Eerie 60

Quite possibly Eerie's best issue ever. The cover is by Ken Kelly, featuring a woman embraced by a tentacled monster. Berni Wrightson contributes a cover on the back of the issue, featuring his interior story.

First is part one of a new series, 'Night of the Jackass', titled "24 Hours of Hell!" by Jose Ortiz (art, his Eerie debut) and Bruce Bezaire (story). A terrific, terrific serial, probably my favorite in Eerie after 'Apocalypse' which will soon appear as well. The story surrounds a drug which when taken causes a person to turn into a monster, but kills them after 24 hours. A group of poor old people head to a hotel, lock it up and take the drug, then go on a rampage, killing and raping everyone inside. A newlywed, Garson, witnesses his wife murdered by them, but is one of only two people to survive, the other being Bishop, a man who planned to kill himself but changed his mind when the jackassers when on their rampage. This series would take a few issues off before returning in issue 63.

Second is "Nightfall" by Berni Wrightson (art) and Bill Dubay (story). A young boy is deathly afraid of monsters who live in his room that come out whenever his parents leave him there alone. Each time they turn out the lights and leave the monsters come and try to take him away. His parents don't believe him but eventually decide to let him sleep with them after his bed is nearly taken out of the window.

"Exterminator One" is third, by Paul Neary (art) and Bill Dubay (story). Completely unrelated to the Exterminator story in issue 58, this story features a robot that used to be a man, who was jailed and given the opportunity to be let out if he becomes a robot assassin. In the future people are only allowed to have kids if they are genetically perfect and he committed the crime of having a kid anyway. It ends up that the planned victim of his is his own daughter. While he can't do it on his own, the computer overrides him and smuthers her to death with a pillow. After taking a few issues off, this storyline would continue in issue 63.

The finale of "Child" follows, titled "Childhood's End". Art is by Richard Corben and story is by Budd Lewis. As usual, this story is in color. For some reason the art on this segment looks rather mediocre compared to the first two segments. Child, alone once more, finds a shooting star which leaves a multi-colored spherical object behind. Child finds it and becomes convinced that this will make people love him. But when he hides it and heads off to find food, a boy arrives and steals it, only for it to explode, covering him with weird starfish like aliens. Child becomes upset upon realizing the boy stole his star and kidnaps the boy, planning to get revenge on him. A group of men chase him and fire upon him with shotguns. Child decides instead to forgive the boy and the aliens head onto him instead, killing him. Thus ends a pretty good series.

Another color story is next, "The Man Hunters" by Wally Wood (art) and Gerry Boudreau (story). Apparantly this is one of many Wood stories rewritten based on editor Bill Dubay's request. The story features a woman on a spaceship with two other men, searching for her husband, who had dissappeared months earlier. They arrive on a planet with a tentacled monster, who quickly kill the two men. The monster leads her to a city where it puts a helmet on her which causes her to discover that her husband crashed on this planet and was saved by the monsters, who switched his brain to one of them! She decides to stay on the planet with her husband in his new form.

Another new series is next, "The Unholy Creation" by Leopold Sanchez (art) and Steve Skeates (story). Another takeoff on the Frankenstein story, this features a man who is about to get married, but cheats on his fiance the night before the wedding. The next day he heads off to the wedding but on the way is beat up and brought to a doctor who transplants his brain into a monster. He takes revenge by killing the doctor and his assistant, but despairs at now being stuck in this form.

Last is "Interlude", part six of the Dr. Archeus series. Art is by Isidro Mones and story is by Gerry Boudreau. Jamaica contacts Sanford about finding where Archeus is, and they are able to break into his apartment and find his ordered list of victims. Archaeus meanwhile remembers that Jamaica is with Sanford, and plots to kill him. He hires a thug to capture Sanford and brings him to a church where he plans to drown him in holy water. Sanford escapes and knocks out the thug, but Archeus is able to kills him with a bow & arrow and hangs his corpse on a crucifix. Quite a shock to see the hero killed off; the series would continue with one final story in the next issue.