Okay , in the middle of a line about SHOWCASE PRESENTS books , I said that there was an odd thing early in the run of GHOSTS that I hoped would turn up in the SP but I suppose wouldn't , as it was a text page oddity .
I don't think I ever explained it - The cat did it !!!!!!!!!!! - , so...........
Okay , this may have to be VERY CAREFULLY phrased by me...........
The eraly GHOSTS text page I recall was a strory setting forth speculation re: " What will happen to the United States President who is elected in 1980 ? Will he die in office , as JFK , FDR , WGH and so forth all going back to 1840 , for Presidents elected on the " 0 "-year/20-year-jump-forward-from 1840 , did ? " . This story sometimes , anyway , held that a Native American chief had placed a curse upon the Unites States for its breaking of treaties .
This was a speculation that was frequently made in tabloid-y/superstitious media in the 1960s and 70s , after JFK's assasination and , then , people noticing that every President ( well I said it . )...
This string was broken by Ronald Reagan leaving the Presidency after his two terms through the White House front door , and then George W. Bush doing likewise after his , in 1989 and 2009 respectively . I think , politics aside , we can all be glad about this !
So say we all !!!
I am really , really , not kidding , a GHOSTS tp really DID serve up this story which really WAS much bruited about in the Sixties/Seventies...Dammed ( !!!!!!! ) if I can remember wgere , though .
GHOSTS stuck with text page stories , not letters . Incidentally , I have read that Murray Boltinoff , GHOSTS editor , did a lot of scripting under pseudonyms in his titles .
Anyone know what names he used ?
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Being a bit of a history buff (I could name all the presidents in order when I was 9 but there were less back then :-O) so with the year that they were elected or re-elected:
1840--William Henry Harrison-caught pneumonia giving speeches in the rain-died one month into his term! Poor Ol'Tippicanoe!
1850--Zachary Taylor--the hiccup in the Twenty Year Curse but Rough N' Ready wasn't rough enough or ready to live out his term.
Actually since these two were generals who fought the Native Americans, the Curse makes some sense!
1860--John Wilkes Booth--shot by bad actor/traitor Abraham Lincoln *************Sorry, went to Earth-Three for a minute!
1860--Abraham Lincoln--our Martyred President whose death affected the path of this country in ways we still can't imagine!
1880--James Garfield--assassinated but he lingered in pain for months.
1900--William McKinley--assassinated but his end led to Theodore Roosevelt's rise to power! Bully!
1920--Warren G. Harding--amid scandal and corruption-died in the Roaring 20s before his wife could kill him!
1940--Franklin Delano Roosevelt--passed away at the beginning of his unprecedented fourth term but never saw the end of WWII!
1960--John Fitzgerald Kennedy--November 22, 1963-ask anyone over 55 and you can still hear the pain.
As for 1980's Ronald Reagan who did survive an assassination attempt and 2000's George W. Bush (no comment), all I can say is that there has been breakthroughs in medical technology.