Page "Charlton Comics" Paragraph 9

The company began a wide expansion of its comics line, which would include notoriously gory horror comics ( the principal title being Steve Ditko's The Thing !).

In 1954-55, it acquired a stable of comic book properties from the defunct Superior Comics, Mainline Publications, St. John Publications, and most significantly, Fawcett Publications, which was shutting down its Fawcett Comics division.

Charlton continued publishing two of Fawcett's horror books — This Magazine Is Haunted and Strange Suspense Stories — initially using unpublished material from Fawcett's inventory.

Artistic chores were then handed to Ditko, whose moody, individualistic touch came to dominate Charlton's supernatural line.

Beset by the circulation slump that swept the industry towards the end of the 1950s, Haunted struggled for another two years, published bi-monthly until May 1958.

Strange Suspense Stories ran longer, lasting well into the 1960s before giving up the ghost in 1965.