Thanks to Facebook, I stumbled across a great website called The Charlton Story, devoted entirely to Charlton Comics. MyKal, the man behind the site, posts good quality scans from the Charlton classics, ranging from The Phantom to Career Girl Romance to Ghostly Haunts and Blue Beetle.
Some of you may remember that it was DC Comics acquiring a bunch of the Charlton characters that led to Watchmen — Alan Moore was going to tell the story using Blue Beetle (Nite Owl), Peacemaker (The Comedian), Captain Atom (Dr. Manhattan), Thunderbolt (Ozymandias), and The Question (Rorschach), but since a lot of them wouldn’t survive, Moore was asked to create original characters instead.
Head on over to The Charlton Story and dig on some terrific comics (I only wish comics were still this much fun).
Weirdly enough, I’ve just started picking up some of these. It’s a forgotten comic book universe. I’ll have to check this out.
I always loved the Charlton stuff. The Phantom was my favorite but I dug the horror titles and most of the other stuff, too. I need to get my hands on a stack of ‘em and spend a weekend reading.
Anything by Ditko is especially good. I re-read his run on Dr. Strange, Master of Black Magic (as he was originally called) and loved it.
Scary Tales!