CLEAN AS A WHISTLE

Henpecked Abner finds a clever way to get rid of his overly-fastidious wife in this tale of creepy comeuppance called "Clean As a Whistle" from Harvey's BLACK CAT COMICS #49 (April 1954). Art is by John Giunta.

BEWARE THE EYES OF MARCH!

What a pretty girl like Laura Duncan is doing with a toad like Nicholas March is beyond me, but apparently the two have been married for a while. But Laura has fallen for young Johnny Franklin and the jilted March hypnotizes Laura into jumping off a cliff!

In a fit of rage, Johnny confronts March and strangles him to death. But March isn't finished yet; he goes after Johnny next and the result is a classic revenge from the grave story.

"The Eyes of March" (a clever turn of the phrase, "The Ides of March", coincidentally appearing in the March issue) was published in Harvey's TOMB OF TERROR (March 1963). Pencils are by Manny Stallman and inks by John Giunta.

GOING .. GOING .. GONE!

After low-life crook Bull Akers robs a shop and kill the store owner, he's plugged with a shot by a policeman. He stumbles into the office of a neuro surgeon. At first refusing to help him, after hearing of the robbery on the radio, he changes his mind. What follows is a surprising bit of "urban justice".

This shocker is from the pages of Harvey's TOMB OF TERROR #16 (July 1954), the last issue after the Comics Code was instituted. Pencils are by Joe Certa with possible inks by John Giunta.

EARLY FRAZETTA AND A DISEMBODIED HAND!

Horror comics fans will know the name Bernard Baily (April 5, 1916 – January 19, 1996) from his outrageous covers for titles such as Stanley Morse's MISTER MYSTERY.

Bailey began his comics career with Jerry Iger, who teamed up with Will Eisner and created the Eisner & Iger Studio. He also worked for National/DC and co-created The Spectre and Hourman.

In 1943, he founded Baily Publishing Company with fellow artist Mac "Capt. Marvel Jr." Raboy. Together they produced comics for several imprints such as Rural Home Publishing's Croyden and and Holyoke Publications.

His creative staff was a kind of revolving door affair. Some of the artists that came and went were Carmine Infantino, Gil Kane, Dick Briefer and Nina Albright, one of the few women working in comics during the Golden Age.

One of the more esoteric titles to come out of his studio was TALLY-HO COMICS, done for the even more obscure Swappers Quarterly in December 1944. The story, "Snowman" is generally recognized as Frank Frazetta's first comic book work. It is said that John Giunta let the 15-year-old Frazetta pencil a few things on his story -- what exactly they were is up for speculation, including the previous credit he received for inking.

The story from the issue shown here today is a bit of an odd, early crime/horror story featuring a character named "The Man In Black". There have been a few so-named throughout the years, but this particular character could have been inspired by Baily's The Spectre, introduced a few years before. What makes this story ultra-creepy is the disembodied (and bloody) hand that crawls across the panels.

The cover is by John Giunta. The scriptwriter and artist(s) are unknown, but I suspect Baily himself might have had a . . . uh, "hand" in it!