Unusual Tales #9

Charlton's anthology series promised "Extraordinary Stories Never Before Told," and issue #9 delivers that atmosphere in spades with Steve Ditko's atmospheric cover art. Two bundled-up figures — a wide-eyed woman in a decorative hood and a grizzled older man — stare in alarm at a wintry townscape where crimson-tinged snow swirls ominously through a dark sky, a lone figure visible on the street below. The haunting cover question — "What Was the Dread Secret Behind The Night of Red Snow?" — sets the mood perfectly for this 1957 collection of mysteries and strange tales from writers and artists including Joe Gill and Bill Molno.