First appearing in 1976 in the anthropomorphism title, Quack being published by Star*Reach, the initial 5 page story introduces us to The Wraith. As can be seen from the splash page above, there are certainly influences from Eisner (the logo looking very similar to how The Spirit logos were formed).

The Wraith (no other name revealed) is a writer of romance novels whilst solving crimes aided and abetted by Inspector Mulchberry and his neice, Ivory. Among the stories featured in the series are the transformation of people in the city to real animals (including The Wraith), and the appearance of Fear in the city! My favourite tale is Duck Death!, which involves the murder of several prominent ducks in the city (who all seem to resemble famous Disney characters, or a certain character created by Steve Gerber which started off the anomorphic craze in the 1970s) and also features an appearance by Stan Flea, a caricature of a certain marvelous comic book writer!

The series lasted throughout the six issue run of Quack in 1977. A new tale was printed in the one-shot Michael T. Gilbert's Strange Brew in 1983, which marked the last appearance of the character. By this time, Michael Gilbert had created the fantastic Mr Monster, a character which he still works on today.

In 1998, MU Press released a collection of all The Wraith stories. You can order a copy from Amazon by clicking here.