Thursday, August 14, 2008

Eerie 2


This is the first real issue of Eerie. It was intended to be the first issue, but when Warren realized that another company was attempting to use the name 'Eerie' prior to them, they rushed out a single 'ashcan' edition issue of Eerie containing three stories meant for Creepy to secure the copyright. A number of months later, the first real issue, this issue, came out. The cover is by Frank Frazetta featuring a wizard summoning monsters. Cousin Eerie and Uncle Creepy, drawn by Jack Davis are included as the frontis.

First is "Footsteps of Frankenstein" by Reed Crandall (art) and Archie Goodwin (story). A doctor heads to a town to visit an old friend, who the entire town hates. The friend is working on creating his own Frankenstein-like monster, which he plans to put his own brain into since he is so old. The doctor goes ahead and does it, and the friend plans to go on a rampage against the town. He is struck by lightning however, and turns into dust.

Second is "One for De-Money" by Angelo Torres (art) and E. Nelson Bridwell (story). A man discovers his rich old uncle summoning a demon, who is trapped in a pentagram drawn on the ground in chalk. The uncle demands the demon give him money, which he does. The nephew, upset at the way his uncle has treated him, kills him, then summons the demon so he can get even more money. However, having smudged off the chalk line when killing the uncle, the demon quickly kills him.

Third is "Eye of the Beholder" by Johnny Craig (art) and Archie Goodwin (story). A man becomes obsessed with bringing his dead wife back to life and finds a man who is able to do it. His wife returns exactly as she had before, but strange things start happening. The dog is frightened of her and dies of fright soon after. A man paid to deliver flowers to her runs off in terror. The man soon discovers the truth when he looks into a mirror, that she returned as a rotting corpse and she only appears normal when he looks at her.

Fourth is "Flame Fiend" by Gray Morrow (art) and Otto Binder (story). A man kills his business partner in a car explosion, but is visited by his ghost, in the guise of a humanoid flame monster soon after, who says he'll die by fire. The man avoids fire as much as he can, eventually heading to the woods during the winter, where he jumps into an ice-filled lake, causing him to die of a fever.

Fifth is "To Pay the Piper" by Eugene Colan (art, his Warren debut) and Larry Ivie (story). The story takes place in a town plagued by vampires. A piper offers to rid the town of the vampires by playing a song on his pipe in exchange for money. He does so and rids the town of vampires, but the town refuses to pay, so using his pipe he lures the children away, as in the classic Pied Piper story. Men wait for him in the woods however and kill him with arrows. They soon find however that he lured the children into wolfsbane, turning them all into werewolves!

Sixth is "Vision of Evil" by Alex Toth (art) and Archie Goodwin (story). The story features a rich man who becomes obsessed with the art of a madman living in an asylum. He heads to the asylum to see the artist, who is a usually comatose man except when he's painting. It soon becomes clear however that the monsters in his paintings are real, and they come for the rich man after he is featured in one of the madman's paintings.

Final story is "Ahead of the Game". The art is by Joe Orlando and Jerry Grandenetti (credited only to Orlando) and the story is by Archie Goodwin. It features a hunter who kills a white gorilla whose headless ghost continues to haunt him afterwards. Eventually he shows up for real and the hunter's head is cut off and put on a plaque!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi, I will be selling a copy of Eerie #2 and this is a fantastic description of the issue. May I copy and use this for my online listing, and citing you as the source? Thanks.