House of Secrets #123
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeHouse of Secrets #123 is a representative artifact of DC's Bronze Age horror-anthology machine at full throttle — a two-story package that pairs veteran scripter John Albano with interior artist Leandro Sesarego alongside the inimitable Alex Toth illustrating a Michael Fleisher script, all under editor Joe Orlando's watchful hand. Toth's contribution alone gives the issue lasting historical weight: his economy of line and mastery of panel composition made every anthology assignment he touched a demonstration of visual storytelling at its most disciplined, and the Bronze Age DC horror titles were among his most prolific venues for that work. As part of the run collected in House of Secrets: The Bronze Age Omnibus Vol. 2, this issue has been recognized by DC itself as part of the essential continuity of the series that stretched from #112 to #154. The issue also exists in a Mark Jewelers insert variant, a production detail that documents DC's mid-1970s distribution to U.S. military personnel overseas — a small but historically interesting footnote to the Bronze Age periodical market.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
By September 1974, House of Secrets had been operating in its revived Bronze Age format since #81 (1969), repositioned by editor Joe Orlando — a veteran of EC Comics in the 1950s — as an edgier, host-driven horror anthology designed to compete with Warren Publishing's Creepy and Eerie while remaining within Comics Code constraints. Abel, the rotund, neurotic caretaker of the House, served as the ongoing framing host and counterpart to Cain over in House of Mystery. Issue #123 fell squarely in the middle of this run, with Orlando and assistant editor Paul Levitz overseeing a rotating stable of freelance writers and artists; the pairing of Fleisher with Toth on the second story reflects the series' consistent strategy of matching capable writers with the best available illustrators to elevate short-form genre work.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Cover date: September 1974; published by DC Comics under editor Joe Orlando with Paul Levitz as assistant editor.
- Cover art by Frank Robbins, depicting a melting ice cream figure — a direct visual tie to the lead story's Arthurian punchline.
- Contains two stories: 'A Fugitive Apparition,' written by John Albano and drawn by Leandro Sesarego; and 'A Connecticut Ice Cream Man in King Arthur's Court,' written by Michael Fleisher and drawn by Alex Toth (with lettering by Russell Carley).
- Abel, the ongoing host character of the Bronze Age House of Secrets revival (introduced in #81, 1969), appears as host framing device — no new character debuts occur in this issue.
- Alex Toth's interior art on the Fleisher story represents one of his many Bronze Age DC horror contributions; Toth was widely regarded among peers and successors as one of comics' most influential visual stylists of the era.
- A Mark Jewelers insert variant of this issue exists, produced for distribution to U.S. military personnel — a documented distribution variant across many mid-1970s DC titles.
- Content was reprinted internationally: in the French anthology Démon (Arédit-Artima, 1981) and the Norwegian Fantomet (Semic, 1988).
- The issue was collected domestically in House of Secrets: The Bronze Age Omnibus Vol. 2 (DC, 2019/2020), which gathers and restores issues #112–154 in a hardcover edition with a foreword by Sergio Aragonés.
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Reprints
Reprinted in Démon #16 (1981), Richard Dragon Combattant du Kung-Fu #11 (1981), Fantomet #9/1988 (1988), House of Secrets: The Bronze Age Omnibus #2 (2020), Horror #46, Horror #51, Relatos Fabulosos #181
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