House of Secrets #88

House of Secrets #88 (On Sale: August 4, 1970) has a spectacular cover by Neal Adams in wash. DC was about to make a move into the Gothic Romance books and this beautiful cover is almost a test drive of that concept.

The insides are not nearly as pretty as the outsides, but we begin with "The Morning Ghost" by Marv Wolfman, Dick Dillin and Frank Giacoia. In this 11-page tale a man meets a woman on the run from the ghosts of her dead family who want her to join them. He tries to convince her there are no ghosts by bringing her back to the house where they died in a fire, but she reveals to him that there were no survivors and she too is a ghost. He admits to her that he is one too and asks her to join him instead of her evil family.

Neal Adams' original painting for this issue's cover.

That is followed by "Eyesore!" by Gerry Conway and Bill Draut. A blind store owner begins to suspect an acquaintance of wanting to kill him and take over the business, so when the man tells him that he's got something for him in the closet, the blind man sneaks up behind him and kills him by striking him with his cane. The blind man hears sounds like something moving and thinks perhaps the man isn't dead and is coming for revenge. He tries to hide upstairs but he still hears the padding and tapping coming closer and becomes so terrified that his heart gives out. The police are puzzled to find the dead man downstairs and the blind man dead upstairs with a seeing eye dog sitting by the body with the blind man's cane in its mouth. Reminds me of the lines from that Buffalo Springfield song, "Paranoia strikes deep. Into you life it will creep."

The entire book was reprinted in Showcase Presents: The House of Secrets Vol. 1 TPB.

Edited by Dick Giordano.