The Many Ghosts of Dr Graves #26.

Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon. 

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A long long time ago, in a galaxy slap-bang right in front of my face because I'm living in it, I had an issue of The Many Ghosts of Dr Graves.

In fact, I had several, what with me being a fan of horror comics and a determined admirer of Charlton.

But one of those issues was different.

For I read it in the days before I took to collecting comics. Which meant I read it once and then it was disposed of, leaving nothing behind but vague memories of what it had contained.

Now, after all this time, I think I've tracked down that issue and I think it was 1971's Dr Graves #26 whose cover, by an immense coincidence, just happens to be to the left of these very words.

So, now that I've been reunited with my long-lost love, will that love be rekindled?

We kick off with The Arrival of the Innocent, as brought to us by Joe Gill and Pete Morisi.

In it, an American woman inherits a big old house in England and is warned, by the locals, not to risk living there, due to a ghost infestation.

Needless to say, she ignores such superstitious twaddle.

But, when she moves in, the ghosts' best efforts to scare her out of the building fail miserably.

And then, we get the shock revelation that she's not a normal person. She's some sort of witch - or something - who can exist in both the realm of the living and the realm of ghosts and, therefore, has no fear of the supernatural.

To be honest, when I say she's a witch, I'm not really sure about that. It's never actually explained just how come she can exist in both the realm of the living and the realm of ghosts. We're also told she's thousands of years old but aren't told how she's achieved that feat either. It's all extremely vague and, possibly, not too well-thought-out.

Morisi's art, as is the case with all the samples of his work I've ever seen, has a look that makes you suspect it's traced from photographs and, thus, has a very static quality to it. But, having said that, it also has an appealing simplicity.

Next, we get The Long Engagement in which Joe Gill and Charles Nicholas tell the tale of a woman who attends a guided tour of a big old English house, gets separated from the others and finds herself 600 years in the past where she meets and falls in love with Lord Cecil, the second owner of the building.

Sadly, for both of them, he quickly falls victim to a murder plot by his sister.

However, when our heroine finds herself back in the present, she meets the house's current owner who's, presumably, the reincarnation of Lord Cecil. Romance is, thus, guaranteed.

Again, things are highly vague. It's not clear whether he is a reincarnation or just the same man who's, somehow, still with us. Joe Gill's clearly not in the mood for explanations, this issue.

It also has to be said the tale looks very mechanical in both its art and its lettering, as though produced by some sort of machine.

Finally, Joe Gill teams up with Steve Ditko to give us The Dog Howls for You! in which a weird old bloke has the power to kill people by getting his dog to howl outside their homes.

And he's currently using that power to try to prevent a road being built in the area.

When a daring young local investigates, it turns out the weird old bloke and his dog have been dead for many years. And so it is that a quick funeral for the pair puts an end to their road-sabotage campaign.

Well, that's all that wrapped up. So, is the comic any good?

Not really. It's mostly a lot lighter in tone than I'd expect but lacks the charm a comic like Midnight Tales employed to make up for such frivolousness.

Also, all three tales have confusing or not properly explained elements to them, with the final one being particularly confusing to me on first reading. The artwork's inoffensive throughout but only Ditko's has any kind of verve to it.

Still, it's a Charlton comic.

That makes it a plucky underdog.

That means I'm on its side, even when it fails.

And it kind of does fail.