Sunday, September 7, 2008

Eerie 25


A whopping eight stories in this issue, six of them new. This issue features a cover by Jim Steranko, his sole one for Warren. The frontis is "Eerie's Monster Gallery: Vampire!" by Tony Williamsune (art) and Bill Parente (story).

Up first is "Isle of the Vrukolakas" by Ernie Colon (art) and Don Glut (story). A town is plagued by a vampire. Zorko, a sheep herder is convinced that the vampire is the corpse of a man recently brought to the town. They consult a priest, who says the vampire's body will not be decayed. They find the corpse of the man brought to the town, but it is completely decayed so they now have no clue who the vampire could be. Yet it ends up that he was the vampire after all as he had leprosy, and he comes to kill Zorko!

Next is "Mistake!" by Bill Black (art) and Buddy Saunders (story). A mob boss plans to hide from the law by faking his death in Italy. There, in his home town he bribes various people to fake his death, declare him dead, and bury him in a maesoleum in a coffin with air holes so he can live. When he awakens he tries to escape the graveyard, only for people to mistake him for a vampire and kill him!

Third is "Hijack to Horror" by Tony Williamsune (art) and R. Michael Rosen (story). This story features a group of vampire like creatures that hijack a plane and bring it to their new Transylvania where they plan on using the plane passengers to be a never ending supply of blood for them.

Fourth is "To Pay the Piper" by Eugene Colan (art) and Larry Ivie (story), originally from Eerie 2.. 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!

Fifth is "Southern Exposure" by Tom Sutton (art) and Bill Parente (story). This is the first part of a two part story that would be concluded in the next issue. A woman faints at a family party and an old woman who hasn't spoke in years says she must be destroyed. Her boyfriend refuses to do so, but at the end of the story, it is revealed that she is a vampire!

Sixth is "The Thing in the Cave" by Mike Royer (art) and R. Michael Rosen (story). Finally, a story not about vampires! A young man and his wife come to visit his parents. The man, who studies funguses, as investigating a mushroom that transforms anything that touches it into a monster! When he and his wife visit a cave and approach some, he turns into a monster and kills her, exactly what he had done to a friend when he was a kid. His mother meanwhile plans on cooking dinner with the mushrooms, unaware of their power.

Seventh is "House of Evil", with art by Jerry Grandenetti (uncredited) & Joe Orlando, and story by Archie Goodwin. This story is originally from Eerie 4. A man comes to a large house where his brother lived but finds only a tape recording there, telling him of how he came to the house, which has an evil past, for inspiration. Suddenly a rotting corpse arrives. The man destroys the corpse, but soon finds that it was his own brother! He then looks at his hands and realizes that he's starting to rot as well.

Last is "Hex Marks the Spot" by Bill Barry (art) and R. Michael Rosen (story). An evil man summons demons to attack those that won't sell their farms to him. But anyone who has a 'good hex' symbol at their house will cause the demon to go back and kill the one who summoned it instead of them. Once such man has a new wife who demands he take down the good hex signs as she doensn't believe him. He does so, but creates another hex sign in his wheat field which results in the evil man getting his just desserts.

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