Mar 9, 2016 13:09:25 GMT -5 Arthur Gordon Scratch said:

Arthur, I am indebted to you. You've solved a great family mystery by posting this cover.

You see, my father was 10 years old when he read this comic, and it was the story "Close Shave" (on the spine) that captured his imagination. It was about an unassuming little nebbish who was married to a tyrannical shrew. She castigated him unceasingly for his shabby appearance, in particular his beard stubble, insisting that he discard his electric razor and shave with a blade. Again and again, she sent him back to the bathroom to remove the intolerable stubble. Ultimately, he removed all of his skin with a straight razor, emerging as a grinning skull to exclaim, "Is this close enough?"

My grandmother was a school teacher at a Catholic school, and so comic books, particularly horror comics, were immediately confiscated and consigned to the trash. Numerous beatings and Hail Marys presumably followed.

My father went on to play football in high school, reluctantly turn down a scholarship to Notre Dame, serve two tours in Vietnam, and return to start a family and carve out a life.

Twenty years ago, I broached the subject of comics with my Dad. He cared nothing for superheroes, Westerns, or Sci-Fi. The only comics that had ever interested him, he said, were horror comics, the ones his mother hated. He said he loved the ones where the mundane and banal trappings of everyday life suddenly turned bizarre and terrifying. He described the one story he remembered most vividly, about a little nebbish and his shrew of a wife who kept sending him back to the bathroom for a closer shave.

I've been searching for that story ever since. Thanks to you, he'll see it again this weekend for the first time in more than 60 years.