Heading:
Author:
Title: STRANGE FANTASY No. 9
Place Published:
Publisher:Ajax-Farrell [Indicia: Farrell Comics, Inc.]
Date Published: December, 1953
Description:

Fair (1.0). Spine stress, transverse tears to spine affecting covers and pages, staples heavily pulled, centerfold missing affecting first two pages of one story (not Ditko's story, fortunately), phone number for Gimbels department store written in blue ballpoint ink on ad page. Light tan pages. Cover: Uncredited. Scripts: Bruce Hamilton, unknown others. Art: Steve Ditko, uncredited Iger Shop talent. Editor: Ruth Roche. Overstreet: "Steve Ditko's 3rd published work (tied with Captain 3D)." GPAnalysis: No reported sales in this grade. A 2.0 sold for $144 in November 2018.

Fright fans know that Strange Fantasy #9 is more commonly found with the contents to one of several Harvey reprints bound under the covers, but this is the real deal, including Steve Ditko's third published story, entitled "Hair Yee-eeee!" The story features a boy whose hair is alive and feels pain (the titular "Yee-eeee!" is the anguished yelp the boy makes when someone tries to cut his hair). When the boy hits puberty, he sprouts hair all over his body including his forehead. After his girlfriend dumps him in disgust in a panel with onanistic inferences ("I'm not going to hold hands with a boy who has hair on his palms!"), he stops wearing clothes and wanders the wilds as a people-eating human hairball.

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