Number 1052


Subhuman giants, ghouls, Bigfoot and Sasquatch...


...are all the same, or at least according to these two stories, both of which are about Bigfoot, under different names.

"Do They Exist?" is from Adventures Into the Unknown #137, 1962 (probably a reprint from an earlier issue with a different title), and "Return Of the Ghoul" comes to us via a reprint in IW's Daring Adventures #9, 1958. It was originally from Blue Bolt Weird Tales of Terror #115, and according to the GCD, was a sequel to "The Ghoul Of the North" from Avon's Eerie #15. Got all that? There will be a quiz.

The first story is drawn by Edmond Good, an artist we have featured here before, in Pappy's #985 and Pappy's #994. Jay Disbrow does the ghoul story. I believe he wrote it (he could be wordy, perhaps graduating from the Al Feldstein School of Comic Book Writing). His Bigfoot is more of a shape shifter than the traditional hairy giant of the woods. This is the first story I've shown by Disbrow.

Which reminds me. I sent my son a scan of the cover of the above book, showing Bigfoot in Pennsylvania. I sent it as a joke, telling him to "watch for Bigfoot in the woods when you drive through them." At the time he was commuting to college in Western PA via a two-lane road through a heavily wooded area. After I sent it he told me one morning in winter, very early in the morning, he saw a large, manlike shape between two trees just off the road, as if waiting to cross. I don't believe in Bigfoot, although a lot of people do. I don't think my son believes in Bigfoot, either, but he saw something, and his story gave me a shiver.