Nightmare #18

Jose Antonio Domingo provides the cover for this issue of Nightmare, cover dated April 1974.


This issue's stories are identified as the 7 Tales of the Man-Macabre. Zesar Lopez provides us with an introduction page featuring editor Al Hewetson.

First is "The Vampire" by Al Hewetson (story, credited to Howie Anderson) and Zesar Lopez (art, miscredited to Cesar Lopez). This isn't so much a story, but rather a display of four different possible endings to a scenario where a woman, Anne, has been seized and bitten by a vampire and her father and lover come to rescue her. In the first ending, Anne tricks the vampire into staking himself by laying in his coffin where she has placed it. In the second ending there are suddenly several other female vampires and Anne pulls open a curtain, causing the sun to kill her and the other vampires. In the third ending the vampire bites the lover but Anne kills the vampire with the cross and she and her lover remain as vampires themselves. In the fourth ending the vampire holds Anne hostage but she stakes herself and him at the same time, killing them both. Zesar's art is the highlight here; I do at least appreciate they didn't waste our time by dragging out all these different endings across 4 different stories.

"The Werewolf"

Second is "The Werewolf" by Al Hewetson (story) and Jesus Suso Rego (art). A Dr. Wescott comes to an asylum to meet Dr. Mann. Just after arriving, one of the patients, Elton, escape and changes into a werewolf with the full moon. Mann shows Wescott around, revealing that their 56 inmates are all some sort of abnormal creatures. He shows him a were-vampire and even a were-lizard! As the story ends we realize how they are able to keep a hold of these monstrous prisoners and the doctors at the asylum, including Wescott are werewolves themselves! I enjoyed how ridiculous this story is and Suso provides his usual strong art.

Third is "The Creep" by Al Hewetson (story) and Jesus Duran (art). The ugly, short, hunchback Clarence, has been picked on his whole life and is known to the townsfolk as the Creep. He is only able to find work at the local graveyard burying the dead. Soon a man named Craw arrives with his young wife, asking Clarence to bury his brother. Craw reveals that he is from out of town and we soon find out why as he kills his wife once the grave is dug, claiming she and his brother were having an affair and he wanted to take care of things far away. In exchange for him staying quiet, Craw pays Clarence some money, but Clarence poisons him and buries him with his brother and wife. Clarence has had enough of what Craw had and threw away or flaunted such as his brother, wife and money and decides that it is time for him to live up to his nickname. Another pretty strong effort both from Duran and Hewetson here.

"The Creep"

Fourth is "The Dead Things" by Al Hewetson (story, credited to Stuart Williams) and Ricardo Villamonte (art). This is a brief story at only two pages long. A man buries his wife, but we soon find that he has a girlfriend and even brought her with him. Once everyone else leaves, hands erupt from the ground and pull both him and the girlfriend below the dirt.

Fifth is "The Vulture" by Al Hewetson (story, credited to Joe Dentyn) and Jose Cardona (art). Simon Walker is stranded in the desert after his jeep breaks down and comes across some vultures, including a newborn. He is soon rescued and brings the newborn with him, making it his pet. The vulture grows up, but we find that he has raised it with the purpose of it killing his business partner. When he shoots at the vulture it flees, eventually being found by a young boy who wants it as a pet. The boy's father refuses to let him have it though and the vulture kills him when he attacks it with an ax. The vulture makes its way to Germany where it is bound and put in a cage. A man comes and frees the vulture and bring it with him to his mansion, wanting him as a pet and revealing himself to be a vampire. But the vulture has had enough of humans and kills him, returning to the desert.

"The Thing in the Space"

Sixth is "The Ancient One" by Al Hewetson (story, credited to Howie Anderson) and Ricardo Villamonte (art). Jack Daniels, a reporter is the oldest man alive, 150 years old. One day a couple of men visit him claiming they are investigating a possible vampire outbreak and asking him about a prior report he made on the subject. Years before Daniels had come across a beautiful vampire and staked her to death, but no one believed him. When the men leave, Daniels goes to his basement where we realize that he didn't actually kill her. She has lived with him many years and is now old like him. The two argue, leading to Daniels staking her! As she is dying he feels bad, leans into her, and she stakes him too! Hearing the screams, the two men rush back, but is too late, Daniels and his companion have died.

We wrap up with "The Thing in the Space" by Al Hewetson (story, credited to Harvey Lazarus) and Emilio Bernardo (art). This story's host appears to be the Slither Slime Man from Psycho #9 (or at least looks like him) and calls himself the Man Macabre and speaks of how the themes of the prior six stories all make up who he is. This seventh story appears to be a take on Alice and Wonderland. Our main character (I will call her Alice to make it easier) follows a rabbit into a hole in the ground, bringing her into all sorts of adventures. She eats a cake that causes her to grow to great heights, she meets the Cheshire cat, nearly drowns in a flash flood, meets a caterpillar-like man constantly attacked by large demons, meets the mad hatter, the queen of hearts and nearly has her head chopped off, then wakes up, revealing it to all be a dream. Or was it? Many of the charters stand in her yard with axes ready. This story was all over the place, but then when you think about it, wasn't Alice in Wonderland that way?

Nightmare #16

Today I'm covering issue 16 of Nightmare, cover dated December 1973. Jose Antonio Domingo provides the cover for this issue, featuring the interior story "The Voodoo Dead".

"The Voodoo Dead" kicks off the issue, with story by Al Hewetson (credited to Joe Denryn) and art by Ricardo Villamonte. A vampire decides to escape to the Caribbean. There he comes across a priestess leading a ceremony with several demons. She orders her demons to destroy the vampire, but soon regrets it as he has the qualities she romantically desires. She soon finds he is alive after all, but he attacks her, biting her on the neck then is killed for good by the demons. She continues to regret the loss of him and now is a vampire herself. An average story to kick off the issue; Villamonte's art is good on some pages, but rather mediocre on others.

"Dragnet: Werewolf"

We next get two chapters in "The Werewolf Macabre" series, the first titled "The Birth of a Beast" as written by Al Hewetson and drawn by Fernando Rubio. Chapter two is "Dragnet: Werewolf" also written by Hewetson and drawn by Jesus Suso Rego. The first story introduces us to Ted Williams, police commissioner of Chicago, who unknown to him, is actually a werewolf! He slays someone while a wolf and then investigates while human, not believing those who speculate a werewolf is behind it. A trip to a gypsy causes him to reconsider though. In flashbacks we find out that his father had a fling with a witch while his mother was pregnant with him and when he ended it, the witch cursed him into becoming a werewolf, a fate that Ted now suffers from as well. As the first chapter concludes, Ted determines he is a werewolf, then bursts out in werewolf form while in the police headquarters. This continues into the second chapter, where Ted attacks many while in werewolf form. Meanwhile in a special jail cell a woman also becomes a werewolf and bursts her way out. Ted flees into the streets, as does the woman, as the police pursue. In flashbacks we find out about the woman; her father was a werewolf and her mother a bearded lady. She comes across Ted in an alley. They kiss, but the policy come upon them and shoot them with silver bullets. This ended more abruptly than I thought it would, so I guess instead of a new series its just this two part story. Interesting choice to have two different artists draw it. Suso as usual is one of Skywald's best artists and does a terrific job, especially when the woman becomes a werewolf.

"The Roots of Evil"

Fourth story is "When the Devil Sent Us Death!" by Augustine Funnell (story) and Maro Nava (art). A mysterious man comes to a town to stay at a hotel. Soon afterwards a murder occurs, then another. People suspect it has something to do with the stranger and confront him in his hotel room. He claims to have been in the room the entire time and to not be involved. One of the men heads to the hotel room and the stranger leaves the next day. The man decides to use his hotel room and somehow he determines that the stranger works for Satan and brings hardship wherever he goes. The man is now going to continue in his footsteps. This is another story where Nava's art looks extremely like Jerry Grandenetti's. The story itself is only so-so, with not much of a point to it.

Fifth is "The Roots of Evil" by Al Hewetson (story, credited to Howie Anderson) and Antonio Borrell (art). A ship returns from China, much of its crew infected by the black plague. The captain orders the dead launched off the ship into a nearby town, which causes many in the town to become infected and the black plague rages its way through Europe. The story focuses on the ship's captain, whose crew mutiny and put him on a small boat with a few of his men and a corpse. After drifting for a while, one of his fellow men shoots himself, but before any others do so they spot the ship returning towards them, everyone on board now dead. It crashes through the boat, killing the remaining men with him but the captain makes his way on board. The ship starts rotting before his eyes and he is absorbed into it, proclaiming the ship has become the root of evil. An interesting story here (I wasn't aware this is how the black plague started) and Borrell provides some strong art. I've read that this story was originally intended as the cover story for Scream #1.

"The Vampyre"

Sixth is "The Vampyre!" by Ed Fedory (story) and Pablo Marcos (art). This story was originally advertised as appearing in Psycho #13, but for some reason was held off until this issue. This story introduces us to a vampire, going into hiding in his coffin. We find that he has killed four children in the span of only a single week. The local doctor claims his own son can be used to slay the vampire. His son, suffering from some sort of disease will be used as a sacrifice. Knowing he will die from it one day the boy is willing to act in this role. The vampire arrives and bites the boy as expected, and is repeatedly shot by several men with rifles, to no effect. The vampire returns to his cave but finds himself extremely weak and finds that his body is bleeding everywhere he was shot. As he dies, we go back to the doctor, who reveals his son had a disease that prevented his blood from clotting. Marcos' art is only so-so here, but that certainly was a unique way to slay a vampire.

Seventh is "Hell Hath No Face" by Al Hewetson (story, credited to Harvey Lazarus) and Ricardo Villamonte (art). This story surrounds the ship Ambergris. Heading back with whale meat (blubber), it is suddenly attacked by a giant octopus, after the whale meat! The octopus makes its way into the hold where the meat is being stored and they are forced to wait until it is finished. When it departs, the men head there to see what is left of the whale meat and are horrified to find numerous baby octopi! This story is essentially just a variant of "The Monstrosity Strikes!" from Psycho #14, with an extremely obvious ending and is even drawn by the same artist. An extremely mediocre way to close out the issue.

Nightmare #11

Today I cover issue 11 of Nightmare, cover dated February 1973, with a cover by Jose Antonio Domingo.

The two-page table of contents features art by Pablo Marcos, and the character Mr. Pook.

First story is "The Wetness in the Pit" by Al Hewetson (story) and Pablo Marcos (art). Our protagonist, a homicidal maniac is on the run from the police and flees underground, finding himself in a wet pit filled with numerous corpse monsters. Another monster, with a horn on its head approaches him and stabs him. On the final page we find out that the man had simply gone into a fun house of horrors tunnel at an amusement part and was stabbed by the horn on a railway cart.

Second is "Taw!!!" by Ed Fedory (story) and Antonio Borrell (art). An expedition occurs in the Himalayas where the abominable snowman-like creatures known as Taw rage. The expedition finds its way to a temple who warns them that they will find death and the Taw upon the mountain. Many Taws soon attack them during a storm and most of the men are killed. The leader of the expedition returns to the temple where he discovers that the men there transform into the Taw, and kill him. This story is Borrel's Skywald debut; he'll also get the final story of the issue. His art is fair, similar in nature to that of Pablo Marcos, at least for this story.

Next up is the one page "Lon Chaney Sr. in the Phantom of the Opera" by Al Hewetson (story) and Pablo Marcos (art). It features who else, but the phantom of the opera terrorizing a woman.

Third story is the latest in the Nightmare World series, "The Beasts of Tomb Beach!" by Al Hewetson (story) and Wayne Howard (art), based on a dream by reader Mike Black. Sitting down, reading a book, Mike suddenly finds that a large slime is traveling across the ground and starts grabbing a hold of him. He grabs onto a tree branch and is able to climb up it, then to a cliff, fleeing from the slime. These Nightmare World features are usually pretty out there, but this one isn't as so. It's just okay.

"Corridors of Caricature" by Jesus Duran

Fourth is "Where Gods Once Stood" by T. Casey Brennan (story) and Carlos Garzon (art). The city of Olympus lies in ruins, and the high priest Serbius finds himself deserted by all his fellow priests. Only the woman Electra remains to tell him of this. She begs him to stop considering himself a god, but a man, and yet he refuses. A harsh storm strikes the city and his attempts to stop it do no good. Lightning strikes the temple, destroying it and Serbius is quite injured, but makes his way to his alter, admitting to Electra that he is a man. Then the storm fades away. Brennan did a number of stories for Warren, often confusing hippie messes and this story is quite like one of them. I hope this is his only Skywald story! Garzon appeared to have deserted Skywald by this point so I wonder if this is an inventory story.

Next is "Corridors of Caricature" by Al Hewetson (story) and Jesus Duran (art). A group known as the Sanctum Club gathers at a mansion and talks about a Miss Ingels, a schoolteacher in Cleveland whose students were extremely unruly and she discovered to be vampires! Ingels talks to them then they investigate, and are told she was a nut who was about to be fired. Since a new teacher took over everything has been perfectly normal. The Club is then revealed to be a group of vampires themselves. The principal at the school reveals that he had them investigated and has discovered this and brings them to join a feast with the children, who are indeed vampires. Duran's art is pretty effective here, for a story that would have come off as a bit foolish perhaps with someone else drawing it. I assume Miss Ingels is named after Graham Ingels, the famous EC horror artist.

Next we have the one-page feature "Man Bat" by Al Hewetson (story) and Pablo Marcos (art). It features what else, but the half-man, half-bat creature biting a man's neck.

Zesar brings the bizarre with "Where Are the Inhabitants of Earth"

Sixth story is "Where Are the Inhabitants of Earth?" by Al Hewetson (story) and Zesar Lopez (art). This story appears to be a part of the Shoggoths series for which Zesar had previously drawn another story for (although aside from the Shoggoths there appears to be no relation to the plots in these two stories). A man named Crawford who has lived in outer space on his own returns to Earth, finding Manhattan largely destroyed and sinking into the ocean. He heads to his hometown of Arkham in New England where he is attacked by a Shoggoth which accidentally electrocutes itself. He comes across a hiding woman named Francine who claims that the Shoggoths have killed all the humans including her husband Joseph, and that she is pregnant. Crawford and Francine are able to make their way to a space ship and escape the Earth, but when she gives birth, it is a baby Shoggoth! Crawford shoots the baby into space as the story ends. Zesar's art continues to be quite strong and this is a pretty decent story, including the shocking ending.

Seventh is "Titan Weep" by Al Hewetson (story) and Pablo Marcos (art). During a play in ancient Rome, an actor playing Flavius Titan stabs himself. A couple of men in the crowd talk about the true story, how a few months ago Titan led his men into Sicily and due to the plague all but one of them perished. They notice a hooded man nearby in the audience. When he gets up to leave, the man reveals that he was the one who led the men to Sicily and that it wasn't a plague that got them, but rather the leprosy he had that spread to all his colleagues. A pretty decent short 3 page story, although the leprosy angle was just tackled in the latest issue of Psycho as well with "The Transplant".

The Horror War stars.... Richard Nixon!?!?

We wrap up the issue with "The Horror War" by Al Hewetson (story) and Antonio Borrell (art). Planet Earth is contacted by another planet whose children have revolted and are attacking the adults, wielding not only traditional weapons, but even flying beasts. Edward Dixon, the planet of Earth offers his assistance and tells the leader of the other planet to invite in the leader of the children, feigning surrender, but to kill him once he's in their clutches and that without the leaders the revolution will fall. This all goes according to plan and the other planet succeeds. As the story ends we find the same thing had happened on Earth, with their children crushed under a similar rebellion and either locked up or dead. I question what the future will be for both Earth and the other planet with the children of their society dead or locked up. The present rulers will get old and die eventually. President Edward Dixon in this story is modeled after then US President Richard Nixon, even including what appears to be a super imposed photo of his head on one of the panels.