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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Thirteen Faces Of Winnie The Witch!

Winnie the Witch debuted in Ghost Manor #13, an unlucky number for anyone but a ghost host of a comic book I'd reckon. She added something to the Charlton ghost host roster that had been woefully missing to that point--sex appeal.

Winnie was a looker. She was probably inspired by Warren's sultry horror hostess and heroine Vampirella. With her brilliant blue skin, her long green tresses, her sometimes green and sometimes white mini-dress, and those mod glasses, she was a total babe for sure. Winnie was a winner and hung around Charlton for the duration pretty much, the resident babe. Even after the arrival of Baroness R.H. Von Bludd a few years later, it was still Winnie who had won my heart.

Here's a gallery of the winsome witch by a twelve of Charlton art greats. The final image is something a bit different.

Charles Nicholas & Vince Alascia
Pat Boyette
Steve Ditko
Sam Glanzman
Fred Himes
Wayne Howard
Sanho Kim
Pete Morisi
Don Perlin
Warren Sattler
Joe Staton
Tom Sutton

And finally, we have this.


It's a bit blurry, but this is what Winnie might look like in real life if she attended a comic book convention. I prefer to think the camera operator is just quivering with the thrill of meeting such a classic character.

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DC Ditko Mystery Tales!

In the late 1970's and early 1980's Steve Ditko turned his attention to work at DC. Charlton was drawing back from the marketplace and Ditko needed places to draw comics, and despite his independent work, DC was a good place to get a check. In addition to some creative series which we'll get around to next month, Ditko also drew many stories for the myriad horror and science fiction comics that DC produced during this era. In comics such as House of Mystery, House of Secrets, Ghosts, Weird War Tales, Secrets of Haunted House, Mystery in Space, Time Warp and Unexpected Ditko brought to life many a monster and creepy crawler. These stories are collected in The Steve Ditko Omnibus Volume One. Actually, the first two short stories in this collection are from 1964 from two issues of Strange Adventures. Then we leap to the later material written by such DC stalwarts as Jack Oleck, Jack C. Harris, Len Wein, Paul Levitz, Michael Fleisher, Arnold Drake, Steve Skeates among others. Ditko even writes the last story in the volume himself, a wacky yarn named "Em the Energy Monster". 

Sadly, Ditko only drew one cover for DC's haunted books during this era, for House of Mystery #277 seen above. Below are the comics in which Ditko stories appeared and the covers are by a host of talents such as Jack Sparling, Mike Kaluta, Berni Wrightson, Neal Adams, Dick Giordano, among others. But most are by the great Joe Kubert who was the master of DC covers during this time. 

E

Above is the cover for The Steve Ditko Omnibus Volume One. With Shade the Changing Man getting the cover attention, you'd never realize wealth of weird tales inside by one of the genre's finest. 

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