Strange Suspense Stories #66

Charlton's Strange Suspense Stories #66 poses a genuinely unsettling question right on its cover: how does a man board a modern luxury liner — the S.S. Prince, sailing peacefully with 300 passengers in 1963 — only to find himself walking the plank off an old-fashioned sailing ship while pirates look on? The cover art by Bill Montes and Ernie Bache plays that impossible collision of eras beautifully, with the terrified man teetering over churning waves as the anachronistic pirate vessel looms large. Inside, Joe Gill's writing and the art team of Charles Nicholas and Vince Alascia deliver the kind of eerie, twist-driven tale that made Charlton's mystery anthologies such a reliable 12-cent thrill.