Wrightson cover, should be a horror comic...

I felt a little bait-and-switched after opening up this one, but we'll see: from 1975, House of Mystery #236, cover by Bernie Wrightson.

OK, I'm pretty sure I could search just the blog and find a bunch of Steve Ditko horror stories; although I'm hard-pressed to remember if any were super-scary? Or were they usually morality plays of various degrees of hokeyness? Let's see how this one goes: "Death Played a Sideshow" Written by "Coram Nobis" (David Vern), pencils by Steve Ditko, inks by Mike Royer. Spiritualist/mentalist "the amazing Dr. Krupke" is a fake and a hack, snowing rubes with some ghost effects, and letting their imaginations fill in the rest. Today he's running a "purification rite" scam on an absolute chump, 'burning' money to prove his love. Krupke eventually declares him "pure," or at least broke, but that he shouldn't do anything for three days. Namely, because the carnival will be moving on before then...but, the chump gets word his love eloped with somebody else, and tries to get his money back. Krupke bashes him over the head with his mystic kettle-thing, killing him. He then dumps the body in the river, where he knows it will be found: when the cops question him, Krupke says he returned the guy's cash, but was worried he might still kill himself over losing his girl.

The chump's friends work with the cops, to try and trick Krupke into confessing with a black-light ghost. Sure enough, the ghost scares Krupke into running crying to the cops to confess; but the friends weren't as successful as they thought: their fake ghost hadn't been able to tunnel in and missed his cue, so who...? Yeah, whatever. Let's see how the second story goes, "Deep Sleep" Written by Jack Oleck, pencils by Paul Kirchner, inks by Neal Adams. John visits his college friend Alan Trent and his sister Elizabeth, both of whom are nervous wrecks, terrified of the "curse of the Trents." They allegedly had a family history of seemingly dying, and being buried alive...which seems like the sort of thing that would have come up in college after a night drinking, but again, whatever.

No one else seems to believe them, and they might have a point? How would you know someone had been buried alive, unless they had made it back? The Trents have taken precautions, though; with an elaborate bell system. Did I say elaborate? It's a string tied to the corpse's finger running from the family tomb back to the house. Elizabeth dies first, although Alan swears she isn't actually dead; and insists that one of them always stay awake in case she rings for help. After a week of that, John's ready to call it; and slips Alan sleeping pills so he can finally get a good night's rest. But the next morning, Alan is mortified, since he dreamed the bell had been ringing. They check, and find Elizabeth had been alive--last night, anyway--and had tried to signal. Feeling he owed Alan, John was now himself trapped, forced to stay in case Alan 'died.' Cain returns for a cheerful denouement, though: John had stayed...for fifty-five years, dying before Alan, who was still around and just insane.