The majority of the comicstrips which form most of this annual are hosted by a suave man known simply has the storyteller whom travels the world seeking strange tales [see above]. Short stories, a game, true mysteries, a creepy quiz, and a poem by Walter La Mare. Most of the comicstrips as you would imagine for a annual aimed at female readers usually is a young female as the hero/heroine. I really like the cover of this annual which contains the typical iconic images of a spooky setting, The Creepy castle, bats, Witch and in the foreground a scared looking girl reading an old book by candlelight and of course the black cat. I wonder if The June book of Strange Stories was an inspiration to the later supernatural themed girls comic 'Misty'?
Here is the contents:
[CS = Comicstrip]
'The Prince of Lightning' [CS]
'Doomsday for St.Denny's' [Short story]
'Legend of the Bell' [CS]
'Aztec Gold' [CS]
'To save sammy' [CS]
'The Gay Dolphin' [CS]
'Mirage in the Desert' [CS]
'The Ghostly Guide' [CS]
'Escape from the Haunted House' [Maze game]
'The swing of the Pendulum' [Short Story]
'The Magic Violin' [CS]
'Mysteries of time and space' [True mysteries]
'Creepy Quiz'
'The Haunted Museum' [CS]
'Song without words' [CS]
'The Farmyard Judges' [CS]
'Rogue Elephant' [CS]
'The Siamese Cat mystery' [CS]
'Where did they come from...and go to?' [True Mysteries]
'The Rain Goblins' [CS]
'The Friendly Ghost' [CS]
'The Magic Spectacles' [CS]
'The Listeners' by Walter De La Mare [Poem]
'Who was she really?' [CS]
'At the Rainbow's end...' [CS]
'Fantastic but true' [True Mystery]
'The Green Rose' [CS]
'Loom of fate' [CS]
'The Doomed Classroom' [CS]
Published by IPC Magazines Ltd.
5 comments:
Wow, I'm in LOVE with this book. You couldn't possibly post more scans, could you? I'm dying to "Escape from the Haunted House!"
An interesting find although the 'Storyteller' seems like the least creepy character ever to assume that role in a horror comic!
(I really liked the Victorian leper who used to dig the graves in that 'Scream' strip but anyway!)
D.C. Thompson's 'Spellbound' had been on the scene for a couple of years before 'Misty' was launched and may have prompted a rival title.
There's an interesting revival of sorts at: www.mistycomic.co.uk
Hi Ross
Glad you like the scans, as you may of already noticed I have added a few more. Hope you like these too.
Hi John
Yes I know what you mean about the Storyteller, certainly not the kind of person who has these strange stories in his head to tell the readers.
Is the Victorian Leper the one who worked as a gravedigger in the Scream comic? I like the kind of hosts that introduced the stories in the old EC comics such as Tales from the Crypt.
Oh yes I forgot about Spellbinder comic. I have never seen an actual issue before apart from a few that were featured on ebay. Looks interesting.
I have all the Misty annuals but still yet to come across any of the comics, these sometimes turn up on ebay. Seem to be very difficult to come across though. I'll have to keep a look out for the Misty revival book.
Yeah, looking back, the gravedigger from Scream's 'Tales from the Grave' were very much in that E.C. storyteller mode. The strips are still a great read through adult eyes and Jim Watson's art seems perfectly suited for Victorian macabry.
I've never read Misty stories: the covers were great but somehow the art seemed, well, the opposite to Jim Watson's style from the few issues I've flicked through.
It'll probably remain just those few issues too - I saw some V.Fine/Nr Mint' copies on sale at a mart around 2002 for a fiver a pop!
Hi John
Yes John Watson's art is certainly suited to Victorian Macabry. I always like to see a creepy comicstrip with plenty of detail and with good atmospherics like some of artwork featured in the American Skywald range like 'Psycho' and 'Nightmare'. Berni Wrightson is another artist who was great at atmospherics and detail.
I agree that the artwork in Misty were not in the same sort of spookyness as Jim Watson's artwork but I think there are still some nice comicstrips in them. I should think it would be a dear due to try and get many of the Misty comics especially at 5 pound a time, there were just over a hundred issues.
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