when kindness ensnares me i'll chew off my foot
and cauterize with searing cruelty
i caught her seer's eyes
cruelly
they prophesied my grief
and submission conciliated
character is water but i am a whirlpool
destiny is a sober drunk
a recidivist nonce
a poisoned monk
old stallions once again enslaved
when labels and love inveigle
with loving fables of bridges unburnt
and lessons unlearnt
i slip once more away

Most people have encountered The Addams Family and The Munsters, and quite a few can identify The Gruesomes. Few recognize Mr. and Mrs. J. Evil Scientist. And this seems just a trifle unfair, because they came first.

From a certain point of view.

The Munsters took their cue from classic Monster Movies produced by Universal Studios back in the 1930s. In that same era, The New Yorker began to publish…

If we were listing this by the name of the comic, we'd call it Detective Comics #408. But we're listing it by the name that got me to beg my mom to buy the book all those years ago. We're listing it by the name that thousands of comics fans still know it by. It's The House that Haunted Batman. 

So let's say you are a youth in 1971, and you come across this comic on the spinner rack in your friendly neighborhood Safeway. What's it look like? 

Below the…