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Author:
Title: CUENTOS DE BRUJAS No. 42 * Mexican CHAMBER OF CHILLS No. 22
Place Published:
Publisher:La Prensa
Date Published: April, 1955
Description:

Fine (6.0). Light spine stress, light color rubs to bottom edge of front cover near spine, small color chip to right edge of front cover, small nicks to spine ends, crease marks to bottom corner region of back cover. Cream pages, light tan edges. Mexican edition of Chamber of Chills #22 (Harvey, 1954). Color interior. Stories translated into Spanish. Cover: Lee Elias. Art: Manny Stallman, Jack Sparling, John Giunta, Bob Certa. CGC Census: One slabbed copy (4.5). GPAnalysis: No reported sales.

Bondage & torture cover (man broken on wheel by zombie). There's a weird story in which a guy with a bandaged face saves a gal's life and they become lovers. She's eager to see his face with the bandages off, but the guy refuses, even keeping the bandages on in bed after they're married. Finally, the wife is overcome by curiosity and tries to snip off the guy's bandages while he's asleep. He awakes, and the couple grapple over the scissors in bed in a panel that, despite language barriers, provides a perfect visual metaphor for midcentury castration anxieties. It's a pretty interesting yarn, but one wonders how Mexican parents felt about Yankee publishers foisting Stateside neuroticism off on their kids?

"Comic books are our ill-will ambassadors abroad... There is a wide revulsion and agitation against them... In Mexico, writers, parents and teachers have made a large-scale attempt to have the government stop the importation of American crime comics... Like the export of narcotics, crime comic books have become an international problem." – Dr. Wertham, Seduction of the Innocent: Rinehart & Co.: 1954, pp. 284, 293.

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