Shadows from Beyond #50 [1966]

I've been buying some old Charlton books lately, and was looking on-line at some of the covers so I know what to look for in terms of Ditko stories I don't already have, and I was struck by how good some of the images on books with Ditko covers only are, even though my intent was to identify them so I know to avoid buying them for now in favour of books with Ditko interior art. So I'm going to run a bunch of them here for the next little bit. Scans are from various on-line sources (the GCD (especially this sub-site), various vendor/auction sites, etc.) so quality will vary.



Charlton being Charlton, #50 is the only issue of this title, continuing the numbering from UNUSUAL TALES, while BLUE BEETLE also continued the numbering from UNUSUAL TALES. Oh, Charlton, how at home you'd be in this modern era of backwards numbering, "#0", "#1/2", etc. Anyway, Ditko had been back on Captain Atom for a little while when this came out, and it's an excellent little example of his more playful, design oriented stylings. It might have been better without those little typeset labels. Not sure if Ditko did those or it was someone at Charlton. He did sometimes use that kind of labelling in his fanzine/small-press work, but usually more meaningful and better designed. The cover ran without them, but with an equally obtrusive UPC code, on GHOST MANOR #75 [1984].