Unusual Tales #19

Charlton's Unusual Tales #19 (November 1959) leads with "The Blotting Threat," and the cover — penciled by Matt Baker and inked by Vince Colletta — sets a wonderfully eerie tone: a man in a tan suit staggers back against a gnarled tree, recoiling in horror from a churning, dark supernatural mass that hovers menacingly between the bare branches. The cover copy asks whether the blot is "a figment of Elmo's imagination or stark reality," which is exactly the kind of question Charlton's anthology titles did so well at dangling in front of readers. At a dime a copy, this is a fine snapshot of late-1950s mystery-comics atmosphere.