Strange Suspense Stories #30

This Charlton anthology from 1956 promises exactly what its title delivers — a clutch of genuinely baffling tales wrapped in a cover that stops you cold. Bill Molno and Vince Alascia's cover scene drops two rattled men — an older fellow in suspenders leaning over a large ornate chest and a younger companion recoiling with a hushed "Oh… No!" — in a cobwebbed, cluttered space surrounded by stacked books and scattered objects, suggesting a discovery that clearly isn't going as hoped. With interior work by writer Joe Gill and artist Charles Nicholas, issue #30 is a fine snapshot of mid-fifties mystery comics doing what they did best: making the ordinary feel deeply unsettling.