Strange Suspense Stories #49

This Charlton anthology from 1960 sets an unsettling mood right from the cover, where a hard-faced man in a fedora stares out from one panel, a rocket blazes skyward in another, and a terrified figure cries "no! no!" beneath a flying saucer in a third — together teasing the eerie premise of "Up into the Unknown." Matt Baker's pencils and Vince Colletta's inks give the multi-panel cover a crisp, cinematic tension that perfectly suits a mystery about one Bob Carson and whatever fate awaited him beyond the sky. With Joe Gill scripting, this 10-cent Charlton issue delivers the kind of cold-sweat sci-fi suspense the era did so well.