I'm quickly running out of "grail" comics. Just last year I found a copy of Space Ghost #1 from Gold Key, and in recent years I've found copies of Gold Key's Doc Savage one-shot, I've completed my Nightmaster run, and I've filled in key holes in my Charlton collection for Fightin' 5 and others.
Yesterday I found another of my grail books, the Charlton oddball one-shot Shadows from Beyond #50 which is a continuation of the numbering of Unusual Tales. I discussed the book here. I need to make one correction though, and that is Pat Boyette does debut in this comic, but he does not do all the stories as I for some reason thought he did a few years ago. Here's a look at Boyette's one for sure contribution. Mo Marcus also contributed artwork to the comic. Also this comic is numbered #50 and not #1 as I erroneously noted back then.
I was killing a few minutes yesterday while my wife was getting some clothes altered and I wandered over to the Florence Antique Mall, really an indoor flea market. I'd not been there for several years, and had always dismissed it as a go-to place for comics because they were usually in bad shape for much too high prices.
It proved not to be the case yesterday as only a few minutes of flipping through a box uncovered the utterly mind-blowing Steve Ditko cover which graces the one-shot. I saw the price, a mere two bucks and snapped it up without qualm. A few minutes later my wife called, and I made the purchase and scuttled back to pick her up, my treasure in hand.
I'm very pleased and I have to say finding a comic book like that so totally unexpectedly takes me back to the grand old days of collecting when scrounging was what made the hobby tick. I miss that part of it.
Now I need some new grail books. I'm thinking about completing my The Many Ghosts of Dr.Graves and Ghostly Tales collections. Now that I have Shadows, that might be a worthy goal.
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