A GHOST FROM THE PAST...

Art by Ernie Colon, written by Michael Fleisher

Way back in 1974/'75, the newly launched ATLAS COMICS released a plethora of titles to compete with the company that first bore its name - MARVEL. When MARTIN GOODMAN sold MARVEL COMICS in 1972, he anticipated that his son, CHIP, would be given the role of publisher - but he was passed over in favour of STAN LEE. So, in what many people saw as an act of revenge, Goodman Senior revived Marvel's previous name (after TIMELY) and launched an all-out assault on the comics market.

Sadly it was short-lived, but one of the titles which I particularly enjoyed was THE GRIM GHOST, about a hanged eighteenth century highwayman
(Matthew Dunsinane) who makes a pact with the Devil and returns to 20th century Earth to despatch evil-doers to his new master's domain.

Art by Ernie Colon, written by Michael Fleisher

I only ever bought
two issues before it disappeared from the face of comic-racks everywhere, and some months after buying them I passed them on to one of my friends, JOE BEATTIE.

Cut to nearly thirty-five years later, when afore-said friend Joe visits me one night with a bag of comics. "Here," he says, I thought you might like these back." Amongst the pile is - yup, you guessed it - GRIM GHOST #s 1 & 2. Now, anyone who has ever re-acquired a replacement comic from years before knows the feeling that accompanies the achievement. The replacement comic, in some mysterious, mystical, magical way, actually becomes the very one which was lost, thrown out, or given away years before.

Art by Ernie Colon, written by Tony Isabella

Imagine then, if possible, how this feeling is magnified when one manages to obtain the ACTUAL, ORIGINAL issue that one had from the dim and distant days of one's teenage years. It's a sensation that is almost impossible to describe. It wasn't long after this that I discovered that there had only ever been three issues of The Grim Ghost, and this missing issue I managed to obtain - quite by chance - at a Glasgow comic mart recently for a mere two quid.

It may have taken me thirty-five years, but I finally managed to complete the set. Ah, the sense of accomplishment that fills my soul.

However, there's more: not long after re-reading the comics in sequence and lamenting the fact that the title didn't have a longer run, I learned that ol' Ghosty is due for a revival. What's the old saying? "All things come to he who waits." Let's hope the new series (if it takes off) is as entertaining as the short-lived original run.

(Little did I realize when I first bought issues 1 & 2 that, fifteen or twenty years later, I'd be lettering writer Michael Fleisher's ROGUE TROOPER strips for 2000 AD. Talk about fate, eh?)

Art by Qing Ming Pui