TIAHBlog at 16 Presents 16 Covers -- Number Eleven: PHANTOM BLOT #8!

There were SEVEN issues of Gold Key's PHANTOM BLOT comic series.  

But, you're probably asking yourself, why do I see EIGHT comics in this photo of Joe's PHANTOM BLOT series collection?  

True, there were only SEVEN issues of the original run (1964-1966).  Although PHANTOM BLOT #7 (Gold Key Comics: Cover Date: November, 1966)...

...Was indeed the final issue though, back in those "information-less days", I would not *definitively* know that for YEARS - finally confirming the sad news upon purchasing my first OVERSTREET COMIC BOOK PRICE GUIDE in the early 1980s!  

So, completely unaware of the (unknowable) facts, I would search fruitlessly for PHANTOM BLOT #8 and any issues beyond for the later part of 1966, all of 1967 - and even into early 1968, before finally giving up on what was one of my most favorite comic book titles!

But, oh yes... that issue in the lower right corner of the photo... 

...If you spent 1966-1968 on the "Blotty-Grail Trail" of PHANTOM BLOT #8, and never found it, then why is there an EIGHTH issue in the photo?  

Because the issue that would SERVE AS PHANTOM BLOT #8 would be released in 2018 (!) as WALT DISNEY SHOWCASE #6 (IDW, Cover Date: June, 2018)... and (oddly, but appropriately) it would be the LAST ISSUE of that series, just as PHANTOM BLOT #7 was to its own run.  

And, in one of those AMAZING THINGS that happen every so often, your humble Blogger had a major hand in the creative effort of the comic that would more-or-less "BECOME" the one I'd been seeking for the PREVIOUS FIFTY-TWO YEARS!   

You can read more about that, and a very special personal contribution to that issue, HERE!  

In fact, my copy of IDW's WALT DISNEY SHOWCASE #6 even sported the Gold Key PHANTOM BLOT logo below it's own series logo!  

The story itself, fit in so perfectly with the stories that (mostly) Bob Ogle created for the original PHANTOM BLOT title that it was a natural for it to become the de-facto PHANTOM BLOT #8!  

...And in MY collection, that's exactly what it's labeled as!  

...With just a small, but well-placed, surface modification to the comic-bag involving a Sharpie and an Avery Stick-On Label!  

Therefore, and in honor of a fifty-two year quest finally fulfilled, COVER NUMBER ELEVEN of our Sweet Sixteen is the comic that "never was" but, to me, "will always be" PHANTOM BLOT #8!  

 A shining example of what can happen... "When You Wish Upon a Blot!"