Expert: Chris Brown - 10/2/2009

Question
QUESTION: I know this may be an extremely long-shot, but I have just about exhausted all options. I am searching for a horror-type comic from the 1970s that I had as a child - I don't know the name of the comic, but do remember that it had a skeleton (all you could see was the creepy skull and skeleton fingers) flying a WWII airplane (P-38) on the cover. If I recall correctly, it appeared as if it was supposed to be flying directly at you as if it was coming out of the comic...
If you, or someone you know, could point me in the right direction, I would greatly appreciate it.


ANSWER:
Hi Eric

I do not recognize the cover off the top of my head.  Are you able to narrow down the comic titles you would have been reading at that time?

The main horror comics would have been

1. the DC line, including House of Mystery, the Unexpected, and a few shorter lived titles.  Standard color comics.  Usually had drawn covers.

2. the Dell/Gold Key line, including the Twilight Zone, Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery.  Also standard color comics, but usually with painted covers rather than line-drawn covers.

3. Warren magazines, such as Creepy, Eerie, Vampirella.  Magazine-sized, black-and-white inside.

4. Then there were a number of other publishers who put out smaller numbers of horror comics during this period.  A few other publishers put out black-and-white magazines, for instance.  Marvel Comics put out some color horror comics, but most of their titles didn't last more than about 10 issues.

From your description, I'm guessing this was either a DC or a Dell/Gold Key title.  However, your memory is the best guide at this point.  Also, can you narrow down about what year or range of years you think it was published?

Let me know if you can provide more info and maybe we will be able to track it down.

Chris

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Chris,
The only thing I really remember about it was that it was a "ghost plane" - I would say that it would probably be around the late 1970's timeframe. I do seem to recall that it was standard comic sized, and if memory serves me correct then it was black and white on inside. Unfortunately, that's about all I can give...
Thank you!

Answer
Well, I looked around a little bit but didn't find anything that really seemed to match your description.  (If it was a standard-sized comic, by the way, it would have been color inside.  Only magazine-sized comics had black-and-white interiors.)

I came across something similar but with Nazi skeletons flying a German plane:

http://www.comics.org/issue/29090/cover/4/?style=default

You may want to look over the covers of Weird War Tales, which seems like a likely place to find the cover you are talking about, but honestly I didn't see anything else besides the one above.  You can check though by going to

www.comics.org

Then search by title name Weird War Tales and click on the Gallery view hypertext.

The comic you are imagining could conceivably have appeared on one of DC's many war titles, but this is really less likely as they rarely featured supernatural themes.

Good luck!

Chris