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Author:
Title: BLACK CAT MYSTERY No. 33
Place Published:
Publisher:Harvey [Indicia: Home Comics, Inc.]
Date Published: February, 1952
Description:

VG (4.0). Spine roll, spine stress with color flakes, nicks and short tears to edges (the largest being a 1/2" tear to back cover), back cover a bit rumpled at bottom edge, penciled distributor's mark ("K") to "M" in "MYSTERY." Cream to off-white pages. Cover: Lee Elias. Art: Bob Powell, Tom Hickey, Vic Donahue, Rudy Palais. Overstreet: "Used in PARADE OF PLEASURE; electrocution cover." GPAnalysis: A 4.0 sold for $350 in November 2021.

This mag was singled out by Oxford academic, poet, translator, and scold Geoffrey Wagner, who panned it for its alleged admixture of boredom, loathsomeness, and elder abuse: "Meanwhile, the 'mad' scientist as villain has spread through the whole range of comic-books and become a boringly stock character. BLACK CAT MYSTERY no. 33 features a crazy scientist who employs overgrown scorpions to kill his foes, one of whom is an elderly woman who dies covered with these monsters in a particularly loathsome picture. Old age never comes off very happily in any of these booklets. The scientist himself is finally shown being eaten alive by the brutes he has grown." — Geoffrey Wagner, Parade of Pleasure. Library Publishers: 1955, p. 89.

There's a tendency to think of the anti-comics crusaders of the '50s as a censorious right-wing goon squad. In truth, the anti-comics campaign appealed to members of all political stripes, and it was spearheaded by a handful of influential Left-leaning do-gooders: Dr. Wertham, who operated a low-cost mental health clinic for underprivileged black kids; Gershon Legman, a professional sexologist; Democratic senator and presidential aspirant Estes Kefauver; and Geoffrey Wagner, whose dust jacket biography establishes his bohemian credentials in the cringiest manner possible: "At present he is living in the Negro section of Harlem in New York."

Consignments welcome for PBA's Fall 2022 Comic Book sale. Pre-Code Horror, Golden Age and Silver Age comics, original art, vintage comic-related photos and ephemera sought. Send inquiries to ivan@pbagalleries.com.

A limited edition of 100 softcover and 6 hardcover catalogues are available. 140 pages, fully illustrated. Fun reference, great keepsake. Softcovers $40, dust-jacketed hardcover with limitation plate $200. To order, contact ivan@pbagalleries.com.

Consignments welcome for PBA's Fall 2022 Comic Book sale. Pre-Code Horror, Golden Age and Silver Age comics, original art, vintage comic-related photos and ephemera sought. Send inquiries to ivan@pbagalleries.com.