Educational comics: 1973 issue of DC's Weird Mystery Tales

[Old man voice] Back in my day, kids didn't have iPads or Playstations or the iPhone Xs Max to amuse themselves, so sometimes they just sat beside a tree or got under the covers and read educational comic books. Also cool: A comic book cost a quarter or less, compared to $1,100 for the iPhone Xs Max. Can you imagine Marcia Brady asking her dad for an $1,100 phone? I mean, Mike Brady is a guy who wanted to make his kids pay for their own calls from within the house! But I digress...

This is the June-July 1973 issue of DC's short-lived Weird Mystery Tales. On the cover, the kids and their dog have wandered too close to a haunted house, and now the kids have to hide from a skeletal spectre while the dog bravely attempts to fend it off. The educational lessons here are clear: (1) If more adults would live in creaky old mansions, then their kids wouldn't have to seek them out; and (2) always take a dog when you're exploring or breaking into haunted houses. Does an iPad give you that kind of insight?

Here is some educational dialogue from within this issue of Weird Mystery Tales:

• Don't touch that alarm button!
• Don't be a fool, Harper! You haven't got a chance! That's pure uranium in that container!
• I'll tell yuh whut happened! This ol' witch done axed Joshua to death!
• The sucker's working late! Busy little beaver ... must be loaded with cash!
• Gnat Norbet ... you are a disgrace to our society. A two-time loser ... I sentence you to 10 years in prison.
• I can get out of this prison any time I want!
• Keep your voice down! I'm not talking about a jailbreak! On one of the shelves in the library is book on ancient and forbidden secrets...
• Not only can I travel through the air ... but I can enter the body of anyone of my choosing...
• Entering someone else's body can be a very risky business! If a body were to die while I was inhabiting it, I'd die also! That's the law of the astral plane.
• You weren't lying — this book is fantastic!

A final good lesson for this Halloween: Don't mess with the dead.