*Horror 1940-1959: L B Cole was one of the most famous of Golden/Atomic Age cover artists. He drew in a variety of genres, and was artistic director at Star, illustrating 95% of the company’s covers; his lurid, feverish style, almost hallucinogenic, graced horror, science-fiction, jungle and romance alike. Star took over the venerable title Blue Bolt in 1949 (previously it had been a classic anthology title starring the titular character, with much work by Simon & Kirby, Everett etc, lasting throughout the war years and beyond). By the time we got to the penultimate issue, #118, Blue Bolt himself was long gone and the emphasis of the series had changed to horror, according to the zeitgeist of the time. Indeed, the title was rebranded as Ghostly Weird Stories from #120 onwards. Contents include two stylish horror shorts by Jay Disbrow plus reprints of Fox science-fiction and jungle stories with horror overtones. But it’s the wonderful L B Cole cover for which this issue is prized. This is a very nice copy with excellent cover colour and gloss, tight and flat with staples firm at spine and centrefold and beautiful white to off-white supple pages. There is minimal wear around the lower staple and a tiny colour-breaking crease across the extreme of the right cover bottom corner. A soft crease of 5 cm length is at lower cover centre, but this only threatens to break colour for half its length with the light at a specific angle; this is a tough one to call. There is one further very faint soft crease up a couple of cms from the bottom edge, which does not break colour. Older than me, and has worn considerably better! High resolution images are available on request.
PICTURED: BLUE BOLT WEIRD TALES #118 VG/FN £540 SOLD