House of Mystery #285

Joe Kubert's cover for this October 1980 issue delivers an immediately unsettling image: a small child in a yellow dress, teddy bear at her side, stands transfixed before a doorway where a menacing, bald clown-like figure looms with arms outstretched, crackling lightning framing his sinister silhouette. The contrast between childhood innocence and that towering, malevolent presence makes for one of the more genuinely creepy covers DC's anthology horror line produced that year. Inside, Paul Kupperberg and E. R. Cruz deliver "Cold Storage" along with the promise of eight extra pages of shock and suspense.