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Author:
Title: UNCANNY TALES No. 26
Place Published:
Publisher:Atlas [Indicia: Prime Publications, Inc.]
Date Published: 20029
Description:

CGC certified: Fine+ (6.5). Slightly brittle pages. Cover: Joe Maneely. Art: Bill Benulis, Bob Correa?, Ed Winiarski, Dick Ayres, Mort Lawrence, Sid Greene. GPAnalysis: A 6.5 sold for $520 in 2/21.

A Betty Brant lookalike gawks as her wimpy boyfriend squirms in a giant spider web. The cover blurb, probably scripted by Stan Lee, asks the reader to "Step Into The Parlor, And Feast Your Eyes On 'THE SPIDER MAN!'" The cover story features a mad professor (a ringer for future Spidey foe the Terrible Tinkerer), who tries to get two giant spiders to fornicate as part of a crackpot scheme to enslave mankind.

"For most of the 1950's, Marvel's future superstars (such as Lee, Kirby, Steve Ditko and John Romita) toiled away on Atlas horror, romance and sci-fi titles. The sci-fi titles, such as Strange Tales and Journey Into Mystery, featured a staggering array of giant, malevolent monsters, each with its own bizarre appearance and name.... Yet the most fascinating category of pre-Marvel monsters was the one with some startlingly familiar names.... Eight years before puny Peter Parker strapped on his homemade web-shooters, the cover of Uncanny Tales #26 (1954) featured a very different Spider-Man." – Mark Engblom, "Hauntingly Familiar Marvel Monsters." ComicCoverage blog, October 27, 2006.

Meanwhile, Dick Ayres' "Don't Count Your Chickens!," in which a professor discovers that planets are actually giant eggs incubating powerful beings in their cores, anticipates Jack Kirby's Celestials plotline from The Eternals by over 20 years.

A limited edition of ten hardcover catalogues is available, in addition to a few dozen softcovers. Fun reference, great keepsake, fully illustrated, chockablock with obscure facts, gags, bon mots. Softcovers are $40, deluxe hardcovers with dust jackets and limitation plates are $200. These books always go fast so don't delay. To order, contact ivan@pbagalleries.com.

Consignments welcome for PBA's Fall 2023 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 funnybook fiends. "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.

Coming soon: The DC Universe Collection, featuring over 40,000 comics, comprising every comic book published by DC for retail sale between 1934 and 2014. Contact ivan@pbagalleries.com to get on the notifications list.