Small House of Everything

Small House of Everything

Friday, February 14, 2025

SHADOWS FROM BEYOND #50 (OCTOBER 1966)

Evidently a one-shot, a retitling of Charlton's Unusual Tales; there appears to be no further issues of this comic book..  (Comics companies often used the numbering of a discontinued title on a new title, thus avoiding certain postal fees.)

Three horror stories introduced by the "Old Gypsy":

  • "Reprieve!"  The Kommandant of a Nazi death camp is placed on trial.  His lawyer, who has promised to win acquittal, exerts a hypnotic power on all the witnesses, making them recant their damning testimony and the Nazi is freed.  But the lawyer has also promised justice will be served.  He takes his client back to where the death camp had stood, and there are the ghosts of his victims...waiting for their revenge.
  • "He'll Go a Long Way"  The Old Gypsy tells the fortune of Boyce Haskell, telling him he'll fo a long way. something Haskell has heard all his life.  Feeling the fortuneteller gulled him, he gets a cop and goes back to demand his money, but the fortuneteller and her studio have vanished.  Haskell cheats and lies and defrauds his way to the top and builds a faulty high-rise apartment building.  To escape an angry woman whose husband he has cheated, Boyce runs and board a subway train.  But the train has no stops in this world, anyway.
  • " 'Spacious' Rooms for Rent"  Slumlord Smith refuses to spend any money on upkeep.  Not only are the rooms substandard, they are small and tenants keep demanding more space.  An alien beams down to his rooming house and asks to rent a place, and Smith squeezes him into a small area in the cellar.  The alien  moves the rooming house, with tenants and all their rooms, as well as Smith to where they will all have space...outer space.
Ho-hum.

But there's some interesting artwork here, possibly by Pat Masulli, Dick Giordano, Pat Boyette, and Mo Marcus.  The final story is supposedly the first comic story by Boyette, who went on to create the Peacemaker with Joe Gill.

But for the most part, a very forgettable issue with the Old Gypsy inserting herself at various points throughout each tale  -- a distinct distraction.

For those who may be interested:

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=61913

1 comment:

  1. Well, given how inane horror comics Could be in the '60s and '70s (and before and after, but I read a number of them new around the turn of those decades), I'd say the twist on "Long Way" is slightly amusing. Pat and Steve Boyette related? I'll Go Look.

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