Friday, October 11, 2019

Who takes a cat sailing?


That cat could care less about the ghosts, it's the ocean that's bothering him. From 1975, Ghosts #35, cover by Nick Cardy. The cover blurb advises, "We challenge you to read true tales of the weird and supernatural!" It challenges you to do so, it doesn't necessarily promise they were included within...

"Feud with a Phantom" includes a plot point similar to EC's "The Slave Ship," only in this case it's Chinese immigrants chained in a ship's hold. First mate Gantry protests their horrible conditions, to the point of mutinying against Captain Dolan, but Dolan shoots Gantry down. With Gantry's ghost already haunting him good, Dolan next has to deal with the coast guard, and has the immigrants thrown overboard to cover his crime. Dolan laughs at Gantry's ghost, who suggests he look at his feet, tangled in the chain going overboard! I don't know if that's justifiable, if you have to kill a ton of innocents for your revenge from the grave...Art by Alex NiƱo, no writing credit, possibly because this was a "true tale"!

Italy, 1939, is the setting for "The Ghost who Possessed Lisa!" in which murdered miser Cesare Viraldi takes over her body to accuse his murderers from the afterlife. The story claims Lisa was still alive at the time of publication, but had no memory of the incident, although there were many sworn witnesses. Allegedly. Art by John Calnan, that part's probably true.

"The Demon's Inn" gets one star on Yelp: "Ghost smothered my dog, would not stay again." (Art by Ruben Yandoc.) "The Spite of the Specter" could have found a home in DC's Weird War Tales, as a Japanese soldier and an American are the sole survivors on an island. The American suggests they have to work together to survive; the Japanese stabs him, then regrets it and tends to him, but the American dies regardless. Still, some feelings are hurt; and either the American's ghost or the Japanese's guilt get him. (Art by Frank Redondo.)

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