Tales of Horror #6
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeTales of Horror #6 is a solid artifact of the pre-Comics Code era, representing Toby/Minoan's contribution to the early-1950s horror boom at the precise moment the genre was under congressional and public scrutiny. The issue reportedly appeared — at page 161 — as a cited example in Fredric Wertham's 1954 anti-comics landmark Seduction of the Innocent, giving it an unusual documentary role in the culture-war battle that would ultimately force the Comics Code Authority into existence and reshape mainstream American comics for decades. Its anthology format, built around ironic-twist morality tales and grotesque supernatural imagery, typified the storytelling grammar of the era and demonstrates how smaller publishers like Toby were participating in — not merely imitating — the national horror-comics conversation dominated by EC.
In "The Treacherous Genie," a desperate man named Edgar Tilburt stumbles upon a curio shop where he’s offered a bottle containing a tiny, live Genie for $50 million—only to be tricked into buying it for five dollars. The shop owner, amused by his gullibility, watches as Edgar’s life spirals into chaos when the Genie, along with other legendary figures like Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, and Marie Antoinette, begins to exact a far more dangerous price than money.
In "The Weirdest Suicide Pact of All Times!" from Tales of Horror #6 (1953), a ghostly woman arrives at a prison to confront the warden, claiming she died in a pact with her husband—only to learn he didn’t die when she expected. Her eerie visit unravels a chilling mystery about time, death, and the final moments of a shared fate.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Toby Press, operating under its Minoan imprint (logo: a Minotaur head), entered the horror market after a cease-and-desist from EC Comics forced it to abandon a planned title called Tales of Terror. The retooled series, Tales of Horror, ran from June 1952 through October 1954 for 13 issues total, with issues #1–9 published under the Minoan imprint and issues #10–13 under the Toby name directly. Issue #6, dated August 1953 — its on-sale date confirmed in the Catalog of Copyright Entries, 1953 Periodicals — fell squarely in the series' middle run, with interior work handled by Mel Keefer and Jack Sparling, two journeyman artists who also worked on surrounding issues.
Trivia · 6 facts
- Published August 1953 by Toby Press under the Minoan imprint; on-sale date confirmed in the Catalog of Copyright Entries, 1953 Periodicals, page 152.
- Stories and art credited to Mel Keefer and Jack Sparling (per Grand Comics Database and MyComicShop).
- The issue has been identified (by MyComicShop and Goodreads collector records) as a possible cited example in Fredric Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent (1954), page 161 — the psychiatric polemic whose reception directly precipitated the formation of the Comics Code Authority.
- At least two stories from this issue were reprinted in reworked form by Eerie Publications: one in Tales of Voodoo v7#5 (September 1974) and another in Tales of Voodoo v7#6 (November 1974), with further reprintings in Horror Tales, Terror Tales, Terrors of Dracula, and Weird through the late 1970s.
- A story from this issue was later collected in IDW/Yoe Books' The Chilling Archives of Horror Comics! #20 — Haunted Love (February 2017).
- Tales of Horror as a series ran for 13 issues (1952–1954); Toby had originally attempted a horror title called Tales of Terror before EC Comics issued a cease-and-desist, making the retooled Tales of Horror the publisher's primary genre vehicle.
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Reprints
↩ Reprints The Purple Claw #2 (1953)
Reprinted in Tales of Voodoo #5 (1974), Tales of Voodoo #6 (1974), Web of Scares Special Collector's Edition #3 (2010), Haunted Love #1 (2016), Crypt of Horror #29 (2016), Pre-Code Classics: Tales of Horror #2 (2019)
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