Heading:
Author:
Title: MYSTERIOUS ADVENTURES No. 11
Place Published:
Publisher:Story [Indicia: Story Comics, Inc.]
Date Published: December, 1952
Description:

VG- (3.5). Sun shadow to top edge of front cover, front cover lightly sunned along spine, foxing to back cover along spine, a few short tears and color chips to top and bottom edges of front cover, some chips and creases to top edge of back cover, slight musty whiff. Off-white pages. DAVIS CRIPPEN PEDIGREE, with Heritage Auction Galleries certificate, signed by Lon Allen, Chief Grader, calling this copy VG+ (it's a clean, flat copy, and we'd call it 4.5 too if not for the sun shadow and back cover chips). There's a chance that CGC won't recognize this mag's pedigree, as the cover lacks the penciled "D" that distinguishes many but not all Crippen copies, and the top margin of the 1st page lacks Crippen's distinctive penciled code — unsurprising, as Crippen abandoned the code in the late '40s. Cover: Bill Fraccio? Art: Bill Fraccio?, uncredited others. Used in SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT. GPAnalysis: No reported sales in this grade. A 1.5 sold for $125 in February 2021, and if you're banking on Heritage's grading, a 4.5 sold for $323 in January 2021.

Violent mag, complete with a panel depicting a bloody severed arm. Dr. Wertham was especially bothered by a Nazi atrocity tale titled "A Gravedigger's Terror!" Although the Nazis get their just desserts in the end, Wertham seems to have mistaken the story's depiction of Nazi atrocities for an endorsement of them. SOTI scholars will not be surprised by this, as Wertham regularly misread comic book stories and misrepresented their contents in his zeal to protect at-risk kids. See the entry for Shock SuspenStories #14 in PBA's Dec. 10, 2021 catalogue for the facts about Wertham's functional comics illiteracy.

"In one of the pictures of this story there are three balloons with the exclamation 'HEIL HITLER!' This comic book appeared at about the same time when a group of fourteen- and fifteen-year-old boys had a 'Nazi stormtrooper club' in which every prospective member had to hit a Negro on the head with a brick." — Dr. Fredric Wertham, Seduction of the Innocent. Rinehart: 1954, p. 84.

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.