Hallowe’en Countdown VIII, Day 6

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« Every poem should remind the reader that they are going to die. » — Edgar Allan Poe

Ah, mixing fact with fiction — such an honoured tradition. In the mid-1970s, DC editor Murray Boltinoff (Ghosts, The Unexpected, The Witching Hour, Teen Titans, The Brave & the Bold) hit upon the notion of featuring historic writers encountering in daily life the supernatural object of their eventual inspiration.

Last year, I featured Bram Stoker‘s visit with a certain undead personage, The Most Fearful Villain of the Supernatural.

The formula was tweaked a bit for the Edgar Poe entry, in that the tale opens after Poe’s burial, and the late writer is not the protagonist. Read on!

“3 Corpses on a Rope“, written by Carl Wessler and illustrated by Lee Elias, originally appeared in Ghosts no. 43 (Oct. 1975, DC).

If you ask me, despite his evident illustrative gift, Elias’ depiction of the revenant ends up looking more like Poe’s fellow Baltimorean John Astin, whom I envision starring in a one-man show entitled ‘An Evening With Edgar Allan Poe‘.

-RG

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