Black Cat Mystery Number 31 Pre-code Harvey HORROR Comic Book from August 1951.
Black Cat Mystery volume one from PS Artbooks contains issues 30 – 34. This article covers pre-code Harvey horror comic book Black Cat Mystery Number 31 from August 1951.
Watch the original Black Cat Mystery #31 video.
Cover art by Al Avison, interior art by Rudy Palais, Manny Stallman, and others. Features the stories The Tapping Doom, The Sea Witch of Sandy Hook, Bloody Red Rose, and more.
Black Cat Mystery Vol. One now on sale.
Black Cat Mystery becomes a HORROR Comic
Issue number 31 of Black Cat Mystery from October of 1951 officially puts the comic book in the horror genre. As it says on the cover, “The strangest Tales of fear and Terror.” The cover art is attributed to Al Avison. Inside front cover has an advertisement for Harvey’s “War is Hell.” Grim true Tales of our fighting men! Blasting action! Blood and Guts!
The Black Cat speaks but there is no image of Black Cat anymore. They’re gradually erasing her from the book. Here is the text. “Well you lovers of Terror packed weird and exciting Adventure! The new all different black cat mystery Comics is just what you asked for. We are gratified by your response to this new thrill book! In this issue there appears especially written for those who can take it, stories of the unknown, of fear, of revenge, webbing the pages into a tight-knit of horror are strands of mystery and terror! You will be entertained by a witch that can command ghosts, a thousand-year-old monster, and a cane that glows in the night and lights the way for death! Before You impatiently turn to the first story, read some of the letters you our readers have sent.”
Letters to the Editor
These are letters to the editor of Black Cat Mystery apparently about the previous issue, number 30.
“Weird! The stories in Black Cat are so weird that way after I read them I can feel my spine tingle when I think of them. Your book is not just another horror book, it’s the best I’ve ever read! I can’t wait for it to come out!”
“Chair gripping! The New Black Cat is so full of mystery and adventure that reading it is a chair gripping experience!”
Contents of Black Cat Mystery #31
Table of contents in this issue of Black Cat Mystery #31 include Tapping Doom, The sea witch of Sandy Hook, Blood red rose, and The sleep walking killer.
Another classic advertisement. Valuable ballpoint pen personalized with your name inscribed in 22 karat gold, only 25 cents plus one rapper from Peter Paul’s Almond Joy or Mounds.” From 1951, it’s a candy bar that has endured.
We start off this issue with bloody red rose art by Rudy Palais. I love these Stark color separations and the two-tone coloring. Here is a one-page Horror Story called “The Thing.”
and a coupon for eight brand new Walt Disney comic books all for 15 cents and one Wheaties box top! Next up we have The Tapping Doom with art by Manny stallman. Once again, great colors on this and the reproductions by PS art books are really quite good.
The third story in Black Cat Mystery 31 is “The Sea Witch of Sandy Hook” with art by Rudy Palais. To finish it off, we have another tale rendered by Palais titled “The Sleepwalking Killer.”
Full page subscription ad for Black Cat Mystery Comics
To polish things off, we have a full page ad to subscribe to Black Cat mystery comics and we can see that black cat herself is still hanging on at least for one more ad.
“You’ll want to keep a complete set of my exciting magazines! Terror-packed, exciting, weird! Yes now you can join the roster of regular readers who have each issue of black cat mystery Comics sent to their homes as soon as it’s off the press! Each issue hits a new high and spine tingling suspense and high riding action! Special introductory offer: 12 issues for a dollar!”
On the back cover we’ve got a nice one-page ad featuring Phil Rizzuto for “Wheaties, The Breakfast of Champions.”
This concludes our look at Black Cat Mystery issue number 31. next time we’ll take a look at issues 32, 33, and 34 of this volume. Please bookmark ghostclinic.com for more pre-code horror comic book articles.
