House of Mystery #302

DC's long-running anthology of dread delivers another unsettling chapter in this March 1982 issue, its cover by Michael Wm. Kaluta setting an immediately unnerving tone. A pale, sharp-fanged vampire clutches a helpless victim in the foreground while ghostly circus performers — clowns and acrobats rendered in eerie blue — loom in the shadows behind a big-top wheel, all tied together by the chilling tagline "Death Stalks the Shadows of the Circus of Fear!" Inside, Bruce Jones scripts "Chapter Seven: Blood Ties!" with art and inks by Tom Sutton, promising the kind of atmospheric horror storytelling that made House of Mystery a cornerstone of early '80s DC anthology comics.