Where Monsters Dwell #17

The resumption of the Cold War that began in February with the fascist putsch of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has tossed me off my game here. Normally on Friday I post on "Hippies vs. Punks." That hasn't happened since Valentine's Day. Last we heard from "Hippies vs. Punks," the Boulder, CO band Zephyr had recorded their debut LP in Los Angeles, a remarkable album that was nonetheless botched by producer and recording legend Bill Halvorsen. In part two, we were going to explore the victimization of Zephyr by another record industry giant, producer Eddie Kramer. For more than a month then we have been suspended between the summer of 1969 and the late summer/early fall of 1970, when Zephyr's second album, Going Back to Colorado (1971), was recorded at Jimi Hendrix's Electric Lady Studios during the time of his death.

Another regular feature of this page that has been put on the back burner because of the new Cold War is the project of working through issues of the Marvel Comics Bronze Age reprint series, Where Monsters Dwell.

Currently we are at Where Monsters Dwell #17 (September 1972). A thoroughly unremarkable collection of four stories -- though Steve Ditko's "The World Beyond" (scans three and four below), which is reprinted from Strange Tales #82 (March 1961), is worth checking out; Ditko captures the last gasps of the early 1960s post-war High Modernism better than anyone -- Where Monsters Dwell #17 is noteworthy for a nice Gil Kane original cover; also, two of the four stories -- "If the Coat Fits" and "The Hidden Vampires," both reprinted from Journey Into Mystery #11 (August 1953) -- are examples of pre-Comics Code Authority Marvel horror.

Below are scans of the cover and all the splash pages (as well as one beautiful interior page from Ditko's "The World Beyond'). All the stories in Where Monsters Dwell #17, probably compiled by Editor-in-Chief Roy Thomas, deal with disappearance.