CLASSIC HORROR COMICS Volume 9 Hardcover

Variant cover. Unearthing more little horrors beginning with Haunted Thrills #12, 1953 where practical joker Biff inherits a haunted house in "Death Laughs Last." And from issue #13, "Death Do Us Part," a baboon kills a man's wife! Then it's woe to those receiving the deadly invitation... all it said was "Be My Ghost!" in Fantastic Fears #8 and from issue #9, 1954, "If a Body Kill a Body," two Scottish highlanders from warring families come back as ghosts to get their revenge! And a decapitation story. In Man in Black #2, 1957, our faceless occult avenger tells strange stories, sometimes intervening in person, other times merely letting fate unfold. Interesting mix of titles; Haunted Thrills is a Farrell/Ajax title, with Iger shop creators and "Kamenish art in most issues." Bob Webb from Fiction House fame has work in #12. The title lasted until #18 in 1954. Fantastic Fears is actually the second #8 issue (the first was the 2nd issue). #9 is the final issue of the title. It has a story intended for Fox's Jo Jo Comics, which was one of their sexy jungle titles by the same creative team as Rulah, Zegra, Zago, Zoot and All Top. These were all Fox Publisher's titles, so this lone story was probably an inventory item that went to Farrell/Ajax when Fox went under and Farrell inherited some unpublished stories. They changed Jo Jo's name to Kaza. Man in Black is a Harvey Horror title which ran four issues in 1957-58. He came back in Harvey's strange Thrill-o-Rama title in 1966-67, and was resurrected again by Harvey in 1990 for two more issues. This issue features some super-fine Bob Powell art on both the cover and all the inside stories. Man in Black was a top drawer title and unless I'm mistaken, I think the stories were also reprinted -- well, no, I am wrong. Just one of the stories here was collected in AC's reprint title Men of Mystery in 2017. Interesting, all these four issues are worthy of being recollected -- issue #1 has been widely reprinted, but not this #2 issue, nor #3 and #4!