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Author:
Title: The THING! No. 16
Place Published:
Publisher:Charlton [Indicia: Capitol Stories, Inc.]
Date Published: September, 1954
Description:

VG/Fine (5.0). Light spine stress, a few tiny rubs and nicks, some dusty soiling to back cover, a few crease marks to back cover (no color breaks. Clean and press to 5.5-6.0? Cover: Steve Kirkel? Art: Dick Ayres, Bill Molno (as Joe Shuster), Seymour Moskowitz, others. Overstreet: "Injury to eye panel." This ish is rather common for an almost 70-year-old funnybook; according to comics historian Robert Beerbohm, it was "part of a huge Central Valley, California warehouse find back in the early 1970s." GPAnalysis: A 5.0 copy sold for $115 in August 2020. PBA sold a raw 5.0 for $150 in February 2022.

Angry cuckold whips his wife's lover to death; injury-to-eye panel; cannibals stockpile canned corpses for future feasts. A panel in John Belfi's "Blind Vengeance" (picturing a Mo Howard-lookalike mauling a guy) is nearly identical to Sy Moskowitz's cover to Charlton's This Magazine is Haunted #20, published the very same month (see the next lot). Charlton was perhaps the only pre-Code publisher whose comics were created and printed under the same roof; maybe Belfi and Moskowitz eyeballed each other's work around the office and this deadline-defying swipe was the result. When we showed this curious swipe to pre-Code fan Daniel Ripoll, he offered this tidbit of comics sagacity: "My theory is that the story in Thing! 16 was originally planned to be in TMIH 20. Charlton was no stranger to using an interior panel for a cover."

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.