Dec 7th 2020 Advent Calendar

 A couple of little girls run frantically down a staircase to a dilapidated basement.

Ahead of them a dog barks its challenge at the figure standing in front of it-- 

That figure? A man in a smart suit dwarfed by the frame of a huge mirror whose reflection is revealed to be something quite dreadful-- a ghastly figure wearing rags, with wild hair and a sinister, almost skeletal face.

This is HOUSE OF SECRETS #85, the May 1970 edition of DC's Horror anthology. Or rather, one of their Horror Anthologies, because during this period of the Bronze age readers were spoilt for choice for this particular format of chilling publications. Neal Adams, who at this time was more often that not the cover artist for this title as well as HOUSE OF MYSTERY and THE WITCHING HOUR is the man responsible for this unsettling picture. As is customary with these covers, Adams loosely interprets the story  he is representing here, incorporating the usual terrified children as observers or participants in the action. Oddly the story the cover is based on features three boys, but Adams has chosen instead to portray two girls, whose pink dresses contrast nicely with the muted greys and greens of the rest of the picture.

Older readers might have found elements of this cover familiar when they first saw it on the spinner rack in the spring of 1970, since other comics had previously employed a fairly similar idea, including an earlier issue of HOUSE OF MYSTERY. The story itself owes a debt to Oscar Wilde's PORTRAIT OF DORIAN GRAY. Although Wilde's novel centres on a painting which ages rather than a mirror's reflection, the idea is basically the same as this image from the 1945 film version shows--

In the story the mirror is a portal to another dimension, "the realm beyond the mirror". In the tale's introduction Abel references ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS, but maybe writer Len Wein was equally influenced by a film like Jean Cocteau's classic ORPHEE in which the character of Death lures the protagonist through the mirror into the Underworld--

So what about some of the other comic covers which use the shock appearance of something unexpected in a mirror to hook in the reader? The afore-mentioned HOUSE OF MYSTERY #108 suggests the man in front of the mirror might actually be one of these "bizarre creatures"--

And this cover for STRANGE ADVENTURES #102 uses a similar idea--

The story's ending (spoiler alert!) is reminiscent of Atlas Comics' JOURNEY TO UNKNOWN WORLDS #33, the cover of which teases us with this horrific idea of a person being  trapped inside a mirror--

While LOIS LANE has a "mystic mirror" on the cover of #94, a portal to another dimension rather like the mirror in ORPHEE, and in its way just as sinister--

This wasn't the only time Lois encountered an unusual mirror as is evident by this eye-popping example, the cover of #5--

But one of the best uses of the troublesome reflection must be this one, from AQUAMAN #54, dated December 1970 by Nick Cardy. Unlike the other images above, it shares an aspect with the HOUSE OF SECRETS cover in that the protagonist is not looking at the mirror. Instead, Aquaman has obviously turned away from the mirror before being attacked by his reflection. Cardy effectively captures this moment of surprise. And perhaps the most disturbing element of this cover is that the threat is no longer behind the glass, it has crossed out of its own dimension into ours.

And that's exactly what the gruesome figure in the HOUSE OF SECRETS cover appears to be about to do-- his shaking hands appear to be about to reach out to silence the barking dog. And the real horror in the picture is in our imaginations as we wonder exactly what will happen to the little girls once he sees them too.

Day 6 can be found here--

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