Highlighting House Ads: Ripley's Believe It Or Not (1979)

This ad has always given me the creeps. It may be the disembodied eyeball and it may be the disembodied teeth, but I truly think the creepiest thing about this image is the disembodied hair. So weird! I bought a lot of Gold Keys back in 1979, as I think they were widely available in 3-packs. I really dug Star Trek, Twilight Zone and UFO and Outer Space, but I also wound up with a lot of funny animal books by virtue of those packs. This ad is a slightly revised version of the cover to Ripley's Believe It Or Not #38 (February, 1973). I can understand why they decided to stick with this image, as it has a better shock value than many of the other covers from this series, which often featured Victorian-era ghosts whom were often more elegant than eerie. What surprises me the most is that this ad ran in every Gold Key title. I was recently flipping through an old Daffy Duck book with my 3-year old daughter and we stumbled upon this image. I'm sure that I've scarred her for life.