Thursday, February 04, 2010

Charlton Notebook: Haunted #18

This is a great, great comic that serves as an example of what Charlton could be when it was firing on all cylinders. We start off with a cool sci-fi monster cover by Joe Staton. This segues nicely to The Survivor, a space-based morality play by Steve Ditko. This is one of the best space stories I've read, from any company. So good, in fact, that I would not be surprised if it was swiped from EC. This middle story is another cautionary tale, this one with lovely Wayne Howard artwork. It involved a man seeking eternal life by constantly upgrading his body with artificial parts. Apparently, that's not a great idea. Finally, we sign off with Film Freak, a strange a superb story by the Staton/Cuti team. Imagine a mirror image of Purple Rose of Cairo, replace Jeff Daniels with a space monster and you've got a sense of what this one's all about. All in all, this issue featured entertaining tales and fantastic artwork, and it should please just about anyone.

2 comments:

Neil Anderosn said...

I own that issue, totally agree. Maybe it's just a coincidence, but it seems to me like some effort was made to keep the level of quality in Haunted extra high--the 1st issue had 3 above average stories all by Steve Ditko, there was one issue that had a full-length Lovecraftian story by Tom Sutton, and there were many other excellent issues.

Neil Anderson

The Groovy Agent said...

I still have my copy, and it's an all-time favorite. I totally agree with your review, Scott!