Number 1891: The terrible secret of the 2016 Presidential Election: The Phantom Fiend!

Now we know why the 2016 American election cycle has been so bizarre. At least one of the candidates has been possessed by a demon, the Phantom Fiend. We are warned by this story: The Phantom Fiend has inhabited Senator Phinley, leaving the real Senator Phinley’s consciousness in some old guy, who begs someone to believe he has been kicked out of his own body. The closing caption asks, “Who knows which humans are possessed by Phantom Fiends?” Well, we know at least one, or maybe two, on our television screens every night.

Unfortunately, exorcism won’t work...but voting will. (And having said that, I am not welcoming discussions in the comments on the current American political season, and I will endeavor not to mention it again.)

The story, originally published in Adventures Into the Unknown #44 (1953), is shown here in a black line reprint from an undated Australian comic book, Tales of Torment #1. The story is drawn by Maurice Gutwirth, although the Grand Comics Database hasn’t updated its listing of the artist as Paul Gattuso. There has been confusion over Gutwirth’s work, because it seems similar to the angular faces that Gattuso drew.

The above panel is taken from an Ace horror comic, Baffling Mysteries #24. It is identified by the GCD as Gutwirth. You can see the similarity in the faces

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