Happy $#!@% Halloween!

The good folks at Robot 6 are posting three articles this weekend entitled, "What comic scared the $#!@% out of you?" They were kind enough to ask me to contribute. I thought it would be fun to also post my answer here, along with pictures..!

When I was a kid, my older brother brought home an old, beat up copy of Ripley’s Believe It or Not #25.


I don’t know where he got it. The cover was a painting of “Spring-Heel Jack”. As far as I remember, I had never seen a comic with a painted cover. It hit me as something I might see in a grade school history book, which seemed to validate Jack’s possible existence.

The issue contained several stories, including one with a scary harpy/bat/witch...


...but Spring-Heel Jack had the most effect on me. The story contained only mystifying incidents with no real wrap-up. Plus, he apparently didn’t wear pants.


I found it all terrifying, and I couldn’t help but imagine him jumping over tombstones whenever I was in a cemetery. Brrrrr.