Ghostly Tales #160

Charlton's long-running horror anthology reaches issue #160 with a cover by Steve Ditko that unfolds like a four-panel nightmare: a sleek, blue-black panther stalks through a shadowy bedroom, leaping and prowling ever closer to a sleeping woman — the cover copy asking ominously, "The weird feline moved closer to the sleeping woman… did it deliberately awaken her?" That creeping dread, rendered with Ditko's sharp, angular linework, sets a genuinely unsettling tone for the issue's tales, including "The Stinger!" brought to life by writer Joe Gill and artist/inker Enrique Nieto. At 60 cents, this 1983 Charlton package delivers the kind of eerie, atmospheric horror storytelling the title built its reputation on.