"I am Doctor Death! And through my eyes you shall see horror that defines comprehension!" And so begins the introduction to the first issue of Fawcett's interestingly-titled THIS MAGAZINE IS HAUNTED.
With superhero comics on the wane, artist Sheldon Moldoff saw the writing on the wall and began soliciting publishers for his ideas for horror comics. In an article for Roy Thomas' ALTER EGO #3 (TwoMorrows, Spring 2000), he explained: "I had shown This Magazine Is Haunted and Tales of the Supernatural to Will Lieberson [of Fawcett Comics] before I showed them to Bill Gaines, because I trusted Will Lieberson much more. He showed it to the big guys at Fawcett, and he said, 'Shelly, Fawcett doesn't want to get into horror now; they don't want to touch that'". Moldoff then took his package proposal to Bill Gaines who accepted it and had Moldoff sign a contract to seal the deal. Moldoff's worst fear was realized when Gaines soon retracted his offer and EC's lawyer, Dave Alterbaum, threatened to blacklist Moldoff if he brought suit against EC.
Not to be denied, he took his comics package back to Fawcett. He recalled: "Will Lieberson said, 'Let me bring it back to Fawcett again, and see if they'll take the title'. And so they did; they took This Magazine Is Haunted and Worlds of Fear and then Strange Suspense Stories. What they did was pay me $100 for the title, and give me as much work as I wanted, and I also did the covers." It is not known if opting for this agreement ended up paying better than his original proposal for royalties.
Perhaps as payback against Gaines, Moldoff created the character Doctor Death, who hosted each story in THIS MAGAZINE IS HAUNTED, much like The Old Witch and the other Ghoulunatics at EC.
Besides Moldoff's cover and story, this issue features art by George Evans who was just a few months away from his first work for EC (one wonders what Moldoff thought about that!). Bernard Baily, who created some of the most notorious covers of the Pre-Code era also has a story. Of further note is Charlotte Jetter's lettering for the story "Stand In For Death". At the time Jetter was married to Fawcett art editor Al Jetter. She had a long career and worked for a number of publishers including Marvel, DC, Charlton, Atlas/Seaboard and Warren.
THIS MAGAZINE IS HAUNTED ran for 14 issues, with cover dates from October 1951 until December 1963, at which time -- as a result of the restrictions caused by the Comics Code Authority -- exited the horror comics business and sold the title to Charlton, who ran it for seven more issues in 1954 without the CCA seal of approval.
THIS MAGAZINE IS HAUNTED
Vol. 1 No. 1
October 1951
Fawcett Publications Inc.
Executive Editor: Will Lieberson
Editor: Roy Ald
Art Editor: Al Jetter
Cover: Sheldon Moldoff
Pages: 36
Cover price: 10 cents
CONTENTS
"The Curse of Carnoc Castle"
Script: ?
Art: George Evans
"Stand In For Death"
Script: ?
Art: Bernard Baily
"The Coffin Maker!"
Script: ?
Art: Sheldon Moldoff
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