Steve Does Comics

Suffering spectres! Long-standing readers may know I was a fan of DC's horror output in the 1970s.

The House of Mystery, The House of Secrets, The Witching Hour, I loved them all.

But my favourite of their titles was always Ghosts - mostly because of the front cover boast that the tales within were all true. It was one thing reading tales that weren't true, but ones that were...?

Sadly, I long ago parted company with those comics and it's a safe bet I'll never buy them anew, as previous experience of reacquainting myself with other DC horror titles has made me aware that, although beautifully drawn, the stories themselves were rarely compelling.

Therefore I'm just going to post the covers of the ones I had and see what I can recall of them.

Remember, don't read this post with the lights off. The terror you are about to encounter may be more than your sanity can withstand.


This was the first issue I ever had.

I got it in Blackpool in 1975. Blackpool 1975 has special meaning for me. It brings back memories of skinless sausages, Johnny Weissmuller's Tarzan and Quatermass II.

It also brings back memories of a band called The Bent City Danglers. Don't ask.

The only tale I remember from this ish is The Nightmare in the Sandbox, which was about an evil sandbox dragging people and pets into another dimension. I was especially perturbed when the dog corked it.

Needless to say, the knowledge that it was a true story gave it an extra potency.

I also got this in Blackpool in 1975.

Sadly, I recall nothing of the contents.

This might have only been three issues later than the previous comic in this list but, thanks to the wonders of 1970s distribution, I didn't get it until a visit to Blackpool in 1978.

It's another whose contents I don't recall but I do remember liking it at the time and I was especially taken with the cover.

Did this issue feature the tale of an Egyptian man with a killer cat? If so, this was the issue where it first dawned on me that, despite the proud boast, not all the tales might be true.

No memories of this one at all -- unless The Ghost in the Devil's Chair was a short feature about some place that was claimed to exist in Britain.

I was very excited by such a claim but wondered why I'd never heard tales of that dread place before.

This one I remember strongly.

It's another one from Blackpool 1975.

Blood on the Moon made a particular impression on me. It involved a swamp-based murder avenged with the aid of a blood red moon. Every time I've seen a red moon since, it's reminded me of that tale.

Come to think of it, I don't think I've seen a red moon in years. Do they still have them?

Was The Spectral Coffin Maker about the Black Death? If so, I hope it featured a plague doctor in one of those bird-beak gas masks they were so keen on. I do feel modern-day doctors should dress the same way. They're always going on about improving the NHS but the fools never make my GP wear a bird-beak mask, like I want him to.

As I roam the amusement parks of Sheffield, going, "Wooooooooooo," and pretending to be a monster so I can scare away the locals and help myself to the pirate's treasure that rumour has it is buried beneath them, people often say to me, "Steve, as Sheffield's acknowledged master of fear, which was your favourite 1970s' DC horror mag?"

And I say, "Much as I loved the likes of House of Mystery/Secrets, Weird War Tales and the Witching Hour, there's one that stands out head and shoulders above them all."

That comic is Ghosts.

I think the reason it stands out is obvious.

You see, reader, as its cover blurb told us, every single tale in it was true.

Yes, all of them - even the ones that only involved one character who ended up dead at the end, with no witnesses, meaning there's no way anyone could ever have known what had happened in order to recount the tale. The fact that such events still managed to make it into print shows you just how thorough the DC writers were in their research.

And that meant I always wanted the Ghosts Limited Collectors' Edition.

As far as I'm concerned, a comic can never go wrong with a skeleton on the front of it, nor with a haunted house on the front of it, nor with curious but imprudent youngsters on the front of it. I assume this cover's drawn by Nick Cardy, and it gives us all three of those features.

Not only that but it promises ten Halloween spine-chillers, four tense tales of haunted houses, a midnight maze puzzle and a 3-D Trick-or-Treat cut-out. Obviously, as an Englishman, I have no idea what this Trick-or-Treat thing is of which they speak but it certainly sounds exciting and I can't wait for it to catch on in this country.