Monday, October 17, 2011

Reading Room: ONE-SHOT HEROES SpookMan

Before continuing with more Frankenstein fun, let's look a character who only appeared once...
...but bears some uncanny similarities to a couple of later (and more famous) characters!
As we said, SpookMan appeared only once, in Charlton Premiere #1 (1967), written and illustrated by Pat Boyette, a writer/artist with a distinctive style and almost 900 stories to his credit from 1966 to 1998, mostly at Charlton Comics, which explains why most fans today are unaware of him, except as the creator of The PeaceMaker, now owned by DC Comics. and the inspiration for The Comedian in Watchmen!
As to Spookman's similarities to other characters, let's see...
Art/antiques dealer with a white streak in his hair who turns into a demonic figure (1972)...
Jason Blood aka The Demon by Jack Kirby
Supernatural figure garbed in Puritan/colonial garb operating in the present (1975)...
Matthew Dunsinane aka The Grim Ghost by Ernie Colon
And, both of them are currently being published!

In addition, the character was initially called SandMan, but both Marvel and DC had (non-supernatural) characters with that name, so...the name was changed before publication to the extremely-odd and not very accurate SpookMan.
A sorta-supernatural Sandman would come along in 1974...
..and finally, a really-unearthly Sandman debuted in 1989!
...and that's a story for another time...like next Halloween!

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