Heading:
Author:
Title: STRANGE FANTASY No. 9 * Black Cat Variant
Place Published:
Publisher:Ajax-Farrell [Indicia: Farrell Comics, Inc.]
Date Published: December, 1953
Description:

VG (4.0). Spine stress, crease to bottom right corner of front cover, spine ends nicked, crease and shallow chips to open edge of back cover, penciled reseller's price to back cover ("1.25"). Off-white pages. Cover: Unknown Iger Shop artist. Art: Lee Elias. "Black Cat" variant, with reprints culled from Harvey's Black Cat Comics #'s 12 and 15 bound under this Ajax-Farrell cover. GPAnalysis: No recorded sales of the "Black Cat" variant in this grade; a 4.0 of the regular version sold for $214 in May 2020; a 6.0 "Black Cat" variant sold for $250 in 2018.

Oddball mag with Harvey stories reprinted from various issues of Black Cat Comics bound under an Ajax-Farrell cover. Nobody knows why, exactly, but according to Heritage, "Rumor has it that the cover of the 'real' issue #9, published in 1953, was overprinted, and an unknown company used the extras to get rid of some remaindered Black Cats two years later." We're not sure how exactly that makes sense, as the Black Cat stories in this mag first appeared in two separate issues of Black Cat Comics, and were apparently never published in a standalone ish except for this franken-comic. And how would this mag have been remaindered in 1955, two years after the late 1953 cover date, when the Comics Code was in effect? It's nothing short of strange.

Consignments welcome for PBA's Fall 2022 Comic Book sale. Pre-Code Horror, Golden Age and Silver Age comics, original art, vintage comic-related photos and ephemera sought. Send inquiries to ivan@pbagalleries.com.