[MarkWarner]

I last week's Bobby #1 was a collective hit, despite a few slight murmurs of discontent. These were certainly not from me as I thought it was GREAT!!!

As I am running low on suggestions (HINT, HINT AGAIN!!!) I decided to take a pot shot at one myself and have chosen Mister Mystery #1. I have no idea what it will be like, apart from I'd be rather surprised if it was not a horror book!

So here is Mister Mystery #1 https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=21272 and the story we are concentrating on is the first one "Hand". The story line according to GCD: "A man is killed by the skeletal hand of his unborn/undeveloped twin that was grafted onto his ankle before birth." Blimey and Cripes!

[SuperScrounge]

Hand - "Some of you might call this tale ridiculous" Clearly the author's subconscious was trying to tell him something. ;-) Then again, I suspect the author knew he had a stinker, but he had to get something written and then went for it. Sadly, it lacks the craziness that could have saved it and is just there.

Death A La Carte - *sigh* Dull.

Unexplained Mysteries - Eh.

The Bloody Jinx - Not very good, but, so far, the best written story in the book.

Television Ghost - Interesting, not great, but the humor elevates it over the other stories.

The Tree of Vengeance - Okay.

A sadly disappointing read, enlivened mainly by the Kurtzman-esque elements of Television Ghost.

[crashryan]

Mister Mystery has to be the least intimidating horror host ever. He looks like a middle-aged banker who's returned from a costume ball.

"The Hand" would be a hundred times better if we had some clue as to why Tom's twin hates him so. "Just because" doesn't do it when the hater feels compelled to return from the dead to continue his hating. The ludicrous ending with the extra hand further clouds the question of motive. Could Tim be channeling the unformed triplet's anger at not having been born? With a couple of rewrites this could have been an eerie and unsettling story. Ross Andru's art is strong. Andru is under-appreciaated, partly because (in my opinion) eternal inker Mike Esposito didn't serve him well.

"Death a la Carte": Pre-Code horror comics are filled with blameless people meeting undeserved deaths. Still I want some justification for calamity striking. George considers murdering Dennis then decides against it. Dennis dies by accident, but his spirit tortures and kills George as if the man were really a murderer. It does not compute. Art is competent, but if you compare it to the first story you'll see that, contrary to the index card, this wasn't pencilled by Ross Andru.

"The Bloody Jinx" has too many loose ends. It isn't helped by messy panel layouts which need arrows to tell the reader in which order to read them. It vexes me that villain Lucifer H. Diablo looks like the Devil, dresses like the Devil, bears the Devil's name, and even says, "I, Lucifer, command it!"--but he isn't the Devil. He's just some power-hungry encyclopedia salesman. Mortellaro's drawings are serviceable apart from the bad layouts, but he compulsively fills the walls with what appear to be big pieces of popcorn.

"Television Ghost": Somebody was certainly bitten by Kurtzman before he drew this one. The simple plot is the most coherent in the issue. It's the art that sells the story, though. Reading this I had a sudden nostalgia attack, remembering all those forgotten artifacts of early TV: ghosts, snow, rolling, fringe areas, antenna rotators, rabbit ears, test patterns, and the sign-off prayer.

We've read stories like "The Tree of Vengeance" a million times. I'm curious to know why the villain's original name was whited out and replaced by "Lujack." Respectable Andru artwork.

This comic gets an overall "meh" from me, but the more I look at the ersatz Kurtzman story the more I like it. Was it really drawn by Andru?

[narfstar]

Boy was Hand a terrible story. The art looked good but the story was not. It was actually just several years ago that I heard of the internal twin thing. My guess the author just learned of it and had an idea for a story. Even worse was that the story was so lame for pre-code Stanley. I was expecting a little more gross.

[crashryan]

I just discovered Mr Mystery's secret identity! He's none other than The Topper, a nonentity from Fox's U.S. Jones. I speculate that middle age robbed The Topper of his fancy fighting skills, so he found an easier gig introducing horror stories for Stanley Morse. I suspect brain damage from numerous blows to the head may also have contributed to his retirement from crime-fighting.

Check him out:

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=28214

[MarkWarner]

Well, here is my horror choice. It was a bit random I liked the cover and hope that the innards are as good.

Hand - Hmmmm. The story was Ok I guess, but it was a bit tame..

Death a la Carte - Had a bit of storyline, but again hardly raised a goose-bump.

I rather enjoyed the two page text "Unexpected Mysteries". I was once in the middle of a ladybird swarm. I was playing in a brass band and it was so thick that you were actually breathing them in! Unfortunately, I have no vampire stories to tell

I got a bit confused with The Bloody Jinx, but I didn't really feel like working out what went on. Which was a good call as the Television Ghost was much better. A rather cool jokey horror with interesting artwork.

We finish with The Tree of Vengeance, and a couple of advertisements. The $1 "Television Bank" with free photograph looks really cool. I think I will go for the one with the Roy Rogers picture.

Verdict: Just scrapes a hit! Mister Mystery was a bit like an over enthusiastic OTR radio host. It was readable and did not annoy me. But if the Parent's Institute had gone into horror, I think they may have made a book just like this.