THE UNSEEN NO. 5

Beginning in the 1940's as Nedor (owned by Ned Pines), Standard Comics' horror line came late to the show with three titles: ADVENTURES INTO DARKNESS, OUT OF THE SHADOWS and THE UNSEEN. The best part of these are their covers, as the stories were middle-of-the road and they never took the plunge into outright gore and grue, preferring to err on the side of "mystery" instead.

Nevertheless, many stories feature some fine artists as seen here in the first of their titles, THE UNSEEN, with work by Alex Toth, Mike Peppe, Jerry Grandenetti and Ross Andru. It is also likely that Andru drew the cover, although it has as yet to be confirmed.

Although the cover indicates issue #5, it's actually the first issue. Comic publishers used the idea to trick distributors into thinking that a certain title already had decent sales, enough to last in this case, through four previous issues. They also did this to dodge paying the postal service a fee for registering a new title -- that is, until they got caught!

Be sure to check out the craziest story of the issue, "The Hungry Lodger", illustrated by Jerry Grandenetti.

THE UNSEEN

Vol. 1 No. 5 (First issue)

June 1952

Standard Comics

Editor: ?

Cover: Ross Andru?

Pages: 36

Cover price: 10 cents

CONTENTS

"The Blood Money of Galloping Chad Burgess"

Script: ?

Art: Alex Toth; Mike Peppe

"Shadows in Pawn"

Script: ?

Art: Abe Simon?

"The Hungry Lodger"

Script: ?

Art: Jerry Grandenetti

"The Nine Horrors"

Script: Ross Andru