« Don’t pay the ferryman!
Don’t even fix a price!
Don’t pay the ferryman… until he gets you
to the other side. » — Christopher John Davison
Grimm’s Ghost Stories (60 issues, 1972-1982, Gold Key/Whitman) is a title I’ve been, in my usual fashion, lazily collecting for decades. I’ve always found in the Gold Key ambiance a soothing respite from the obsessive continuity and slam bam histrionics of DC and (the chief offender) Marvel.
While writer Arnold Drake‘s numerous credits at DC (and, to a lesser degree, Marvel) are well documented, his passage at Western/Gold Key in the mid-to-late 1970s is unjustly shrouded in obscurity. Let’s just say he — along with his young colleague Freff — brought complexity, warmth and wit to the publisher’s frankly formulaic fare.
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I love the well-developed characters… despite the tale’s brevity. The willful stepson whose only sin is that of being a free thinker; the grave-robbers who can keep their wits about them in all circumstances; and the pragmatic miser’s spectre who’ll trade one act of revenge for another in a pinch.
I’ve already expounded on the merits of Frank Bolle (1924-2020); for more of the tawdry details, have a look at The Truth About UFOs: The Hoaxmaster Knows — and Tells All!
-RG
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