Uncanny Tales #4

This December 1952 Atlas horror anthology sets up a darkly comic scenario right on its cover: an unsuspecting couple — the woman in a red coat clutching an umbrella against the rain — knocks at a door, cheerfully announcing they've been "invited for dinner," while inside, a ghoulish host in a red suit beckons them in toward a bubbling cauldron surrounded by hunched, ghastly figures eagerly awaiting their meal. The grim punchline practically writes itself, and cover artists Carl Burgos and Sol Brodsky wring every drop of dread and black humor out of the scene. Inside, Stan Lee and Joe Maneely deliver stories including "Worse than Black Magic," promising the kind of shivery, twist-laden fun that made Uncanny Tales a staple of early-'50s horror comics.