Heading:
Author:
Title: HAUNT OF FEAR No. 27
Place Published:
Publisher:EC [Indicia: Fables Publishing Co., Inc.]
Date Published: September-October, 1954
Description:

Good/VG (3.0). Spine stress, crease marks including vertical center crease, several small nicks and a small chip to back cover, soil spot to margin of first page. Off-white pages. Professionally cleaned and pressed by Comics In A Flash. Cover: Graham Ingels. Scripts: Al Feldstein, Carl Wessler, Jack Oleck? Art: Graham Ingels, Jack Kamen, George Evans, Reed Crandall. GPAnalysis: No reported sales in this grade. A 3.5 sold for $281 in April 2021.

Graham Ingels' cover teases Reed Crandall's masterpiece of marshland terror, "Swamped," in which a backwoods degenerate cannibalizes his victims in a sentient shack of death. The cabin longs to purge itself of the horror that it harbors, just as mainstream American society sought to cleanse itself of the unruly impulses represented by the horror comics themselves. In a sense, the anti-comics crusade of the '50s can be seen as a form of exorcism, a purgative ritual to cast out unclean spirits.

"The crime and horror comics were gruesome, and they did contain images no sane parent would want a young child to see. But they also became stand-ins for larger fears. No matter what anxieties one brought to the world — juvenile delinquents, atomic war, sexual license, sexual repression, the Reds, the Klan — they could find a match in comic books. In a society frightened of forces running out of control, the sheer unsupervised, uncontrolled information in the comic books was alarming in itself." — G. Jones, Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book. Basic: 2004, p. 240.

A deluxe limited edition of 12 hardcover catalogues is available, in addition to a small number of softcovers. 400 lots, fully illustrated. Fun reference, great keepsake. Softcover $40, deluxe hardcover with dust jacket and limitation plate $200. Eight of the 12 hardcovers are pre-ordered and the rest will go quickly, so reserve yours now. To order, contact ivan@pbagalleries.com.

Consignments welcome for PBA's Spring 2022 Comic Book sale. Top prices for Pre-Code Horror, Golden Age, Silver Age, original art and ephemera. Find out why PBA is the new fan-fave of comics auctioneers. "This is some of the best commentary I've yet seen on the quality of the content of comic books... Priceless." — R. Crumb. Send inquiries to ivan@pbagalleries.com.