Charlton Notebook: Ghostly Tales #116

I'm a big fan of the Charlton Comics Group, but if someone were to based their opinion of the publisher on this book alone; I could understand if they were to simply shrug their shoulders and say 'meh'. Personally, I like picking these up because they are cheap and usually have at least one good story in them. The first story is a pretty bad effort by Joe Gill and Sanko Kim (also the cover artist). It involves the fallout from budgetary shortcuts at a nuclear facility. The premise isn't bad and the story might have worked if Kim’s monster didn’t look so stupid. Kim’s artwork really doesn’t do it for me, as he really seems to struggle with anatomy. I often roll my eyes when I open a Charlton book and find Kim artwork. The next story is much better. It's a clever Joe Gill/Charles Nicholas ‘what did you bring back from space?’ tale. It has a nice a silver age look to it, so much so that I was convinced it was a reprint but haven't been able to find the source material. The final story is the old ‘Stranger comes to town – could it be Satan?’ story – it features some pretty energetic Steve Ditko artwork. This one isn't bad, but I wouldn't go out of my way to track it down.