Thursday, October 11, 2012

Charlton Notebook: The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves #43

Although I'm a big fan of Charlton's horror output during the 70s, I'll freely admit that most issues are hit or miss. This one follows that trend, as it has one great story, one good story and one pretty weak story.. The main attraction here is the Nicola Cuti/Joe Station mini-masterpiece "The Things in the Subway". The stylish and stylized Staton artwork is perfectly suited to this Twilight Zonesque tale, featuring a rather grim ending. Ditko fans will likely be intrigued by 'Don't Lose Your Heart' as it features some neat historical art by Ditko, as he travels through the ages. There's one particularly effective panel showing the Battle of Waterloo that jumps right off the page. It's good, not great. The lead story is the weakest. It features a great concept of a weird old man with a rather interesting doll collection. The Joe Gill script is quite poor and it is not help at all by the Murray Postell artwork, which is very stiff and awkward. Worth tracking down, for the Cuti/Staton tale alone.

1 comment:

GarBut said...

The cover logo looks like it accidentally got erased, and redrawn, by a 6-year-old.

Otherwise, a nice cover.