Dark Shadows #1 (October 1957) is the debut of a short-lived horror-suspense anthology published by Ajax-Farrell (under its Steinway Comic Pub. Inc. indicia imprint). Not to be confused with the famous Dark Shadows of the Gold Key/TV era a decade later, this obscure title belongs to the late-1950s tail end of the pre-Code horror tradition — a collection of standalone macabre and twist-ending shock tales of the kind that had thrived before the 1954 Comics Code clamped down on the genre.

The book is a product of Robert W. Farrell's budget Ajax-Farrell operation, known for its heavy-lined house style and for filling its anthologies with eerie, often lurid short stories. Dark Shadows ran just three issues (October 1957 – May 1958) before folding — a typical fate for the small horror titles of the period as the genre struggled under post-Code restrictions.

For collectors and horror-comics historians today, Dark Shadows (1957) is a scarce curiosity: a late, independent attempt at supernatural suspense, valued precisely because it is easily confused with — but entirely unrelated to — the iconic Gold Key franchise. Freely readable through public-domain archives, it offers an accessible look at the dying days of Golden Age horror comics.