House of Mystery #283

DC's long-running anthology of the eerie and uncanny, House of Mystery #283 (1980) features a cover by Joe Kubert that sets the tone perfectly: a wide-eyed, balding man in a pinstripe suit recoils at his desk as enormous insects — a giant wasp, a black beetle, and others — close in around him, the tagline promising that "…the Bugs Shall Inherit the Earth!" Inside, Sheldon Mayer's writing teams with Romeo Tanghal's art for a story cheekily titled "One Last Beautiful Swindle!" The whole package is a fine example of DC's horror anthology line doing what it did best in 1980 — mixing dread with a wry, unsettling sense of humor.