Welcome to the fifth year of Classic Creepy Comics where I talk about
horror comics from the pre-code days. Most of the books I'll be talking about
are public domain and available for free at
Comic Book+. You can
read them online or, if you create a free account, you can download them.
Baffling Mysteries was published mostly bi-monthly by Ace Magazines from November 1951 - October 1955 and ran for a total of 22 issues. The series starts with issue 5 having been under the title Indian Braves for the first four issues. I still haven't really looked into this weird practice of re-titling a book and keeping the numbering scheme.
One thing there's no shortage of on Baffling Mysteries covers is a damsel in distress!
Baffling Mysteries #7 came out in 1952, two years before The Creature from the
Black Lagoon. The cover may have some similarities but the story itself is
about an entire race of these weird bearded creatures that live underwater.
It's a fun story because although they live underwater, their lair is sort of
a giant air bubble that you can only get to by swimming through a
whirlpool.
Baffling's covers aren't quite as horrific or grotesque as some of the other
books I've mentioned over the years. Even though the interior features monster
or supernatural stories, the covers give more of a pulp adventure vibe.
As the series ran on, it would occasionally reprint a story from another book to fill out its page count. Issue 24 was one of the last pre-Code books Ace put out. Most of the issue was reprints with only one original story. The final two issues were made up entirely of reprints from other Ace books and some of the stories were retouched to comply with the new Comics Code Authority.
You can find the
complete run of Baffling Mysteries at Comic Book+.
Click the image to see the full list of Countdown to Halloween blogs!
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