Guest-starring Shako, the only bear on the CIA death list!

OK, so this doesn't really feature the 2000 AD bear (and you should stop reading this and read Tegan O'Neil's piece on Shako!) but today we've got another random DC horror book: from 1977, DC Special Series #7--Ghosts Special, featuring stories by Murray Boltinoff, Bob Haney, George Kashdan, Leo Dorfman, and others; and art by Artie Saaf, Jerry Grandenetti, Bill Payne, E. R. Cruz, and others.

I think editor/writer Murray Boltinoff's gimmick for Ghosts were that they were allegedly "true" ghost stories: the opening page mentions Timber Kate, a Nevada ghost story that would've been a little too much for a DC book. Vertigo, maybe...I don't think most of the stories were that researched, though. In Bob Haney's "Beware the Beggar's Feast!" a greedy young banker is told the story of Lady Glynda, the last wife of the Earl of Lochliamoor, most of whose internet footprint seems to be related to this comic, but not quite all! Glynda was attacked and maimed by the earl's hunting hounds, and he abandoned her; but she was saved by the "Moor People," societal outcasts. Still, the earl died in an 'accident' before he could change his will, so Glynda got everything, and she set aside a trust for a yearly feast for the Moor People and their descendents. The banker scoffs at paying out to the wretches, and tries to debunk Glynda's ghost story so he can keep the payout to himself: wanna guess how well that goes for him? (Somewhat disappointingly, the Moor People don't rend him limb from limb.)

"The Dark Wings of Death" is another story set during the London Blitz, with the added bonus of a young lieutenant's family coat-of-arms trying to kill him. "The Night the Totem's Spirit Talked" briefly features a polar bear, which is shot by an unscrupulous hunter, who then kills a witness, but is later brought to justice when he tries to shut up a totem pole. No, really, that's pretty accurate. 

E.R. Cruz draws "Voice From the Grave," in which a noble trucker dies trying to save another, but may leave a CB message from beyond the grave for his wife. Lastly, "Night of the Vengeful Corpse," wherein two treasure hunters abandon a third to die, as he swears to come back and take them to the grave with him. Perhaps surprising no one, he does! This was a better-than-usual issue of Ghosts than some I've seen; maybe they saved the good ones for the special. Fun aside: Murray Boltinoff was the editor that passed on Nightcrawler for the Legion of Super-Heroes!