Unusual Tales - The Heel And The Healer

"Unusual Tales", a series presenting Steve Ditko's comics from 1957 to 1959 that are in the public domain.

"The Heel And The Healer" is a 6-page story first published in Charlton's TALES OF THE MYSTERIOUS TRAVELER #7 [1958].  The Traveler narrates a brief parable about a snake-oil salesman down in Mexico trying to sell his phony cures when he runs into a real healer.

Entertaining enough story, but like a lot of these stories with hosts the more interesting thing is the variety of ways Ditko would draw the host.  I especially like the first image in this one, which has an interesting effect which I don't think Ditko used very often.

But before the story, some links:

Buy Ditko's creator-owned work

Read fascinating comic-book history in THE AVENGING MIND

Find out about the fanzine DITKOMANIA

New issue coming soon

Check out new and upcoming Ditko publications

Will the Shade reprint include the unpublished issue?  Your guess is as good as mine...

Download public domain comics, likely including the one this story is from

Scans in this series generally adapted to my personal tastes from those copies

Click to embiggen