The Many Ghosts Of Joe Staton!

Joe Staton has always been one of my favorite artists in comics. His work was always vivid and lively and attractive. He knows how to tell stories, and now he has done so for decades working for DC primarily, yet also working on his own here and there. He was for quite a time the artist on the comic strip Dick Tracy, bringing a great look to a strip which has languished artistically for too long. He announced his retirement a few years back. 

I first became a fan of Staton's when he was a workhorse for Charlton Comics, doing E-Man, Space 1999, Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch, and other projects. He created many an inviting and evocative cover for the company too, some of them gracing the ghost books.

 Here's a gallery of his creepy covers.

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Scooby Doo...Where Are You?

Scooby-Doo (in its myriad forms) is without doubt the most successful cartoon franchise of the 1970's and might Hanna-Barbera's most successful of all time. Others are famous, but time has put a shadow on Boomer faves like The Flintstones, The Jetsons, and though I will always love Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, and that lot, but they are nostalgia. Scooby-Doo is still generating new versions of the show and spinning off characters. The original Scooby-Doo...Where Are You? show ran for just two seasons, but it ran in one form or other throughout the succeeding decades. The early shows are still the best, with some truly creepy creations such as the Creepy Clown and the Skull-Faced Alien. We all know that in the Scooby-verse such ghosts are merely the creations of criminals and scallywags, and though the supernatural might seem to be seeping into the reality, it will be reason which will rule the day, if only just. 

The second Scooby-Doo show was in fact The New Scooby-Doo Movies which ran for an hour and guest-starred such pure 70's sensations as Sonny and Cher, Phyllis Diller, Jerry Reed, Jonathan Winters, and Sandy Duncan among others. None of the above were in danger of getting Emmys for their voice work. Alongside these we got repeat visits from The Three Stooges and The Harlem Globetrotters. Most famously, the Dynamic Duo of Batman and Robin appeared in two episodes. The classic Scooby formula was screwed up by the addition of the guests and the extension of time. For some reason no additional twists and turns were usually added, and we just got more running around for no reason. 

The factory that was Hanna-Barbera was always more committed to getting their cartoons delivered on time than getting them good. For a time, the team managed both, but by the late 70's they were in a mad dash to keep animation on the continent and on Saturday mornings, a timeframe which was losing its punch as the Boomers aged out. But technically we got a third season of Scooby-Doo, though the shows got back to basics, the need to scare seemed to be absent. Too many fretful parents were on the prowl, and cartoons were getting gutted all over TV. 

Goober and The Ghost Chasers from 1973 was perhaps the most overt copy of the Scooby-Doo formula, but like the aforementioned hour-long episodes suffered from too many guest-stars such as the inane Partridge Kids and for some strange reason Wilt Chamberlain. What they got right was the length, running at a brisk half-hour Goober, a Saluki to match Scooby's Great Dane was a hat-wearing fourth-wall breaking doggie who for reasons never explained could turn invisible. Unlike the Scooby-verse there were real ghosts in this universe along with unscrupulous villains. When the show was just Ted, Tina, Gilly, and Goober things were pretty decent, but add a guest-star things went to smash. 

The Funky Phantom from 1971 was the first Scooby clone show and featured three teenagers named Skip, Augie and April along with a bulldog named Elmo. They hook up with Mudsy, "The Spirit of 1776" and his ghost cat named Boo. It's a crowded dune buggy indeed, but their misadventures uncover fake ghosts all across the United States and criminals as well. The show never loses its energy, though indifferent mixing made my disc set at times a bit frustrating to listen to. 

Scooby-Doo...Where Are You came to Charlton Comics in the mid-70's and despite some indifferent artwork, I enjoyed it okay. Charlton would never win awards for its Hanna-Barbera work, but artwork by veteran Bill Williams was acceptable. Joe Gill wrote the thing as one might expect. Here's a cover gallery of the entire Charlton run. 

A few decades later DC would start the whole comic book thing over again and make quite the run with it. I even checked out a few issues as Joe Staton was the artist for many of the issues. (More on Mr. Staton tomorrow.) The answer the question asked now for some decades of Scooby-Doo...Where Are You? is not very far at all. 

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Dr. Graves - A Charlton Classic!

Pat Boyette & Rocke Mastroserio

Tom Christopher

Rocke Mastroserio
One of the eras of Charlton collecting I like is the short burst of activity in the company's final throes during 1985 and 1986. These books aren't very expensive, but they can be hard to find.

Some of the gems from this time are three issues of Dr.Graves, which picked up the numbering of The Many Ghosts of Dr.Graves one of Charlton's most successful ghost books. These three reprint issues from 1985 and 1986 reprint a wide range of material from several issues of the old series. There is art by Steve Ditko, Pat Boyette, Sanho Kim, Don Perlin, and Ernie Bache. One story even features Boyette inks on Ditko pencils.

Much of the debut issue gets reprinted. Some of Doc's earliest adventures from the pages of Ghostly Tales are also sprinkled through these three comics, featuring great artwork by Ernie Bache.

Steve Ditko

Perhaps the best story is "The Ultimate Evil" by Steve Skeates and Steve Ditko which pits Dr.Graves against a magical threat to the whole of Earth. It evokes those classic Marvel Dr.Strange stories but shows off Ditko's more muscular style of the period. Any story that showcases the complete destruction of Earth as part of the prologue has got some real beans.

This Charlton revival sputtered out after a few months. But editor John Wren with the help of Robin Snyder and Steve Ditko among others gave it a yeoman's try. Artist Tom Christopher even produces a new cover for issue #74. But it was to no avail.

On a fun note, take a look how they blended Pat Boyette's cover for issue #1 with Rocke Mastroserio's artwork lifted from issue #4 for the cover of #73.

Pat Boyette

Rocke Mastroserio
And here's Rocke's original cover for issue #7 which got flipped for later use on #75.

Rocke Mastroserio
Dr. Graves - The Ghost Fighter debuted in a story by Ernie Bache from Ghostly Tales #55. 

Ernie Bache
With the passing of these final Charltons, the company was dissolved and the assets sold off. Soon the storied printing plant would become a parking lot.

All we have now are the comics, which linger like the very ghosts Dr. Graves battled so valiantly.

And finally, here are some early Dr. Graves covers by Steve Ditko. Number sixteen was my first issue of the series. 

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