Astonishing #12

Atlas Comics' Astonishing was delivering some of the most unsettling supernatural anthology work on newsstands in 1952, and issue #12 makes that case instantly. The cover, penciled by Carl Burgos and inked by Chris Rule, plunges two terrified figures — a horrified man and a screaming woman in a red dress — into a stone pit as a massive spiked ceiling grinds inexorably downward toward them, a skull and bones scattered ominously at their feet. Three teaser panels along the left promise even more dread inside with tales titled "Horror Show!," "Date with Death!," and "Fear!" — all framed under the banner of Astonishing Stories of the Supernatural.