The Spirit's Casebook of True Haunted Houses & Ghosts

It's a spooky and chilly evening, and tonight I'm reading The Spirit's Casebook of True Haunted Houses & Ghosts, a 1976 collection of "true" ghost stories, heavily illustrated with the art of Will Eisner and narrated by his most famous creation: The Spirit:



Yes, long before Mike Ploog or Darwyn Cooke got their mitts on him, Mister Denny Colt was moonlighting as a Rod Serling-esque horror host. Minus Crypt-Keeper puns, the Spirit is actually a pretty good fit with these moody, spooky stories, and even if you don't buy the supernatural explanation for the stories (most of them are documented with "evidence" from no-name magazines like "The Spiritual Magazine" and "The Journal of Psychical Research" and "Newsweek") Eisner's line artwork is still gorgeous and it's fun to see The Spirit shrugging away each story to say "Heck if I know what happened." Here's one of the 22 stories contained in the book, "The Barbados Ghost":













Bwah! That was sure scary, wasn't it, kids? Did you see those coffins flying right off the page at you? Oh wait, sorry, the book isn't in 3-D. Anyway, I'm off to sleep with a big flashlight underneath my bed with the door locked and a chair wedged under the knob. If you think you can stand the fear, used copies of The Spirit's Casebook of True Haunted Houses & Ghosts are available for just a few bones. Check in with your local bookseller...he's dying to sell you a copy!