MISTER MYSTERY #14 * CGC xx * Gory Heart-Cut-Out Panel

Heading:
Author:
Title: MISTER MYSTERY No. 14
Place Published:
Publisher:Stanley Morse [Indicia: Aragon Magazines, Inc.]
Date Published: November, 1953
Description:

CGC certified: VG+ (4.5). Off-white to white pages. Cover: Bernard Baily. Art: Tom Feelings, Eugene E. Hughes?, Ellis Eringer, Hy Flieshman?, Charles Stern?, Al Trapani. GPAnalysis: Last recorded 3.5 sale: $336 (Aug. 2019). Most recent sale in any grade: $150 for a 1.8 copy (March 2021).

No re-Morse: Publisher Stanley Morse, an avaricious coin-cadger who admitted taking no pride in the quality of his product, pitched his putrid picture-books to kids like a farmer slopping hogs. Morse summed up his publishing ethos in David Hadju's The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How it Changed America: "You did what you had to do — what moved 'em off the racks."

In this ish, a sleazy surgeon seduces his nurse and gets his heart hacked out with a scalpel by his wife. In another nauseating yarn, a sea monster digests sailors alive ("I was horrified at the BODIES I saw... People whose FLESH was MOSTLY GONE, burned off in chunks as though they had been soaked in acid"). The only ray of hope comes from an ad promising to cure anxious readers of their bedwetting habits ("Why suffer the mortification of foul-smelling bedrooms?").

A limited edition of 150 softcover and 15 hardcover catalogues is available. 400 lots, fully illustrated. Fun reference, great keepsake. Softcover $30, deluxe hardcover with dust jacket and limitation plate $200. Ten of the 15 hardcovers are pre-ordered and the rest will go quickly, so reserve yours now. To order, contact ivan@pbagalleries.com.

Consignments welcome for PBA's December 2021 Comic Book sale. Top prices for Pre-Code Horror, Golden Age, Silver Age, original art and ephemera. Send inquiries to ivan@pbagalleries.com.