Originally Published In Issue 59
Reprinted In Issue 118
First published back in June of 1973, Issue 59 of the ‘Pocket Chiller Library’ comic series was titled ‘Shadows Of The Night’. The comic was later reprinted under the same title within Issue 118.
During the 1970s the ‘Pocket Chiller Library’ was a pocket-sized mainstream horror comic which ran for a total of 137 issues between 1971 and 1977. Each month, two issues of the comic were published, amounting to a total of twenty-four issues of the comic published each year.
However, it should be noted that issue 83 and then from issue 86 onwards, the publishers started reprinting the earlier stories. Of these reprints, the first 29 reprints (issues 83 and then 86 – 113) retitled the story. As such, there were only ever a total of 84 unique stories within the series, despite there being more titles.
Unfortunately, each issue was undated, making it difficult to be sure of the date for first publication of each issue. However, it is widely understood the comics were monthly publications, with two publications released simultaneously each month, with the original stories running from January 1971. Therefore, the above date of publication is a relatively reasonable assumption.
Additionally, each issue was unfortunately uncredited to either the writer or the comic artist(s).
Peggy and Dan Billings had been married just six hours and planned to spend their honeymoon in Peggy’s old family house. However, as the night drew in and they went to retire to bed, Peggy became increasingly scared of her surroundings. There was something wrong with the house. Something that frightened her very core. Even Dan could feel it in the cold atmosphere of the old house.
Peggy had always been afraid of the attic. Though she hadn’t been near it for over fifteen years, it terrified her, but she couldn’t quite remember why. Nevertheless, that night Dan wakes to find Peggy missing from bed and instead lying petrified across the threshold of the attic.
In his haste for them to be gone from the attic which was upsetting Peggy so much, he failed to close to attic door. It was enough to allow the thing of dread that had dwelt there for the last fifteen years, to pass into the waiting house, taking an odour of evil and foetid decay with it.
A thing of rot and evil, which crept into Peggy’s mind. A malevolent presence that uncovered terrible memories that had been locked away within Peggy’s mind since she was a child.
Peggy now knew what it was that had been waiting for her all this time in the attic. An evil force, charged with hatred and a need for vengeance. It was her mother, and she wanted revenge…
DLS Review:
Oh, now this is what PCLs are all about! A properly downbeat horror story, with a sense of dread that permeates through each one of its grisly pages.
Essentially, we have the rotting dead spirit of the mother of this young newlywed woman, who’d been strangled to death in the attic of their home fifteen years ago. Murdered by her second husband over her precious jewels. Now this lingering evil spirit wants revenge, which it’s attempting to enact through poor innocent Peggy.
Of course, the spirit of Peggy’s late mother – Myra Kelslake – has gotten a tad confused over the course of the last fifteen years, whilst it’s been locked away in the attic. As such, it thinks equally innocent Dan is its murderous husband.
The result is a halfway house between an action-rich haunted house and a slasher, with Peggy forced to enact her dead mother’s revenge with a kitchen knife.
However, where the comic really excels is with the depiction of the rotting spirit. It’s a grisly, grotesque vision, with a face wrought with hatred. Every time this vile entity emerges, it floods the pages with its anger, at which point Myra goes into a half-asleep half-awake trance, before lunging at her beloved husband with a knife.
Honestly, it’s the illustrative artwork that really delivers the goods here. Not only is the undead Myra Kelslake depicted so chillingly well, but also the terrified expressions of Peggy are absolutely spot on too.
This one’s possibly up there with being in the top ten PCLs. As much as I love a cheesy, campy, over-the-top 1970s PCL comic, there’s still nothing quite like one that delivers the grit, gloom, and gristle of a properly dark comic story. And this story delivers that in abundance – thanks to nasty old Myra Kelslake and her incessant thirst for revenge!
The comic book runs for a total of 64 pages.
© DLS Reviews
