I think a great sampler of pre-code comics is Michael T. Gilbert's collection of reprints in
MR MONSTER SUPER-DUPER SPECIAL issues.
Across 8 issues, he gives a sampling of (1) 3-D horror comics, (2) horror stories by Wolverton, Grandenetti and Evans, (3 and 4) "TRUE CRIME" and drug stories, (5) 50's S-F and flying saucers by Bob Powell, (6 and 7) lurid horror, commies, and sexual innuendo stories, (8) a collection of Basil Wolverton S-F stories with a horror edge to them.
Of them all, I think issue 8 is my favorite. Closely followed by issues 1 and 2. Michael T. Gilbert clearly loves this era, and that love comes out in the editorial text pages accompanying these stories, and in the framing sequences he wrote and illustrated for each issue. As does his 10-issue run of
MR MONSTER in his regular series, that this collection of specials is an outgrowth of.
And in subsequent revivals and specials over the last few decades.
