Do You Dare Enter? Part Thirty-Three: February 1973

The DC Mystery Anthologies 1968-1976

by Peter Enfantino and
Jack Seabrook

Nick Cardy

Unexpected 144

"The Dark Pit of Dr. Hanley"
Story by Bill Dennehy (Murray Boltinoff)
Art by Alfredo Alcala

"Laugh? I Thought I'd Die!"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Ruben Yandoc

"Behind Locked Doors"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by John Calnan

"Curse of the Black Cat!"
Story Uncredited
Art by John Calnan and Ernie Chan

What play includes Tarzan, Hitler, and a Mountie?

Jack: Big Tom has escaped from the Newberry Asylum for the Criminally Insane! He slipped out during a play staged by the inmates and is dressed as a constable! Those wearing glasses had better watch out, since he has a pathological hatred for folks wearing spectacles. Meanwhile, a servant named Croft murders his boss and hides his body in the basement. When a constable comes knocking at the door, Croft believes the Bobby to be the escaped lunatic and locks him in the basement. He calls the police to report that Big Tom is in his cellar, having murdered his boss! When constable number two arrives, Croft does not realize that he is really Big Tom until Croft makes the mistake of putting on his glasses. The real police arrive too late to stop another murder. Alfredo Alcala's clear art elevates this story, which contains elements of some old tales indeed. I knew what was going to happen way before it happened. Apparently the title, "The Dark Pit of Dr. Hanley," refers to the asylum, though Hanley plays but a minor role in the story and I did not see any sign of a dark pit.

Peter: The well-read horror comic fan can be excused for thinking he's stumbled on this story before as it's a near-remake of EC's "...And All Through the House!" (Vault of Horror #35, March 1954), about an escaped lunatic, dressed like Santa, who terrorizes a woman on Christmas Eve. There's no Santa in "The Dark Pit..." but the beats are all there. Despite the  familiarity, it's still a nicely-illustrated little gem with a genuine double-twist at the climax. In a title like Unexpected, you can't ask for any more.

"Laugh? I Thought I'd Die!"

Jack: All it takes is a little bit of flirting with Hugo the butcher and Julia Mason is free of her husband, Eric, after the hulking Hugo murders him. Though Julia had other plans, Eric's ghost tells her that he won't stop haunting her unless she marries Hugo, so she does, only to find him a disappointingly blue-collar spouse. She threatens to leave him so he murders her, leaving her stuck in the astral plane with ex-husband Eric, who informs her that Hugo will soon be joining him after his death sentence is carried out. Carl Wessler sure can pack a lot of plot into the five pages of "Laugh? I Thought I'd Die," but Ruben Yandoc's art is going the Jerry Grandenetti route (read: lousy) rather than the Alfredo Alcala route.

Peter: Like "The Dark Pit...", there's not much of a story here but the wrap-up, when Julia discovers she'll be spending eternity with both Hugo and Eric, is a hoot.

Seems it's OK to beat someone
to death as long as they
turn out to be a robot!

Jack: Ezra Drummond finally dies after running his company with an iron fist. His daughter Melissa takes over and is a chip off the old block. The workers revolt and tear her to bits, only to learn she is a robot. But who was controlling her? The secret lies "Behind Locked Doors," where they find old Ezra still running the show. They toss him out a window only to discover that he's a robot, too. And that's the end! I don't understand how they could think that someone had to be behind the Melissa robot but not the Ezra robot.

Peter: What a confusing and downright dumb story, but one of the few I've read in the DC mystery library where the villains go unpunished.

Jack: On the lam from the law, Johnny Dodge learns the "Curse of the Black Cat" when he hides out in a decrepit old house and tosses Charcoal, a black cat, into the river. He finds a chest of gold coins but is captured when the house falls down around him. He learned, too late, that the black cat brought him luck instead of misfortune and he should not have tried to kill it. If only a similar black cat could cross our path then perhaps we would not have to read any more stories like this one!

Peter: Easily the worst story of the month in both story and art. Johnny Dodge's fear of black cats isn't irrational, it's simply a bad plot device and the art of John Calnan (no surprise here) is about as amateurish as it comes. You may think I'm demented but I'm serious when I say that I'll take a story penciled by Jerry Grandenetti and inked by Frank Robbins over anything done by Calnan. I need a vacation.

"Curse of the Black Cat!"

Bernie Wrightson

The House of Mystery 211

"Deliver Us From Evil"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Nestor Redondo

"Money to Burn"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Dan Green

"Unholy Change!"
Story by Sheldon Mayer
Art by Gerry Talaoc

Peter: Emile Dravos and his daughter, Maria, have purchased a huge portion of land just outside a village terrorized by a werewolf. The townsfolk have been hunting the monster every full moon but they're not having much success so they turn to Emile to "Deliver Us From Evil." The prime suspect is handsome Peter Janos, a recluse who lives atop a mountain in a grand castle and so Emile thinks the only way to eliminate the menace is to use his beautiful daughter as bait. Maria goes along with the dangerous plan but soon finds herself falling in love with Janos. One night, as the moon rises full, Janos indeed becomes a werewolf and attacks Maria. Luckily for the girl, Emile has alerted the village and, together, they eliminate the monster. Later, in the comfort of their home, Emile and Maria confide to each other that it was a dirty job but they couldn't abide a werewolf living in the same zip code as two vampires. Oy! Not this old chestnut again. Jack Oleck must have had a little roulette wheel that he spun when it was time to submit a story. He landed on this tired old cliche (which was tired before EC was run out of business!) one time too many! Gorgeous art by Redondo, though, so just look at the pretty pictures and don't bother reading.

Jack: You selected the best panel to reproduce! I completely agree about the art but I enjoyed the story more than you did. Sure, I wasn't very surprised by any of it but at least we got a plot and some character development. I wish more of these horror stories were 10 pages long so they could do a little more than a quick setup and payoff.

Peter: Industrialist John Avery finds himself in limbo and waiting in line for an elevator to heaven. Seeing as how he's so rich, he bribes his way to the front of the queue and makes it into the lift, only to find the elevator goes down as well as up. Spin that wheel, Mr. Oleck! Another moldy oldy that was, in fact, just used as the framing for the Tales From the Crypt film. It's only three pages long but the second you see that elevator you can sniff the punchline. Dan Green's art looks as bland and uncharacteristic as John Calnan's.

Jack: Oh come on, Peter! This art is miles above John Calnan's in quality. At three pages, we're back to the punch line story I was just complaining about and the ending was obvious from the beginning. But you're giving this art short shrift.

Peter: George Farson decides one day to poison his nagging wife but soon after becomes convinced the police are on to him. Soon after, the cops have him cornered on a subway train when suddenly... he's back home, but with a different wife! This one's a doll and he's a happy guy but, naturally, there's a nagging feeling something just ain't right. He finds a tape recorder in his den he doesn't recognize and switches it on, playing a message from himself. At some point in his past, George had discovered a mirror in an antique shop that, when paired up with a small pentagram wheel, enabled the owner to live alternate lives. George discovers quickly that he has lives all through time and space, some good, some not so, and decides life with his new wife is just what he wants so, in order to avoid any mishaps, he destroys the magical mirror. That night his lovely wife poisons him. Who would have thunk I'd love a story by Sheldon Mayer? This is a fabulous story, so imaginative and distinctive, with great art. I have to admit, when George poisons his wife at the intro, I thought we were in for yet another cliched yawnfest but not this time. You'll see this "Unholy Change!" in my Top Ten for 1973.

Jack: As I read this story, I felt delighted that it was so creative and original! The art by Jack Davis Gerry Talaoc is perfectly appropriate for the story. I guess I'm a bigger fan of Sheldon Mayer than you are, because I wasn't surprised to find his story a good one. What a treat!

Jack Sparling

The House of Secrets 105

"Vampire"
Story by Maxene Fabe
Art by Gerry Talaoc

"Coming Together!"
Story by Steve Skeates
Art by Jim Aparo

"An Axe to Grind"
Story by Steve Skeates
Art by Alfredo Alcala

Peter: According to his father, former child star Willy Wonderful has to accustom himself to the real world now that his career has ended. To that end, Mr. Wonderful has scheduled an excursion deep into a cave. Once inside, though, an old man warns the pair that the cave is haunted by a "Vampire" and they should turn back. Dad is not impressed and pushes on, kid in tow. Deep inside the cave, the man reveals to Willy that he's not really his father, he married the boy's mother just before he was born and now is going to kill Willy for the insurance money. He tosses the boy into a deep pit and turns to go, confronting the old man who warned him not to explore. He's a vampire. No surprises here, other than the fact that Willy Wonderful is actually murdered, somewhat of a no-no for these early 1970s comic books. Funny then that Fabe kills off her child star but then has to whip out the "yes, but it's not really the father who's killing this boy, he was adopted!" disclaimer. That may have been to soothe the CCA boys.

Jack: We've read some awful stories, but this was one of the worst. Maxene Fabe should have stuck to Gothic romance. Gerry Talaoc is quickly becoming one of my favorite DC horror comic artists and his talents are completely wasted on this atrociously written story.

Peter: Two completely different set of characters will soon be "Coming Together." A trio of scientists has been tracking three strange flashes of light, a phenomenon they believe to be demons from another dimension who, once they merge, will become one powerful creature ready to rape and pillage anything in its way. Meanwhile, in a local hipster coffee shop, Hank will do anything to please the lovely Sharon, even listen to crappy beatnik poetry ten years after it went out of style. Eventually, the three spirits land in the coffee shop and occupy the body of a Golem-like statue. The monster corners Sharon and Hank, not a great looking guy but (ooh! those muscles!) one who can hold his own in a fistfight, gives it a right cross, smashing it to a million pieces. The threat has ended but Sharon still won't give Hank the time of day. Random thoughts on a pointless story: Is that supposed to be W.C. Fields enjoying a lager in America's last beatnik coffee shop left open in 1972? Jim Aparo does his best Neal Adams impersonation but why is the hippy calling the three scientists "old men"? They all look about the same age. Wouldn't this story have made more sense if Steve Skeates (again, one of my favorite comic writers) had set this in the early 60s? Talk about your anticlimactic endings. I'm always primed for the worst when a comic book writer starts his story with a quote from a famous poet (Roy Thomas was the all-time worst offender), with Skeates here stealing a passage from Yeats. Nothing screams pretension more.

"Coming Together!"

Jack: What a strange story! The low point for me was the blank word balloons and the editor's note that they removed the words of the poem to protect the readers. The story actually does make some sense, as bizarre as it may be, but the ending is anti-climactic. I wanted the big lummox to get the girl, not walk away depressed. At least they didn't do what I expected, which was to have the demonic spirit transfer into big Hank's body.

Peter: Howie has been looking out for his simpleton brother since they were kids but now Jasper has fallen in love with a girl in town who's not all that fond of him. Jasper happens into town just as Howie is trying to convince the girl to be nice to his brother and misunderstands Howie's intentions. Out of jealousy, Jasper takes an axe and gives his brother fifty whacks, burying him out in the back yard. But, unfortunately for Jasper, that's not the last he sees of Howie, as his ghostly head keeps popping up in all the wrong places. Following it down into the basement with his axe, Japser goes wild and begins hacking at everything around him, including a water main he's convinced is leaking Howie's blood. Falling through weakened floorboards, Jasper becomes stuck as the basement fills with water, the only company his brother's floating ghostly head. An obvious "homage" to "The Tell-Tale Heart," "An Axe to Grind" is one half of a really good story. That half is the art by Alfredo Alcala (in a seemingly rare indoor horror story), definitely not the slapdash script. As with "Coming Together," "An Axe" virtually grinds to a halt, robbing of us of a punchline. Don't get me wrong--the pay-offs don't always have to be O. Henry-worthy, but at least give us a satisfying conclusion to the narrative.

Jack: Like the story that preceded it, this one was more interesting than good, though I thought Alcala's art was sub-par for him. I definitely liked the severed head and the gruesome final panel where Jasper drowns as the grinning, severed head looks on. We're getting into EC territory now. It's also interesting--and a bit troubling--that we had a father kill his son and a brother kill his brother in the same issue. Is this the start of a trend toward more adult themes? Doubt it.

Nick Cardy

The Witching Hour 28

"Kill Me Lest You Die!"
Story by George Kashdan
Art by John Calnan

"Never Kill Santa Claus"
Story Uncredited
Art by Gerry Talaoc

"April Ghoul's Day"
Story Uncredited
Art by Ruben Yandoc

Jack: Handsome Sir Charles has a dark secret: he turns into a bald old man every night! He rides off to hide until dawn so he doesn't frighten his kids and gorgeous young governess Bedelia. Another problem for the young lass is creepy Osric, the stable boy, who has the hots for her. Osric sets up Charles to get kicked by a horse, and when Charles wakes up in bed it's too late to sneak off and hide, so Bedelia sees his midnight madness. Osric grabs a rifle to kill Charles but Charles gets the drop on Osric and kills him instead, lifting the curse and returning Charles to his handsome self. This is a real howler of a story. Right off the bat, it looks like the Crypt Keeper turns into Jesus every morning. The coloring is awful, as Charles's hair is grey in some places, red in one, and brown/black/blue in others. John Calnan's art is above average for him and almost looks like Dick Giordano may have pitched in to ink, which would be fitting because Sir Charles is a dead ringer for Mr. Giordano. Oh, and I have no idea why it's called "Kill Me Lest You Die!" I couldn't work that into my summary.

Melody Patterson
and Dick Giordano
live happily ever after

Peter: Obviously this is noxious material, rotten in both script and visuals but, being the kind of guy who loves a midnight screening of Monster on the Campus now and then, I enjoyed the heck out of this neo-Gothic romp. Granted, it makes no sense (at times it almost seems as though the pages have been printed out of order or are missing altogether) but, in the right mood, "Kill Me.." can provide you with a handful of belly laughs. Adam Sandler can't do that. My favorite scene (out of many) would have to be the climax where, after strangling Osric, Charles gathers Bedelia in his arms and, ostensibly, takes her to their bedroom for a passionate lovemaking session, ignoring the corpse in the hallway. Calnan's art looks almost professional here compared to his previous work (which looked anything but pro). Hell, I could tell the difference between Charles and Bedelia and that's a startling development in itself. Kitsch Klassic.

Jack: It's a case of wrong place, wrong time when department store Santa Claus Micah surprises Mr. Cranston, his boss, who is robbing the safe. Mr. Cranston grabs a knife and comes to learn that you should "Never Kill Santa Claus" when a stranger turns up to replace Micah and plays the part perfectly. When Cranston tries to sneak out of the store, also dressed as Santa and carrying a briefcase with his loot, he is electrocuted by a falling wire, which causes the replacement Santa to melt away to a skeleton right before the eyes of the kiddies. Gerry Talaoc sure can draw, but the best thing about this confusing story is that it inspired the cover, an all-time classic.

Where's Ralphie when you need him?

We know how you feel . . .

Peter: So Micah's such a great Santa that, once his revenge is attained, he melts into a skeleton right before the adoring eyes of his audience. What a great guy. What a disjointed story. I can't, for the life of me, figure out what loosens the electrical wire at the climax.

Jack: "April Ghoul's Day" is a bad day to play a practical joke, as one chubby soldier learns when he and his buddies take a sleeping pal and lay him in an open grave. Chubby laughs so hard when the fellow wakes up that he keels over from a heart attack and pitches right into the same grave. A waste of three pages.

Peter: Whoever wrote the asinine "April Ghoul's Day" has wisely kept mum since day one. Didn't we just have a really bad "practical joker" story last month?

Jim Aparo

Weird Mystery Tales 4

"The Devil to Pay"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Ruben Yandoc

"The Secret of Bat Island!"
Story by Steve Skeates
Art by Bill Draut

"The Hotel"
Story and Art by Jim Starlin

"To Live Forever"
Story by Steve Skeates
Art by Romy Gamboa and Rico Rival

Peter: Scouring the globe for the secret of immortality, millionaire Philip Burton finds himself at his rope's end in Hungary. After a terrible car crash that leaves his chauffeur dead, Burton finds himself knocking on a monastery door, seeking shelter. The monks let him stay the night but tell him they must ignore the man locked in the cell. He's the devil, they say. Well, he claims he's simply a shepherd, locked up by a group of fanatics, and begs the stranger to release him. After a bit of grilling, the prisoner admits he's the devil and will grant Philip Burton his immortality if he'll only open the cell door. Being the selfish SOB he is, Burton frees the man, who immediately sheds his human skin and shows himself for the devil he really is. Burton is dazed but wakes up feeling younger again. The only problem is that he's now in the cell in the devil's human skin and the monks ignore his story. A refreshing take on the Bargain with Satan sub-genre, "The Devil to Pay" has a nice twist ending that actually does surprise. I'd love to know what came next, be it Armageddon, plague, or just twenty-five cent comic books. I thought for sure, when Burton takes the plunge in his chauffeured car, we were going to get yet another "check this out--dude's been dead the whole time and now he's going to hell" time-waster. Again, Mr. Oleck, please take a bow!

"The Devil to Pay"

Jack: Gotta disagree with you on this one, Peter. From page one, this is a blatant rip off of "The Howling Man" from The Twilight Zone, and Yandoc's art is not impressing me. It's almost a scene for scene retelling until we get to the end, where the Devil's bargain bears its usual bitter fruit. The Devil doesn't admit his true identity before the cell door is opened, either--he just agrees to whatever Philip says so that he'll open the door.

Peter: "The Secret of Bat Island" and "The Hotel" really aren't worth discussing but, since I'm a completist and trust everyone out there is as well, I'll say that "Bat" is about a man who has discovered bat's blood as a youth potion and "The Hotel" sees a bank robber falling prey to the cover creepy. Neither is very good, neither makes a lick of sense, neither will be missed if skipped over.

"The Secret of Bat Island!"

Jack: In "Bat Island," we see the return of Bill Draut, an artist whose work we haven't seen in awhile and whom I have not missed. In "The Hotel," we get some early work by Jim Starlin and the inspiration for Aparo's cover. Both stories show someone getting (or becoming) just desserts. Neither is particularly bad, just not of much interest.

"The Hotel"

"To Live Forever"

Peter: A mad scientist is attempting to unlock the secret of eternal life with an elaborate laser machine but not having much luck. His latest subject is vaporized into atoms and the search continues. Meanwhile, the scientist's good-looking wife finds solace, away from her tyrannical husband, in sleep where her dreams carry her to nicer places. She meets and falls in love with someone while dreaming, a young man we discover is the failed test subject. One day, innocently curious, she goes down into her husband's lab to see what the old man is up to. He follows and attempts to murder her but, in a blissful accident, the scientist is vaporized. Quickly, the woman drifts off to sleep to tell her lover of her new found freedom but discovers the pair are no longer alone in the dream world. Uh-oh! Steve Skeates yet again violates Enfantino's Measure of Pretension by quoting not one but two poets in this mess of a story. One more time (but surely not for the last time) I'll wonder just what an editor would do at the DC offices in 1972. Surely, they didn't read the bilge that was later filling up the pages they were publishing? I'll give Skeates credit for actually trying something different, rather than pumping out the usual "the vampire is really a werewolf" or "the wife returns from the grave" formula scripts, but I'll deduct that credit for leaving the reader wondering just what the hell is going on in that finale. It's as though "To Live Forever" was shorn of a few panels out of space necessity. This is the type of dream-world story Gil Kane would have illustrated a few years before but the art chores here are handled ably by the latest imports from the Philippines, Romy Gamboa and Rico Rival. Lots of dreamy full-page montage scenes, with panels almost becoming an afterthought. Rival will go on to do work for Marvel, including art for the black and white Planet of the Apes magazine.

Jack: I liked this one the way you liked "The Devil to Pay." The premise is creative and the story takes some interesting twists and turns, though I agree that the ending is hardly an ending. The art by Gamboa and Rival is outstanding, some of the best I've seen this month. You make an apt comparison to Gil Kane, especially when it comes to the dynamic poses of the figures in the dream sequences.

Nick Cardy

Ghosts 12

"The Macabre Mummy of Takhem-Ahtem"
Story Uncredited
Art by John Calnan

"Chimes for a Corpse"
Story Uncredited
Art by Jerry Grandenetti

"Beyond the Portals of the Unknown"
Story Uncredited
Art by Sam Glanzman

Jack: David Auden and his wife Nina are at an Egyptian museum in 1962 to celebrate his successful archaeological expedition. But "The Macabre Mummy of Takhem-Ahtem" starts to walk and threatens to freak out the dignitaries invited to see the exhibit. David grabs a sword and thrusts it through the heart of the mummy, but he learns too late that the Egyptian rule of an eye for eye holds true when he discovers that he slew the spirit of the Pharaoh's queen and now his own wife has been killed in retribution. This one doesn't make a whole lot of sense but it's cool anyway. I love the footnote on page two that cites LaRousse's World Mythology as the source for the claim that mummies' spirits return to their bodies after death and perambulate. That settles it!

Never a bad time to say:
"Good Lord . . . choke"!

Peter: It's never explained why one mummy suddenly multiplies into several half way through the story but there's a genuinely good twist at the end of this one, a rarity among Ghosts stories. As usual, John Calnan's art underwhelms.

Jack: It's 1964, and in a little Swiss town live a clockmaker named Paul Spyri and his beautiful daughter Katherine. Spyri is a cruel old man who lives precisely by the clock and mistreats his employee Rolf, with whom Katherine is in love. One snowy night, Katherine can't make it back to the shop and Rolf and Spyri are left alone. The next night, when Katherine comes home, she finds that Rolf has killed her father and installed a perpetual motion machine in his chest to keep him alive and ticking forever, ringing "Chimes for a Corpse." But Rolf will not enjoy the fruits of his crime for long, since he knocks into a large grandfather clock and it falls over and kills him. At least I think that's what happened. I was so distracted by Grandenetti's lousy art that I had a hard time following the plot.

So many badly-drawn panels, so little space!

Peter: So Rolf not only sweeps up, makes dinner, and runs errands but he performs surgery as well. Makes you wonder why he didn't get out from under his father-in-law's clutches long before, using more accepted methods. Our Uncredited writer  (Leo Dorfman?) decides throwing in every cliche is necessary, so you have a vengeful finale that's random to the extreme.

Jack: France, 1815, and Capitaine Rainier asks Marcel Lefevre to use his farmhouse for troop quarters. Little does Rainier know that he's about to venture "Beyond the Portals of the Unknown"! In Lefevre's basement is a steel door and the soldiers hear noises that suggest someone is trapped behind it. They blast the recalcitrant door open and find three skeletons chained to the wall. Lefevre tells the story of his cruel ancestor who had the men chained there and abandoned long ago. Marcel fears that, now that the door has been opened, the spirits will take their revenge and he's right--they grab him, kill him, and chain his body to the wall, all in the space of a few moments of sudden darkness. I think that this story sounds better than it reads. Sam Glanzman's art begs the question (that I've asked before)--is this bad mainstream comic art or good underground comic art? This was a pretty good issue of Ghosts, but everything is relative.

Peter: Not only were the worst stories usually relegated to Ghosts (Unexpected seems to have gotten the C- through D+ tales) but the worst artists as well as evidenced by this issue, the capper being Sam Glanzman's strictly-amateur-hour doodlings. I never know whether to read the latest issue of Ghosts first every month to get it out of the way or to hope for the best with the other titles and then come back down to earth.

Neal Adams

Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion 9

"Donovan's Demon"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Jess Ramos

"Specter's Notebook"
Story by John Albano
Art by Ernesto Patricio

"The Head of the House"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Alfredo Alcala

Peter: Walter Donovan would do anything for his wife, Cora, but with his low-paying bookkeeper's job he can't afford to give her the things she "deserves." After a subtle hint from Cora, Donovan begins embezzling funds at work and buying expensive gifts for her. Unfortunately, he's caught dipping into the cash by his boss but, fortunately, that boss just happens to be Walter's best friend, Phil, who agrees to overlook the robberies if Donovan promises never to try it again. With embezzlement in his rear view, Donovan turns to a hobby he's taken up: satanic worship. With the help of an ancient incantation, he's able to conjure up a demon, one who's only too happy to help Walter with his goals. Cora quickly reminds her husband that Phil is still an obstacle in their path to happiness and it would be a shame if harm came to him. The demon tells Donovan to plant a small golden idol on anyone he wants taken out and, the next day, Phil gets a pocketful of idol. The next night while Walter and Cora are dining at the home of Phil and his wife, "Donovan's Demon" arrives to take care of business. He murders Cora and disappears in a vapor, leaving Walter nonplussed until Phil's wife tells him that she'd thought the small idol charming and had dropped it into her mink coat, the same coat Cora had been dying to try on.

"For my first wish... a new spine for my wife
and then one for me!"

Not a bad story but not a very memorable one either. Typically, in these tales populated by shrewish wives, I can never get past the idea that a man could put up with such abuse (granted, in this case, subliminal abuse) and keep coming back for more. Here, my biggest stumbling block would have to be the whole motivation behind the plan for Phil's murder. You've got a demon who can grant you millions and millions of dollars (and I didn't catch a limit on wishes), so why not take the money and run? Pay Phil back and head for the Bahamas a free man. Or demand the demon wipe the memory from Phil's head. Newcomer Jess Ramos is one of the weaker entries to the DC bullpen, with art on the bottom rung of style and originality. The panels just sit there flat or, worse, make you shudder (for example, the panel--reprinted here--that shows Cora, with a bad case of spinal disorder, spying on her husband).

Jack: Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion seems to be having an identity crisis. This story is perilously close to one we'd see in a romance magazine, but with the bizarre twist that it has to do with summoning up a demon. There is one panel where Walter tells Cora that he has succeeded in raising a demon and she basically squeals with delight! Very strange, though I enjoyed the twist ending. As for the cover, the GCD credits it to Neal Adams but, if so, it's about as bland a cover as I've ever seen from him.

Peter: Wilbur Washburn, a volunteer firefighter, finds a notebook in the ashes of a house purported to be owned by a warlock. He takes the book home with him and enters the name and number of a man he owes money to. The next day, that man turns up dead. When he mentions this to his wife, Mary, a student of the occult, she tells him it may just be the book he's found has magical powers. Scoffing, but nonetheless curious, he enters another name and number and, sure enough, that man drops dead minutes later. Now convinced the "Specter's Notebook" has evil powers, he takes out an insurance policy on Mary and plans to enter her name in the little black book, but Mary has other ideas. More sketchy and lifeless art, Patricio's depictions of Mary change from page to page, running the gamut from babe to old maid. Obviously, it's a huge coincidence that Wilbur finds the notebook in a warlock's ruins and then takes it to Mary, a woman obsessed with the occult! Some background on this warlock might have made the proceedings a bit more interesting but then, considering the story as presented is a tired affair, maybe not.

"Specter's Notebook"

Jack: Like "Donovan's Dream," this story features people behaving in unexpected ways. My favorites are the firemen. When they arrive at the scene of a house that has burned down, one comments that he's happy the guy is dead and another grabs his little notebook and announces that he'll hold on to it to write down the numbers of chicks he meets. This comic book is weird but fun!

Peter: In our final tale this issue, we travel to the Amazon where Sarah Madden's quest for beauty has taken her to a small Jivaro village. Ignoring her husband's whining, Sarah agrees to the Jivaro chief's demands: she will wipe out every villager in a rival native village and he will grant everlasting beauty to the woman. After the massacre, the chief keeps his word but Sarah soon learns that "beauty, indeed, is in the eye of the beholder." Spineless men and overbearing wives seem to be the order of the day with all three stories this issue (why not re-title this Forbidden Tales of Lousy Marriages) and "The Head of the House" is the winner by a long shot. It's not just the unequaled art by Alcala (who inexplicably seems to get better with every outing) but the dee-lightfully sick script by Oleck, a nice dip in the EC old days if I ever read one. Could we just get Alfredo assigned to a jungle book as quick as possible? One quick note: along with the "bad marriage" formula this title seems to be settling into, another disturbing trend that drives me nuts in the "splash reveal," that old trick of showing us the punchline and then working back from it. Two of the three stories in Dark Mansion #9 are guilty of that annoying gimmick, one of them egregiously so. I get that necessity of the ploy in superhero comics (gotta drag those newsstand browsers in with that splash!) but when you're dealing with five or six page short stories, the twist, sometimes, is all you have to look forward to.

Sarah Madden, pre-makeover...

...and post

Jack: A pretty cool story with fabulous art, true, but Alcala has trouble keeping Sarah ugly in long shots. In close up, she looks like something Basil Wolverton might have drawn for the cover of Plop, but in long shot she looks pretty cute and has a great figure. Why are the natives Indians in the story but Black on the cover? And how about the final panel's "d'End"? Sick but fun all around.

Peter: "Through the Keyhole of the Dark Mansion," the title's letters page this issue, includes a question from reader Steve Clement of Pawtucket, R.I., about "The Psychic Blood-Hound," the Kirby story that ran in Dark Mansion #6 and was originally set for Spirit World #2 before it was canned. We should all send a glass of wine to Steve (if he's old enough to drink, that is) for rescuing us from the usual "Is Cain's Gargoyle a gurl or a boy?" inanity and prompting a rare behind-the-scenes answer (reprinted below).

Jack Sparling

Secrets of Sinister House 9

"Rub a Witch the Wrong Way!"
Story by Sheldon Mayer
Art by Abe Ocampo

"The Dance of the Damned"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Rico Rival

"The Abominable Snowman"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Rico Rival

Jack: Pretty, young Miss Wilson learns never to "Rub a Witch the Wrong Way!" after she complains about the awful smell coming from the apartment below hers. It seems the offending resident is a witch, who does not take kindly to the landlord's call relaying her upstairs neighbor's complaint. Mrs. Bowditch and a couple of her hag pals cook up a spell that sends Miss Wilson into the arms of the handsome plumber, leading to violent death for both the plumber and her fiancee. The next morning she wakes up with no memory of these events, which all happen over and over gain, day after day. Abe Ocampo draws pretty people and ugly witches equally well and, while this story is fun for most of the way because it is exaggerated, the ending is a disappointment.

"Rub a Witch the Wrong Way"

Peter: Oh no, not the ol' carousel ending again! I like that Carl signed his photo "To my fiancee, Love, Carl."

Jack: Iris Terry wants to be a dancing star more than anything else on Earth, so she steals a pair of red ballet shoes off the feet of recently-deceased star Jill Gentry and is suddenly able to dance like a prima ballerina. She ignores her boyfriend John's requests to settle down and get married, instead dancing for a sleazy producer who is known to collect women. She spurns John once again in front of the producer and he promptly hangs himself. Distraught, Iris is paralyzed in a fall. She can never dance again and tries to burn the shoes, which she blames for all of her troubles, but whose hands are those we see pulling the shoes from the fire? The story is all over the place but Rico Rival sure draws one beautiful Iris!

"The Dance of the Damned"

Peter: Robert Kanigher continues his streak of awfully bad horror stories, one that Leo Dorfman himself would envy. It amazes me that the man who brought to the world so many stirring and gripping war sagas could pump out crap like this, filled to the brim with howlingly bad dialogue: "She spins like a dazzling light in an underground world, heedless of humans living in endless torment, frozen for all time like speared fish." Let that last bit roll over your tongue: frozen for all time like speared fish. Yeah, it's kinda catchy. How about the structurally challenging "I hate you--hate you--hate your accusing eyes like a whipped puppy!"? Does her object of rage look like a whipped puppy or is she describing herself? And, in one of those great 180 degree attitude changes, why would the suicide of her stalker completely change her outlook on dancing for the stars? On the plus side, Rico contributes solid work, with Iris a knockout and the entire package an eye-pleasing presentation.

Jack: Donovan is looking for "The Abominable Snowman" in the Himalayas when he suddenly comes upon a group of them and passes out. He comes to and finds that he has been saved by members of the tribe of Shenson, who assure him that the Yeti are only a myth. Donovan goes nuts and kidnaps a Shenson woman, leaving her out in the snow as bait for a Yeti. When she disappears, he sees the Yeti coming towards them and falls off a cliff. Later, another group of explorers meet the Shenson but decide to abandon the search for the Yeti when they are shown Donald's body encased in a block of ice. Little did they know that the Shenson are the Yeti, simple wearing human costumes to fool the unwary. Once again, Rival's art is unrivaled, but the story is a bit confusing.

"The Abominable Snowman"

Peter: "The Abominable Snowman" is no classic but it's much more enjoyable than the other two stories in this issue. The big reveal is certainly no surprise, though.

IN OUR NEXT WAR-TORN ISSUE!