Ghostly Tales # 8

Ghostly Tales #8, $0.50 cover price, circa 1978.
Cover artist Rocke Mastroserio

My favourite K.G. Murray horror reprint titles are the first dozen or so issues of Doomsday and Haunted Tales (I’ll be covering them in greater detail later). The DC-centric Weird Mystery Tales is good value too if you can pick it up for a couple of dollars - especially for the odd Alex Toth inclusion.

But in general I rate the various Charlton-centric titles such as Ghostly Tales ahead of the Weird Mystery’s, mainly by virtue of the preponderance of Steve Ditko material. I doubt I’ve picked one up and not found at least one Ditko story therein. And if it’s not Ditko, a Pat Boyette back-up (or indeed cover feature) is not too bad as a fallback position. And some early Jim Aparo is always good value.

This issue is one I picked at random, just as a sample of K.G. Murray’s non-DC horror/mystery titles. There are others I’ll look at more closely later based on specific contents, but this is a good representative sample, pulled from the pits of the junkyard (you see the influence - reading too many horror comics unconsciously leads young impressionable minds to mimicking the language of the vile hosts… Wertham was right!!)


Attack of the Phantom
Pat Boyette
(Ghostly Tales 68, September 1968)

Curiosity Killed The Ghost
(Original unidentified, 12 pages)

Phantom Surfer
Steve Ditko
(Ghostly Tales 71, January 1969)

The Man Who Defeated Death!
(Original unidentified, 10 pages)

The Surgeon Must Also Die
Tony Tallarico
(Ghostly Tales 74, July 1969)

Last Express!
(Original unidentified, 10 pages)

Finders Keepers... Losers Dead!
Steve Ditko
(Ghostly Tales 70, November 1968)