Monday, July 30, 2018

THE ILLUSTRATED STORY OF GHOSTS (PART 1)


THE ILLUSTRATED STORY OF GHOSTS
CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED THE WORLD AROUND US
Vol. 1 No. 24
August 1960
Gilberton World-Wide Publications
Editor: Roberta Strauss Fuerlicht
Art Director: Leonard B. Cole
Pages: 68
Cover price: 25 cents

CONTENTS
Intro page
Artist: Norman Nodel?

"The Hitchhiker"
Pencils: George Evans
Inks: Reed Crandall

"Room For The Night"
Art: Gray Morrow

"The Ghost of the Gold Gulch"
Art: Jack Abel?

"The Chinese Sage"
Text story

"Ghosts That Make a Racket"
Art: Gray Morrow

"The House of Flying Objects"
Art: Ed Ashe?

"The Talking Mongoose"
Art: John Tartaglione

"Olga's Revenge"
Text story

"The Mummy's Foot"
Art: George Peltz?

"The Mysterious Lake"
Text story

"The Sixth Sense"
Art: John Tartaglione

"The Yellow Star"
Text story

"The Scientific Search"
Art: Norman Nodel?

"A Question of Ghosts"
Art: Gray Morrow

This issue of the Classics Illustrated title, "The World Around Us" was published during what is known by comic book aficionados as being from the Gilberton 1958 series, as there were other time periods when it was being produced.

Embodying the trope of the disembodied spirit beckoning the viewer to an old, dilapidated house "For Rent", the cover by an (unfortunately) unknown artist, is one of the best comic book ghost covers that I have ever seen.

The credits go largely unidentified, but EC alumni George Evans and Reed Crandall contribute along with confirmed artists Gray Morrow and John Tartaglione. A melange of both fiction and non-fiction material, notable is the adaptation of the Symbolist Theophile Gautier's short story, "The Mummy's Foot". Also included is a curiously incongruous "World Around Us" text story about the Nazi persecution of Jews.









































(PART 2 TOMORROW)