCK???!?!?! Maybe he wasn't such a good guy before!!

So Merlin scuttles away to tell Arthur, Arthur gives Merlin his permission to take care of the problem, and...

Get ready for a Fleischer/Toth gross-out:




So: Camelot? Cannibals.

EWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!