Eerie 39

Here's issue 39 of Eerie, from April 1972. The cover is by Ken Kelly. featuring the interior tale, 'The Disenfranchised'. The frontis for this issue is "Eerie's Monster Gallery: The Mysterious Men in Black!" by Richard Brassford (art) and Doug Moench (story).

Up first is a terrific story, "Head Shop" by Jose Bea (art) and Don Glut (story). A man passing a hat shop one day finds a head dummy that looks almost real. The man becomes obsessed with the head and passes it each day as it goes to work. After a while passes though he notices the head decomposing. The man tries to get himself to stop looking, but he can't control himself and the head gets worse and worse looking. Eventually he confronts the owner of the shop, who hadn't realized that the head was rotting and replaces it by chopping off our protagonist's head.

Up next is "Just Passing Through" by Auraleon (art) and Steve Skeates (story). The story features a gigantic man whose discovered in the hills one day. The giant slowly shrinks until he becomes the size of a normal person and joins society. While there he meets a woman and after having sex he leaves, telling her their child will leave her someday. The man dissappears into the mountains, still shrinking. Years later the son finds himself shrinking too.

Third is "The Disenfranchised" by Tom Sutton (art) and J.R. Cochran (story), who was Associate Editor at the time. The story features a boy whose permanently scarred after his father's butcher shop is closed down, his father dies, and he is evicted from his home. The boy wanders the streets with a huge grin on his face, carrying a cleaver with him that has replaced one of his hands.

The first of a 12 part series "Dax the Warrior" is fourth, a series I already talked about briefly with Eerie #46. This story features Dax meeting a woman, Freya, who is captured by a winged demon. Dax fights the demon and is able to rescue her, but her body becomes ravaged with leprosy. As usual for this series, a lot of terrific, exotic art here.

This issue's weakest effort is "Yesterday is the Day Before Tomorrow" by Dave Cockrum (art) and Doug Moench (story). A thief living in an advanced society steals a time machine and goes 30 years in the future so he can steal invention blueprints and pattent them in his own time. The only problem is the blueprints he steals end up being from his future self, whom he murders, not knowing the truth until he returns to his own time.

Last is "Ortaa!" by Jaime Brocal (art) and Kevin Pagan (story). An archaeologist studying the origin of the Aztecs keeps having horrific dreams about a sacrifical ritual and keeps talking about a being called 'Ortaa'. Heading into some ruins, he encounters Ortaa, a giant tentacled heart which he is able to kill. 'Ortaa' representing his own heart however, he passes away after defeating it.

Overall a very good issue, with "Head Shop" and "The Disenfranchised" being the best.