Scary Tales #12 [1978]

SCARY TALES #12 [1978] from Charlton included the 10-page Ditko illustrated story "The Drowned Girl". This is one of the last Ditko stories from this run at Charlton, just a few more before the company would go all-reprint for several years. As you can probably tell by the scans, their printing presses were ready to give up long before the rest of the company was.

This story begins with Bently Cranford informing his summer fling Maryann that their relationship was finished, as he was returning home to marry his rich girlfriend.  When Maryann doesn't take that well, Cranford strangles her and throws her overboard.  That's never a good idea in a horror comic, and soon he finds himself haunted by Maryann's ghost when he returns home, straining his relationship with his fiancée until he's compelled to return to the scene of the crime.

If you can get past the printing, it's a pretty decent effort by Ditko, especially some of the slightly off-beat angles in the underwater scenes.  I also really liked some of the effects of the boat in stormy seas towards the end of the story.

This story was reprinted a few years later in Charlton's HAUNTED #65 [1983].