Scream #9

Time for another issue of Scream! This issue is cover dated September 1974 and has a cover by Salvador Faba.

First is "Down to Hades... To Die!" by Augustine Funnell (story) and Paul Puigagut (art). Our protagonist, Martin, awakes to hear a voice calling to him. The voice tells him to follow and Martin no longer finds himself in New York, but a spooky woods where he is attacked by a werewolf, then a vampire, and then rotting corpses. The corpses lead him to a feast where there are various people including many naked women. He demands to be let go and his mind snaps. The voice then decides to find someone else, calling out to a woman named Brenda. The narrative for this story is a quite confusing. Puigagut, who makes his Skywald debut with this story has some rather inconsistent art, with some panels looking rather shoddy, others having a surrealistic look, kind of like what I've seen in some Esteban Maroto stories and an occasional one, like the final panel, drawn very well with some great detail.

"Down to Hades... To Die!"

Next is "Metzengerstein" an Edgar Allen Poe adaption from Al Hewetson, with art by Luis Collado. The story tells of the conflict between the Berlifitzing and Metzengerstein families. Baron Frederick of the Metzengerstein family burns the stables of the Berlifitzing castle just a few days after coming of age. Frederick sits down to look at a tapestry in his castle and finds the horse within it moving, causing him to flee. In his courtyard, he is told by one of his servants that his enemy Count Berlifitzing died trying to save his horses and they have found a new horse in the area that is rather wild. Frederick starts isolating himself, only spending time with the horse, despite being afraid of its stare. One night Frederick gets up and starts riding on his horse and his entire castle bursts into flame. He then returns, a look of agony on his face as the horse runs into the burning castle. As the story ends we see smoke appear in the shape of a horse over the burning castle and a figure rising from ashes, the corpse of Old Count Berlifitzing. I've never read the original story this is based on, but this was a pretty good one, other than the super elongated and complicated names. Collado's art is fairly decent, with some really nice detailed panels at times.

"Who Killed the Shark?"

Third is the latest in the Nosferatu series, "Who Killed the Shark?" by Al Hewetson (story) and Zesar Lopez (art). Nosferatu has the man with the shark mask, Senor Ramon Vorse be the next to tell his tale. Vorse was shanghaied and forced to be a crew member on the ship The Ocean Penguin, but is told by the captain of the great riches they will find. Vorse soon falls in love with the beautiful Maria, daughter of the captain. Vorse kisses Maria when they are alone and says after they find the treasure he will be a rich man and they can escape to be married once back on shore. Maria tells Vorse that the captain plans on killing most of the men once they find the treasure so he and other mutiny and kills him, throwing him to the sharks. Maria promptly betrays Vorse, saying he lusted after the treasure and has been threatened by him. This causes the other men to grab Vorse and throw him overboard to be consumed by the sharks. Despite this, his partially eaten corpse somehow still lives. Maria has the men recover the treasure, expecting to have them arrested once they arrive on shore, but in one of the chests they find, Vorse's corpse there hiding. He grabs Maria, screaming in horror. Back in the present Vorse unmasks himself, revealing his partially eaten body but reveals that he hold Maria's heart in his hand. For once the ending of a story in this series is not a character just revealing their partially destroyed body (at least the third time now the teller has been consumed by some sort of animal), but revealing something else as well. The protagonist hiding in a chest is another concept that has been used before in this series. The net result is, while I continue to enjoy the atmosphere and art (which lacks the rushed look the prior story in the series had), it is about time we wrap this up. The narrative at the start implies that we'd have at least 3 more stories in the series before it is done (although Skywald will go out of business before we have enough issues to get there, making me wonder if this series will end mid-way through). This story actually reminds me quite a lot of the story "In Deep" from Warren's Creepy #83, an excellent story drawn by Richard Corben which features a husband and wife pursued by sharks in the open sea and the husband making it out with only his wife's heart in his hand. In fact as this story came out around 2 years or so before that issue was published I wondered if it was an inspiration for that story.

Fourth is "The Asylum" by Al Hewetson (story, credited to Howie Anderson) and John Agras (art). A young woman named Mary is kept in a large mansion by a woman named Cynthia, along with many other women. When her parents show up looking for her, Cynthia feigns ignorance of her. One night Mary escapes through the window, hitchhiking. We soon find that Mary is a vampire, having killed the man driving, and that Cynthia is trying to cure her and the other women of their being vampires. As the story ends we see Cynthia carrying away the man's body, revealing her to be a ghoul! This story ended I lot quicker than I was expected. Agras' art is a bit more cartoonish in nature than the other artists in the issue.

"I Am Treachery... I Am Horror"

Fifth is Gothic Fairy Tales with "I never Heard of a Ghost Actually Killing Anyone!" by Al Hewetson (story) and Antonio Borrell (art). A husband and wife wonder where their kids are. We soon see the two kids, David and Angie in a nearby house they believe to be occupied by a ghost. After having not seen it for a month, they figure they can force it out by burning down the place. But then suddenly the ghost does appear, an ax wielding maniac and kills them. After their funeral, their parents storm into the house where they are confronted by both the ghost and the ghost of their two children! The parents argue with the kids and say they are going to spank them so the kids, through the help of the ax wielding ghost, kill them too! After the parent's funeral we turn back to the ghost house, now with the entire family of ghosts there, and the parents spanking the kids. The ax wielding ghost has had enough and lunges towards them with his ax as the story ends. This story was quite hilarious, with the kids and parents bickering, even after they were dead and essentially forming a ghost family.

We wrap up with another story in the Saga of the Victims series, "I Am Treachery... I Am Horror" by Al Hewetson (story) and Jesus Suso Rego (art). We continue where we left off, with our heroines Josey and Anne grabbed by giant tentacles while in a whirlpool. It is revealed to be tentacles of a giant squid! But the two of them soon pass out and find themselves instead in a submarine, which is what the squid actually is. They are greeted by a Nazi dwarf, who claims he was special assistant to Hitler. He claims to be among the last Nazis left and that he travels the sea in his submarine, looking for adventure, which is typically terrorizing people with the squid. By watching him pilot the submarine, our heroines plot their escape and strike him with an ax once they are comfortable piloting it, as it approaches the African coastline. But they find themselves unable to control it properly and it explodes. They are then found and taken by African tribesmen to their warlord, who speaks English and claims he went to Harvard and now manipulates his tribesmen. He claims that they will eventually be eaten as his tribe is made up of cannibals. Anne and Josey break out of their bonds and try escaping, only for the Warlord to grab a hold of them and laugh as the story ends. We get more of the same with this series here; excellent art by Suso and a storyline that continues to be as over the top as possible, pushing our heroines through as many horror story tropes as it can. It continues to be fairly good though, and I look forward to where we go next.

Psycho #20

This issue of Psycho features a cover by Salvador Faba, and is cover dated Augsut 1974.

First is "The Dead and the Superdead" by Al Hewetson (story) and Jose Cardona (art). This story takes place in a future where the Americas have reverted back to prairies and jungles, and Europe is the center of civilization. Other continents/countries are overrun by Shoggoths, mutant apes and other monsters. We focus on the President of Europe who departs his home, and travels with a homeless orphan girl he found on the street. He speaks of how acts of violence started occurring and aliens arrived, with no bodies, so their minds started occupying human bodies. This results in mass deaths, war and the like. For several pages we see how society further collapsed. The President eventually shows the girl a button he can push which will set off nukes and likely destroy the world. The President is stabbed to death by a maniac soon after and as the story ends we see the girl about to push the button. This story goes a bit all over the place, but Cardona's art is good. Usually he reminds me of Jose Gonzales, but he has several images here reminding me of Rafael Auraleon.

"The Dead and the Superdead"

Second is "The Burial Vault of Primal Eld!!!" by Ed Fedory (story) and Antonio Borrell (art). This story's style is extremely confusing, switching back and forth between a pair of soldiers in two storylines; I think the intent is they are the same soldiers? In the first storyline a couple of soldiers fighting in Southeast Asia come across a small town and order some peasants to dig them a trench. When complete, they kill all the peasants. In the second storyline, what I am presuming to be the same soldiers fall into a pit, which they discover to be a tomb. They open a door in the tomb where a giant hand grars them, dragging them to hell. Fedory's poor storytelling reminds me of how confusing his early Skywald stories were.

Third is an Edgar Allen Poe adaption, "The Masque of the Red Death" with adaption by Al Hewetson and art by Ricardo Villamonte. The plague ravishes the countryside. Yet Prince Prospero summons his friends to his castle, where they keep away from everyone and are happy in their seclusion. To get over the boredom, Prospero decides to have a great ball, where everyone wears masks. And yet during the party a mysterious figure enters, with the mask of one diseased and rotted from the plague. Prospero tries to unmask him, but dies upon touching him, having contracted the plague from him. The other party goers throw themselves at him and all end up perishing from the plague. A decent adaption of a story I recall being adapted several times by Warren as well.

"Requiem for a Human Being"

Fourth is "Tomorrow the Snowman Will Kill You!" by Augustine Funnell (story) and Luis Collado (art). Two men, Todd Williams and Ben Mathenson have traveled into the wintery wastelands hoping to kill a Yeti. That night a trio of Yeti come upon their tent, but not knowing what it is, do nothing. The next morning they see the footprints and head out, eventually coming across the three Yeti as they are about to turn in for the night. However as they aim to shoot the Yetis, they find they are unable to. They instead, due to the influence of the Yetis, turn their guns on each other and kill each other. As the story ends the narrator reveals that the Yeti are an evolved form of man, what we will eventually become. A pretty decent story although I found it funny how much our two protagonists would go on about how killing Yeti would cause women to be attracted to them. Most panels in this story are small, causing Collado's art to not be as strong as I am used to it being.

Fifth is "Requiem for a Human Being" by Al Hewetson (story) and Antonio Borrell (art). In the jungle of South America, a man named Hawkins leads a rich woman and her two children. She is seeking to find the city of Maa-r, which her husband had searched for a year ago, never returning. Hawkins is killed by a snake, and the tribesmen he hired leave to return to safety, with the woman refusing to go along with them. She and her children eventually find Maa-r, seeing many monstrous bat creatures flying above it. One of the bat creatures fights off the others, and the woman heads to the city, reading a book that says how they will find peace and happiness here, but will never leave. In the final panel we see that she and her children have become bat creatures as well and are reunited with their husband/father. The final panel of this story hints at a sequel; we'll have to wait and see if we get it.

"The Freaks"

Sixth is the latest in the Gargoyles series, "The Freaks" by Al Hewetson (story) and Maelo Cintron (art). Edward sits in jail, awaiting a hearing for his crime of destroying a lion statue. His wife Mina and son Andrew come to visit, telling him they've found a hotel to stay in. While eating out, Mina is approached by a reporter, Paul Hawkins, who has been interested in Edward's story and thinks by writing an autobiography, he can tell his story to the public. Edward agrees and Paul records him as he tells his story so he can write it. When Edward is told by a guard that his wife is not at the hotel, he freaks out, thinking Satan is behind it and breaks out, only to discover that she got a job at a daycare and was there. Edward turns himself back in and returns to jail. The Gargoyle series continues to bore me. Edward is his own worst enemy, getting violent over something that is revealed to not be a big deal at all. Perhaps he should be in jail if he's going to be this out of control. The character Paul is modeled after author Al Hewetson, and an unnamed man he is sitting with is modeled after artist Maelo Cintron.

Psycho #18

Xavier Villanova provides the cover for this issue, cover dated May 1974. An interesting concept, in the form of a jigsaw puzzle!

First is "The Macabre" by Al Hewetson (story) and Ricardo Villamonte (art). Movie actor Basil's agent comes up with an idea for him to hype up his role as vampires by having him pretend to be a vampire in real life, carrying around a coffin with him. But this leads to a real vampire encountering him, and when he discovers it is all a gag, the vampire bites him, turning him into a vampire for real! Basil flees from society, living on an island and only succumbing to his urges to bite someone occasionally. He eventually comes up with a cure for vampirism and drinks it, turning himself back into a regular human. Unfortunately for him at that very moment a mob of villagers have come to the village and slay him with an ax! Villamonte's art as often is the case leaves a lot to be desired, but this was a fairly strong story with a hilarious ending.

Next is a one page pin up of Lady Satan as drawn by Pablo Marcos. I'm not sure why we are featuring her in Psycho when she usually appears in Scream.

"The Rats'

Next is "The Rats" by Al Hewetson (story) and Felipe Dela Rosa (art). Our protagonist, Syd, has gone insane and we go to when he became insane, when he is riding a tractor and sees his family's entire home collapse into a fissure in the ground. We then see that he is in an asylum with people watching over him as he proclaims the rats will get him. We cross cut between them talking about him and him thinking back to him driving around, heading to a city but it being flooded and then running into an elevator overrun with rats. Syd eventually admits he is insane. We find that he is one of many individuals, who after being coddled by the government couldn't take it when some natural disasters happened. They head outside revealing that things actually have been flooded and he is obsessed over rats because he ate some when trapped in an elevator for three days. This story comes off as a less successful attempt at a redo of "Diary of an Absolute Madman" from the same creators a number of issues back in Nightmare.

Fourth is "A Descent into the Maelstrom", an adaption of the Edgar Allen Poe story by Al Hewetson, with Cesar Lopez providing the art. Two men look into the sea at a maelstrom, aka a whirlpool far off. The older of the two tells of how he was caught up in one a while ago. His ship was blast into pieces, with only him and his brother left alive. He eventually realized that in order to survive he had to be as light as possible and tied himself to a barrel. Meanwhile his brother refused to leave the much larger remains of the ship and was sucked into the whirlpool while he survived. As the story ends we realize that despite looking old with his white hair, he is a young man and looks that way due to his experience. A rather unconventional Poe story, that isn't macabre as usual and is more of an adventure tale.

"Now... Another Maniac!"

Fifth is "Now... Another Maniac!" by Al Hewetson (story) and Maelo Cintron (art). This is actually the first Skywald story I ever read, from a horror comics story collection I read a few years ago. It is a rare appearance for Cintron outside of the Gargoyles series. Our protagonist gets up at night, planning to kill a man. While pulling out of the driveway he runs over a bike. He finds his victim, takes him at gunpoint and forces him to dig his own grave, striking him in the head with it once its done, then buries him. When he arrives home he is shocked to find the police there. But it is not for his murder, rather he had run over a kid and killed him when he hit the bike at the start of the story. A fairly strong story with some effective art as well, this reads a lot more like a Warren story from this era than a Skywald one.

Next is "Uncle Ed's Grave" by Al Hewetson (story) and Alphonso Font (art). The titular Uncle Ed speaks to his nephew Ralph, admitting that he is a vampire. Ralph does not believe him, but Ed claims that most fantastical things related to vampires aren't real and he is nonetheless one. He speaks of how his own uncle made him a vampire when he was a child and once a year he drinks someone's blood, but otherwise lives a normal life. Ed tries to attack Ralph, but he throws him to the ground and he appears dead of a heart attack. We find that Ralph came here to seize his uncle's jewels, but with him now dead he needs to dispose of the body. He plans to bury him in the local graveyard. He talks of how Ed wasn't ever discussed as part of the family and his apparent insanity was the reason why. Yet when about to mark a gravestone for him, Ralph realizes that Ed was born in 1822 and is 150 years old, which explains why he was never spoke of. Suddenly Ed's arms break out of the ground and grab a hold of Ralph. It is here where the story ends, quite abruptly. I wonder if we'll get a second part as this seems like an odd place to end it.

"Uncle Ed's Grave"

Seventh is "The Boutique Macabre" by Al Hewetson (story) and Antonio Borrell (art). This is a brief story at only three pages. A man stops by the store Leah's Boutiques and inside meets Leah, a young woman who has many paintings of her killing people. She reveals how each of them are real. She killed the drunk that was rude and tried to assault her, she poisoned the old women who claimed it was immoral for a woman to operate her own business and then she shows him a blank painting. Leah claims he will be the subject of that painting and stabs him.

Last is "Monster, Monster, Watch Them Die" by Augustine Funnell (story) and Ricardo Villamonte (art). The story begins with our werewolf protagonist going on yet another rampage. Then we see Dominik, prince of the gypsies shoot Kirsten and we find that the veiled woman from the previous story has seized the amulet and restored her beauty. She leaves Nola to Dominik, who takes her at gunpoint and we later find has killed her. Our protagonist, discovering this, becomes enraged, turns back into a werewolf and kills Dominik, then cries over Nola's death. The gypsy storyline finally resolved, this would be the perfect place to end this very mediocre series, but alas, the ending states we will get more chapters...

Psycho #17

Salvador Faba provides the cover for this issue of Psycho, cover dated March 1974.

We begin with "The Death Pit", a one page frontispiece by Al Hewetson (story) and Domingo Gomez (art). Featuring a band of the dead, this reminds me of the story "Phantom of the Rock Era" all the way back in Nightmare #4.

The first full length story is "The Black Sculpture of the Pharaohs" by Al Hewetson (story) and Ricardo Villamonte (art). A pharaoh obsesses over a cat statue he claims took him 20 years to find. He gets into an argument with his queen and stabs her to death, claiming it was an accident. She is buried in a tomb as a mummy, but soon after the pharaoh realizes the cat statue is gone, as is his wife's mummy! It is shown that this is a plot of his high priest, who seized the statue and the mummy to make it look like the dead queen did it. However the dead queen's mummy is indeed alive and kills the priest, then tosses his body where the pharaoh and others can see it. The pharaoh now knows the high priest was behind things and orders his men to search for his henchmen for the statue. He doesn't realize that the statue is in the tomb with the mummy of his dead queen. A rather weak start to the issue, with all that trouble about a statue and some weak art from Villamonte.

"The Death Pit"

Next is "This is Your Life, Sam Hammer, This is Your Death!" by Al Hewetson (story) and Jose Cardona (art). Police officer Sam Hammer is criticized by his boss for not making enough arrests and to catch some criminals in the act. Through information from a bum, Sam and his partner confront a crew of criminals making fake license plates. While trying to arrest them Sam is forced to kill one of them and his partner is killed in a machine. Suddenly, crazy things start happening. His sandwich is alive! He finds a corpse in the bathroom. The time clock punches him. And so on. He eventually wakes up at his own funeral! He is told that he is on a TV show, This is Your Life, This is Your Death. His partner and everyone else was in on it. They get prizes for their participation, while Sam gets punished by being killed! Quite a ridiculous story, and its a good thing they revealed the big action from the license plate criminals as being an act, as multiple people dying over fake license plates is considerably absurd.

"This is Your Life< Sam Hammer, This is Your Death!"

Third is "This is the Vault of the Living Dead!" by Al Hewetson (story, credited to Harvey Lazarus) and Maro Nava (art). A group of drunks in a bar attack a group of mysterious, peaceful hippies that come in and sleep during the day, and go out at night. The drunks try to push them around with no luck, then suspect they are vampires and bring them out in the daylight, but nothing happens to them. The drunks then go even further, murdering all the hippies. The drunks leave, but then the hippies get up and go find them, attacking them. It turns out they are indeed vampires, and that brief exposure to sunlight doesn't kill them after all. They are generally peaceful but the behavior of the drunks have caused them to satiate their hunger and attack them, sucking their blood. A rather weak story with some really over the top action by the characters and some particularly dreadful art by Nava.

Fourth is "These Are the Things That Are Dead" by Al Hewetson (story, credited to Howie Anderson) and Felipe Dela Rosa (art). A group of guys in Manhattan decide to steal a subway train. They jump inside, knock out the conductors and cause a big crash, jumping out of it mere seconds in advance. They then grab a car and go on a driving spree, hitting a parked car. When the policy arrive and find the car empty, we realize that the three of them have been dead all this time. Some okay art from Dela Rosa here, but the ending to this story I could see from miles away.

"The Narrative of Skut"

Fifth is "The Crime in Satan's Crypt!" by Ed Fedory (story) and Antonio Borrell (art). A man takes out a contract hit on a young woman in an alley. Dressed in robes, he hides from the police then finds his hiding place leads to a tom, which he heads into, finding solid gold and a casket with a dead body in it that makes him think it is alive. Soon a group of robed men, led by a naked woman show up, commanding the body, Lothodeus to rise and help guide them for the coming of Satan. The killer tries to flee, with the gold but is seen and chased. As he makes his way out the ceiling of the tomb starts collapsing. He makes it out just in time, only for a statue in the graveyard to fall on and kill him. A rather lame ending, but some good art from Borrell at least.

Next is "The Lunatic Class of '64" by Jane Lynch (story) and Emilio Bernardo (art). Walter Lyman says goodbye to his wife and kids, planning on going to his high school reunion. As he heads there we flashback to Walter being a loser in high school. The girl he liked rejected him due to his pimples. No one would sign his yearbook, he even has a girl who refuses to cheat from his notes when he offers. Walter arrives but surprisingly is treated well by his old classmates. Thinking everyone is in on a secret plot to make fun of him, he knocks over some candles, causing the entire place to burn down. In our final panel we see a classroom filled with skeletons! Lynch does a decent job in her Skywald debut, although I'm not really sure where she was going with the final panel.

Seventh is "The Narrative of Skut" by Al Hewetson (story) and Luis Collado (art). Some mobsters arrive at a local boarding house and shoot up the old lady who runs it. The small sized Skut runs errands for the mobsters including dragging out the body, getting them food and other errands. He decides to rat out the mobsters, revealing their location to another mob who shoot them up. Not wanting to be seen with the bodies, Skut brings them to the basement where the old woman appears, alive, despite the bullets already in her and the more Skut fires into her. She grabs a hold of him and drags him into the grave he dug, trapping him there until he starves to death. Collado's art is very strong here, including a number of very detailed, highly realistic looking panels.

We conclude with "Monster, Monster, Heed Death's Call" by Augustine Funnell (story) and Ricardo Villamonte (art). Our werewolf protagonist, now back to a human, the gypsy Kirsten and her daughter Nola travel, fleeing from the group of gypsies after them seeking an amulet Kirsten has. Kirsten decides to leave the werewolf behind but then the other gypsies arrive and attack her. the werewolf, now back in said form, goes on a rampage, slaughtering all of them except a veiled woman who has stayed back and at story's end removes her veil and swears the amulets will be hers. This series continues to be rather mediocre, with a rather dull, repeated plot and often inconsistent or poor art from Villamonte.

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 #15

Happy black Friday, everyone! We've got another Ken Kelly cover for this issue of Nightmare, cover dated October 1973.

The frontispiece for this issue is "How They Killed the Chicago Vampiress" by Ed Fedory (story) and Emilio Bernardo (art). It features a dead young woman having her body burned due to feat of her being a vampire. In what may have been a production error, an image from the story "15 Dead Things" which was originally intended for Psycho #15 appears on the table of contents page, rather than an actual story from this issue. That story will finally appear soon in Psycho #15.

First story is "Dracula Did Not Die!" by Al Hewetson (story) and Antonio Borrell (art). The first few pages of this story act as a historical account for the real life Dracula, Vlad the impaler. It was thought he was dead, but when his coffin is dug up only a horse's skeleton is found inside. Vlad/Dracula laughs at being able to fake his own death, but does regret that he'll have to hide himself and not be able to take advantage of his wealth, influence and power. Dracula explains how he was able to fake his death and killed any witnesses. He heads towards his castle, finding it on fire and swears those doing so will pay. The story suddenly stops here, implying that his will be the start of a multi-part series. Some pretty good art from Borrell here, although this is much more of just an introduction than a full story.

"Dracula Did Not Die!"

Next is "The Gargoyle Who Went to War", a two page feature from Al Hewetson (story) and Fernando Rubio (art). This brief story takes place in Paris France where some people gather to look at the gargoyle statue on the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Natzis arrive and take over the city, lining up people to be shot. Then suddenly, the gargoyle comes to life and kills the soldiers. This story is unrelated to the long running Gargoyles series.

Third is another two pager, "The Truth Behind the Myths About Bats... Particularly Vampire Bats" by Al Hewetson (story) and Domingo Gomez (art). Rather than being a typical story, this is rather a two page feature providing factual information about different types of bats.

Following this is "The Kid and the Killer and the Bum Rap" by Al Hewetson (story) and Francisco Cueto (art). A man named Miller is brought to jail, claiming he's been framed. He is put in a cell with a man named Eddie, who claims that he was beat up by him when he was a kid. Miller admits to being a killer, but claims he didn't commit the murder they claimed he did. Eddie and Miller start talking about things that Miller did when he was younger, including some murder he actually committed. Eddie tells Miller that he is in here for killing his wife, and his brother, his father, his landlord, a gay neighbor, many cops, doctors, etc... and says now he's going to kill Miller. We hear the guards laughing as the story ends. A rather abrupt ending to this, and we gotta presume Miller died, although why the guards would be in on it I'm not sure. Cueto's art is at least a little better than usual here.

"THe Kid and the Killer Bum Rap"

Fifth is "Tapestry of Blood" by Ed Fedory (story) and Fernando Rubio (art). A man finds himself shipwrecked on an island in the south Pacific. To his horror, he soon sees a fellow man killed by a giant snail! He beats the snail to its death but it is too late to save the man. Suddenly another man wearing an overcoat, hat and sunglasses appears. Calling himself a doctor, he leads our protagonist into the woods and to his camp. There he tells our protagonist of how his wife lies in the waters beyond the reef and he can never leave. Our protagonist later follows him, and the doctor explains how he died and was resurrected, and how our protagonist killed "Grayson" who is revealed to be the snail he attacked earlier. The doctor removes his sunglasses, revealing himself to be a snail like creature and bites into our protagonist! Quite a fun ending to this story, which I enjoyed.

Snail man!

Sixth is another in the Shoggoths series with "The Grotesque Green Earth" by Al Hewetson (story) and Zesar Lopez (art). Hewetson and Zesar are actually characters in this story! They receive a letter from a Howard Hay in Arkham, Massachusetts. Upon arriving he tells them of manuscripts he's found from a woman from approximately a century ago who lived by the river. We then flashback to see the woman as she writes. At her husband's grave she finds a hole that leads her down into a lengthy pit. This eventually leads to a large cavern where she finds an underground city. Inside she finds a library filled with zombies,, writing of man's doom. Suddenly some Shoggoths arrive. They chase her back up to the surface and even after she makes her way there they make it through. Hay, Hewetson and Lopez head to where the papers were found and it leads to an underground tunnel where they find her skeleton, where she's written that they will come to the Earth, in 1973! This story's style is much like the previous Shoggoths story in Scream #1 and reads as if it was a Lovecraft story itself. Zesar's art is strong as well, making this a pretty high quality story.

The Shoggoths return!

Next is "Ravings of the Damned" by Ed Fedory (story) and Juez Xirinius (art). A pair of archaeologists in a temple find a desecrated corpse of one of their men in front of a large statue. One of the men thinks a monstrous snake did it, while the other thinks it is Quontotaz, an Indian legend. Later that night, one of the men hears the other screaming. It is the statue, come to life and crushing him in its arms. Months later another expedition arrives. The remaining man is now worshiping Quontotaz, and is in a beast like form. Just there, the stories stops rather abruptly. A quick ending to an average at best story.

We wrap up with another story in the Gargoyles series, "Once Upon a Time in Alabama: A Horror" by Al Hewetson (story) and Maelo Cintron (art). Edward and Mina, with their child Andrew hitchhike their way to Birmingham, Alabama. Edward is able to get a job on a construction work site and saves a man falling from above. Just then, another, evil gargoyle arrives. He demands Edward fight him, or his wife and child will be killed by being shot by a madman at a riot (how a gargoyle can be killed by mere bullets eludes me...). Edward has had enough, decides to fight the enemy gargoyle and kills him. He then finds Mina and Andrew, safe and sound at a rally. This is standard fare for the Gargoyles series, pretty good art, but a rather uninteresting story. Gargoyles face some discrimination. Edward fights some sort of monster. Rince and repeat.

Psycho #14

This issue of Psycho features a cover by Ken Kelly, including various monster faces like Frankenstein's Monster, the Phantom of the Opera, a vampire and more! It is cover dated September 1973.

The frontispiece for this issue features art by Maelo Cintron of a skeleton, and is more akin to the text stories Skywald used to include, with it taking up approximately half the page. It is titled "The Dead..."

First regular story is "The Classic Creeps" by Al Hewetson (story) and Francisco Cueto (art). the story begins telling us our protagonist is a lunatic, and we watch him watch a Dracula movie. He then decides to bring it to real life, dresses like Dracula and bites the neck of a woman in the park! He is able to escape from the police and the woman lives. He then starts watching other horror movies such as Dr. Phibes, The Mummy and Phantom of the Opera, taking on that guise for another attack, which is successful this time. He then takes on the role of the hunchback of Notre Dame, and then Frankenstein's monster, trying to grab a little girl and drown her but the police are able to kill him, saving her. As the story ends we find that our protagonist had a kid's show on TV where he dressed up as various monsters but it got cancelled. Cueto's art is a bit improved here than some of his past jobs, and although the story is a bit longer than it needed to be, it is pretty good.

"The Classic Creeps"

Second is "The Monstrosity... Strikes!" by Augustine Funnell (story) and Ricardo Villamonte (art). This story begins with a man walking down an alley when suddenly a blob like creature with two glowing eyes rises up and attacks him! The monster completely consumes the man's body then slithers back into hiding, waiting for its next victim. The next night a cop passes by but is able to avoid getting consumed and shoots the monster repeatedly until it dies. In the final panel we realize that the creature had several children who are still alive! A cliche ending drags this story down a bit, making it overall average at best.

Third is "The Artist's Other Hand" by Al Hewetson (story) and Jesus Suso Rego (art). This story is a blast, and is another one of those Skywald stories that kind of breaks the fourth wall. Our unnamed artist, who is visually modeled after artist Suso works on drawing a horror story about an artist who has a third arm growing out of his chest, is knocked out by a woman when the arm attacks her, but she chops it off him, and he thanks her for releasing him from its control. The artist brings the story to his editor, who is modeled after Al Hewetson, but he hates it! The two of them go through varying scenarios under which the artist can change the story to improve, but the editor hates them all, pointing out The Heap as more legitimate horror (kind of ironic since Hewetson reportedly hated The Heap). Eventually this leads to the editor punching out the artist and in the final panel we see some artists focusing on a new story with some scarier monsters. Much like The Comics Macabre, which just appeared in Scream, it was a lot of fun getting to see actual members of Skywald appear in a horror story.

Skywald staffers star in "The Artist's Other Hand"

Fourth is "The Horror That's Not All It Seems" by Al Hewetson (story) and Antonio Borrell (art). At a mere one page, this is a brief historical telling of how scalping, viewed as something Native Americans would do to colonists and settlers, was actually something the white man was doing first, with Native Americans adopting it only as vengeance. This is something I hadn't even realized was the case, so this was an educational read.

Fifth is "A Man Who Dare Not Sleep!" by Ed Fedory (story) and Felipe Dela Rosa (art). This story features a ship captain tied to the helm of the ship, dozing off. He fears a vampire on board the ship and has put crosses around him only for the vampire to toss them aside. The captain hopes for the clouds to part, for the sun to shine through and kill the vampire, and that's exactly what happens. At least as far as I can tell. On the final page the captain shouts out that it is the Southern Cross in the sky, a constellation, but you'd figure that can only be seen at night, so how did the vampire die?

Sixth is "Cassandra... Sorceress of the Seventh Wind" by Marv Wolfman (story) and Don Heck/Mike Esposito (art). I'm assuming this story is an inventory one as none of the men involved in creating it had put out a new Skywald story in a while. This story is also a stark contrast to Hewetson's style and is more the type of story we'd see in an early Skywald issue. It features the titular Cassandra, who asks a minstrel to join her on a quest to battle the evil wizard Morlock. Many pages go by, monsters are fought and Cassandra and the Minstrel finally reach Morlock. There's a body swap temporarily and in the end we find out that Morlock pursued the minstrel because he is the man who sunk Atlantis. I really don't care for these more sword & sorcery type stories unless we're getting some strong art of it and that isn't really the case here.

Nava's Skywald debut looks a lot like Jerry Grandenetti

Seventh is "The Hippy-Critters Are Comin'" by Al Hewetson (story) and Fernando Rubio (art). In this story we see a couple of odd men watching as a couple park their car and go into a restaurant in a small town in Arkansas. The woman in the couple ask the man if it was wise to bring "Peter" with them. A few more scoundrels gather outside and they grab a hold of the couple. But we then realize that Peter is their car, its alive and it starts eating them! This rather brief story has quite the hilarious ending and the man eating car is a sight to see.

We wrap up with "I Battle the Vicious Vampire Bats of Transylvania and I Lived to Tell About It" by Al Hewetson (story) and Maro Nava (art). This story is Nava's Skywald debut. A British man comes to Transylvania and speaks of the descendant of Dracula, having talked about it to a man in another town. He is told by a bartender that Dracula's castle is nearby. Soon another man, wearing a cape comes in. He claims to be an American and offers to bring him to Dracula's castle. When they arrive, the American reveals that he is in fact Dracula's son and attacks, but our protagonist turns the tables on him. It seems like the American is a phony Dracula's descendant, but our protagonist is the real thing and kills him, being a vampire himself. Nava's art here is extremely similar to that of Jerry Grandenetti, enough so that in many panels one could easily think Grandenetti drew this.

Nightmare #12

Today I cover Nightmare 12, cover dated April 1973 and featuring a cover by Vicente Segrelles.

First is "Nightmare in the House of Poe" by Al Hewetson (story) and Ferran Sostres (art). Rodney Serle is staying in New Orleans yet finds the partying there out of control. He goes to stay at a local rooming house only to find some small humanoid monsters grabbing him out of his bed and forcing him down some creepy stairways then into another party. Rodney awakens, revealing it to be a dream, but strange things continue to happen to him over and over again as he continues to experience bizarre dreams that come to life. This lengthy story at 15 pages is quite surrealistic and features some strong art by Sostres. It reminds me a lot of the type of stories we'd see from Jose Bea at Warren, such as the "Picture of Death" which also featured a man in a rooming house/inn who gets seized by strange monsters.

Next is "Premature Burial" by Al Hewetson (story) and Juez Xirinius (art). With the last story being named after Edgar Allen Poe, this story is an actual Poe adaption, the first we have seen in Skywald (but not the last by a long shot as it will get quite common eventually). The first few pages of the story tell us of various situations where people were mistakenly buried alive or thought dead but really weren't. Our protagonist is afraid of this happening to him and arranges several ways for him to escape his coffin such as a bell and a way out of the coffin should he be declared dead. Yet when he strikes his head while on a boat, he awakens horrified to find himself in a coffin on said boat, and not his specially made one. After calling out people realize he's alive, although the final panel reveals that he was never in a coffin after all, just a tight bunk bed. A fairly good story here (this is a Poe story I'm not too familiar with so I don't know how faithful it is) and some excellent art from Xirinius.

Things get weird in "Nightmare in the House of Poe"

Third is "Kiss of the Vampires" by Chic Stone (story & art). Chic Stone hadn't done a story for Skywald in a while, having been pushed out by the Selecciones Illustrada artists and I suspect this was an inventory story held onto for a while before publication. Our story begins with Marisa, Priestess of the Undead chopping off the head of a man so she and her followers can drink his blood. The narrative then switches to Philip and Thatcher, a pair of men that have come to the town. Thatcher actually specializes in killing vampires and was called to the town to help with the recent incidents. Meanwhile Philip meets Marissa, not realizing she is a vampire and becomes her latest victim. Thatcher, after slaying a vampire himself is able to find the tomb where Marisa's followers sleep, slaying each of them with a stake. Marisa then arrives and she tries to possess him with her beauty, then stabs him with his own stake. She walks into a bear trap however and when the sun rises it kills her. Story-wise nothing too outstanding here but it was good to see Stone doing another story.

Next is "I am Dead: I Am Buried!" by Al Hewetson (story) and Xavier Villanova (art). Prisoner Ed Warton travels through the swamps in Arkansas but is captured, then is whipped and thrown in a pit as an example to the other prisoners. To the guard's surprise, he dies. Warton's corpse rises from the pit, slays several guards then escapes into the swamp. From here on the story takes a pretty big left turn as we see the point of view of the writer of the story, trying to figure out how to conclude things. Suddenly Warton's corpse appears for real, demanding him to figure out a way to get him out of the swamps. He then requests a nearby kid to tell him how to end the story. From there the narrative returns to a few days earlier, where Warton is revealed to be dead for good and never rises as a corpse. Although oddly enough the body of a man and kid are now in the pit with him. I quite liked the left turn this story took, which made what would have been otherwise a typical corpse rising from the dead story into something more interesting.

Skywald's first Poe adaption, "Premature Burial"

Fifth is "The Night of the Corpse-Bride" by Doug Moench (story) and Xavier Villanova (art). Frank Tanner is surprised to find that his uncle Phineas has left him five million dollars in his will when he passed away.The will includes a strange requirement though, Frank must get married in three days to get the money! Frank didn't even know his uncle that well, who had been married himself but his wife died on his wedding night. Frank meets a young woman named Barbara and asks her to marry him and she surprisingly accepts! When she discovers the true reason though, she flees from him, even though Frank has fallen in love with her for real. Barbara runs from him in a stormy night, getting struck by a car, but continues going until she reaches a graveyard. There Frank realizes she is just a corpse and was actually the long dead wife of his uncle Phineas! This story had a pretty good twist to wrap things up. Still bewilders me why his dead uncle would care about him getting married that quick though.

Sixth is "The Assassin-Bug" by Al Hewetson (story) and Antonio Borrell (art). We see a giant bug attacking a woman on the splash panel, then go back in time to a soldier in Asia. In exchange for saving a girl, her father gives the soldier an assassin bug, a small bug in a tiny cage that he says has special powers. Our protagonist returns to America where he becomes a hired assassin, and in a difficult jam on how to kill a prisoner, uses the bug on him. He continues to use the bug to kill people, yet finds that the bug is growing while he is shrinking with each successive murder. Eventually the bug turns on him. As the story ends however we see this is all his imagination, he never actually saved the girl and has been laying in a cell having lost his mind. The final panel also reveals that before going to war he was a bug exterminator.

"I Am Dead I Am Buried" completely breaks the fourth wall

The issue concludes with "Monster Monster on the Wall!" by Augustine Funnell (story) and Pablo Marcos (art). This story is Funnel's Skywald debut; he would go on to become an oft recurring writer for them. A mere four pages, this story features a kid who is bullied and beat up as a kid for being ugly. Now an adult, he returns to his hometown where some of the bullies find him. Yet it being the full moon, he transforms into a werewolf and kills them! Although originally intended as a stand alone, this story would become a recurring series and we'll see more in the series soon.

Nightmare 1973 Winter Special

Today I cover the Nightmare 1973 Winter Special, which has a cover date of March 1973 and a cover by Ken Kelly.

First is "Die Mummy!" by Al Hewetson (story) and Jesus Duran (art). 74 year old Vanessa is an aged movie actress with no roles for her until her manager finds a man named Scott Henders who is doing cheap horror movies who will take her. Vanessa is cast to be a mummy and as the movie films she is fake stabbed then wrapped up in bandages for real. Vanessa suddenly feels young and strong again and starts going on a rampage, killing many of her costars until they are finally able to take her down. Upon removing the bandages from her face they find just a mummified corpse within! I gotta say, I'm not a fan of mummy stories, but this story was considerably better than I expected going in.

Second is "I Left My Heart in the Burial Pit, I Had No Choice" by Al Hewetson (story) and Jose Gual (art). Mobster Romeo Puccino wants to go straight due to his girlfriend Juliet, but instead his mobster colleagues grab a hold of both of them and stab Romeo. Left alone with him, the distraught Julet then stabs herself. From here the story gets considerably confusing as we see both Romeo and Juliet rise on their own multiple times and cut their own heart out, I'm not sure if they were supposed to be literally alive or this was just supposed to be their ghosts. As the story ends their heartless spirits depart. This story is obviously influenced by William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, with a more modern twist, and Gual's art is good, but the second half of the story is considerably confusing.

Vanessa goes on a rampage in "Die Mummy!"

Third is "Beyond the Walls!" a one page feature from Ed Fedory (story) and Xavier Villanova (art). It tells how in the city of Bruges an ancient stone house was purchased and it had an unnameable stench. Upon breaking down one of the walls, inside was found the skeleton of a winged humanoid creature.

Fourth is "Mephisto's Brand" another one pager from Ed Fedory (story) and Jesus Suso Rego (art). The Mephisto Brand is a mark found on an accused witch to prove she is doing the devil's work. It could appear in various forms, such as a hand, bat or spider.  We then are shown how those without any such mark are declared to have invisible marks, so they can be killed anyway.

Fifth is "The Horror Tub" by Al Hewetson (story) and Fernando Rubio (art). Harlan Huck is an obsessed collector of the macabre and seeks to purchase a painting from a man named Anders. Anders refuses to sell at any price, so Huck resorts to some ruffians who set Anders' home on fire, steal the painting and then kill him before Huck. Huck awakens that night to find his own home in flames and is confronted by the rotted corpse of Anders. The next day people find a hole where the home used to be. We are shown that in another place Huck and Anders battle each other in a room showing Huck's collection.

Sixth is "The Event in the Night?" by Al Hewetson (story) and Pablo Marcos (art). A man named Henry White is in a car accident on a curving cliff road. A man comes out to attend to him and brings him to his nearby home to stay with him, meeting there his beautiful and far younger wife Mary. When Henry later arrives at the convention he was going to, he is told he was gone an entire year! Believing it to be connected to the house he stayed at, he goes there, finding only ashes in its place. He then starts remembering what happened, in particular Mary attacking him, being brought before Satanists in the basement where Mary is about to sacrifice him, then being able to shove her into a fire and escape. Henry suddenly wakes up, and it being revealed to all be a dream. He then again gets in the car accident and things start anew. I never care for the "it was all a dream" ending, which seems to me to just be the writer running out of ideas. Marcos' art in this story reminds me a lot of that of Jose Gonzalez.

"Beware It... Fear It... It Screams!"

Seventh is "Beware It... Fear It... It Screams!" by Al Hewetson (story) and Antonio Borrell (art). Anton Werner is a European immigrant living in a town named Amsterdam ranch. He keeps a mysterious pit on his property and angers the locals when Annabel Lee, the most beautiful woman there falls in love with and marries him. Annabel finds Anton to not be a good husband, he has tremendous self pity and starts accusing her of having relationships with the ranch hands. When she falls off her horse and is saved from a snake by one of the ranch hands, Anton thinks she is having an affair, shoots the man in the face and then ties her up and throws her in the pit. He pours honey over her and the horrific creatures in the pit consume her. Annabel still loves Anton however and rises from the pit to return to him, only a skeleton. The next day the ranch hands find the shredded corpse of Anton handing from the rafters with Annabel nowhere to be seen and the pit is filled in. Some pretty good art here from Borrell and a great story title. The panel when Annabel returns to Anton, now just a skeleton is quite effective. At the same time, Anton is an incredibly unlikable protagonist and it is quite absurd that he killed his wife over his own delusions.

Eight is "The Night of the Mutant-Eaters" by Al Hewetson (story) and Dennis Fujitake (art). A group of astronauts land on a planet in order to repair their ship. While the planet is occupied by humans, they are savages and the planet is incredibly overpopulated. One of the astronauts, Lt. Niw becomes enraptured with a young woman named Ula and the two make love to each other. When the ship is repaired and takes off, he takes Ula with him, who is pregnant. He reveals this to the others which makes them incredibly upset. When Ula gives birth, it is to 43 babies and kills her. The crew desire to kill the children in order to survive, but the children rapidly grow, suck up all the oxygen and then eat the crew, eventually dying themselves of starvation. It was good to see another story from Fujitake, who I presume is yet another artist pushed out by the Selecionnes Illustrada artists.

Perry just can't win. From "Whether Man or Scarecrow"

Ninth is another one page feature, "The Last Witch!" by Ed Fedory (story) and Antonio Borrell (art). This brief story tells of how in the Mexican town of Qjinaga, a woman is accused as a witch and is burned at the stake.

Tenth is "Whether Man or Scarecrow" by Al Hewetson (story) and Felipa Dela Rosa (art). The protagonist of this story is a scarecrow named Perry. One day an old man appears before him, saying he is his fairy godmother and can grant him 3 wishes. His first wish enables Perry to speak. He tells him he can have two wishes, but should make them soon as he is an old man and can die at any minute. Perry uses his second wish to become human. Unfortunately things soon go south for him. He stumbles into an apple cart, meets up with Judy, the daughter of the local farmer who he is in love with, but when her father sees them together he shoots him and accidentally kills Judy as well. Perry is then stomped on by a cow, hit by a car and repeatedly shot while riding a tractor and trying to escape. Perry tries to make his last wish, that this all never happened, but it is too late, the old man already died. As does Perry, whose tractor crashes and he is impaled on some wooden fencing. This story is hilariously over the top with how unlucky Perry gets once becoming human, and is quite entertaining as a result.

Psycho #11

Today I cover Psycho 11, with a cover by Fernando Fernandez, for the interior story "The Thing in Horror-Swamp!". This issue is cover dated March 1973.

First is "...And It Whispered... And It Wept... And it Did Shudder... And it Did Die..." by Al Hewetson (story) and Felipe De la Rosa (art). In Greenwich Village a scientist has created life, a large bizarre tentacled monster and in order to feed it has his hunchbacked assistant kill people to feed to it. The monster thinks the doctor is his daddy and happily eats it. The assistant grows angry at the doctor for not changing him to a more attractive form, so he kills him with an ax to the face! But when he brings the doctor's body to the creature, it grows angry and strangles the assistant. It then starts crying over the death of its father and the narrator tells of how it will soon die without food. A fairly decent way to start the issue and a good example of how over the top Skywald story titles can get!

Second is the two pager "...Make Mephisto's Child Burn..." by Ed Fedory (story) and Felipe De la Rosa (art). This is the most horrifying Skywald story yet! In Jersey England, a pregnant woman is burned at the stake, being called bride of the damned by the angry mob. While burning alive she gives birth, being able to push the baby out of herself to safety, just beyond the edge of the flames. One of the women in the crowd promptly grabs the baby and throws it into the flames to die along with its mother.

The horrifying "Make Mephisto's Child Burn"

Third is the latest in The Heap series, "A Ship of Fiends" by Al Hewetson (story) and Pablo Marcos (art). Where we last left Jim Roberts, he was on a n island with no way to make it home. However a pirate ship soon arrives with a number of pirates burying their treasure. They capture Jim and tie him up on the mast of the ship. Jim hopes to turn into The Heap so he can escape, but when night comes, he doesn't transform! Suddenly a giant squid (guessed by Jim to be the one from the story in Psycho #7) appears and destroys the ship. The Heap is tossed ashore in the Everglades where he comes across Darkkos Mansion (which is explained to be the mansion from the story "The Beast Within" from Nightmare #9). There werewolf from that story is still around and does battle with The Heap, with them falling into quicksand and only The Heap making it out. Marcos' art looks considerably weaker in this story, as if he was rushing it.

Fourth is "...Rast Their Evil Bones..." a one pager from Ed Fedory (story) and Antonio Borrell (art). Fedory brings us a second burned at the stake story in the same issue! It features the burning of witches in Sweden and that those killed included children. Considering what we just got earlier in the issue this seems completely pointless to me. Thankfully it is only one page, and Borrell's art is pretty good.

Fifth is another one pager, "Her Majesty - The Corpse" by Ed Fedory (story) and Juez Xirinius (art). It tells of the queen Inez De Castro who was the target of assassins. Her husband Dom Pedro brings her corpse onto the throne where her subjects are still forced to kneel before her and kiss her feet.

Suso's debut in "Don't Die Up There, Stanley"

Sixth is "Hit and Run: Miss and Die" by Doug Moench (story) and Xavier Villanova (art). A night watchman is knocked out when some mobsters come to steal some drugs from the pharmaceutical company he works for. When they meet up with their boss, he angrily tells them to take out the watchman as he could identify them. They capture him and bring him before their boss, now angry that they have brought the watchman to him , as well as the fact that the drugs stolen were useless. The mobsters create cement shoes and also dump in the drugs into it. Our protagonist is tossed into the water where he drowns and his body starts to decompose. However the drugs are able to somehow revive him. He bites off his feet at the ankles, then pursues the three mobster, tying them up and causing them to drown from their own bootlegged liquor. A typical rising corpse type story, but the incompetence of the mobsters was pretty funny.

Seventh is "Don't Die Up There, Stanley" by Al Hewetson (story) and Jesus Suso Rego (art). This is Suso's Skywald debut. While he doesn't do the most outstanding job on this story, Suso is quite a strong artist. After having done a couple of stories for Warren he comes to Skywald where he becomes a pretty prolific artist and one of their best. This story features a comedian, Stanley, who comes to a club in Staten Island to perform. He soon discovers from his manager that he is going to be performing in front of freaks, which causes him to panic because that is exactly what his act is about! He tries to get out of it, but is unable to. Rather than hold back, he goes full force and the freaks love it, asking him to joke more and more. Stanley then wakes up and thinking it was all a dream goes on a rampage. In the final panel however we find that his performance was real. He is now in a loony bin, while the freaks look on at him sadly, as he was the one person to treat him like everyone else. Apparently Stanley was based on a real person that Hewetson knew.

Eight is "The Thing in Horror-Swamp!" by Al Hewetson (story) and Pablo Marcos (art). This story is described as the origin story for Darkkos Mansion, which was previously utilized in The Heap story from this issue and "The Beast Within" from Nightmare #9. Edwin Gunn comes to the swamps of New Orleans to visit his friend Eldridge Harlowe. Along the way some locals try to stop him, saying he is going towards the house of voodoo. When he arrives at the mansion, Edwin meets up with Eldridge, as well as his wheel chair bound father Register and beautiful sister Mayline. Edwin starts talking about the voodoo and finds out from Eldridge that his father is the local voodoo priest! From here on things take a crazy turn. Mayline runs for some unknown reason and falls into the quicksand to her death. Angry about it, Register is able to cause Edwin to fall in as well. But the voodoo practitioners revive Edwin as a rotting corpse and he attacks the mansion, first strangling Eldridge then attacks Register who is able to drive Edwin back into the quicksand, but the remaining locals are able to throw Eldridge into the quicksand as well, killing him and ending the local voodoo practice. Marcos' art is a lot better here and this story is quite good once it hits the bloodbath of the second half.

Edwin's corpse rises from the swamp in "The Thing in 

Horror Swamp"

Ninth is "A Bag of Fleas" by Al Hewetson (story) and Jose Gual (art). This is Jose Gual's Skywald debut. He was a pretty good artist who did a fair amount of work for Warren as well, including one issue that was exclusively stories from him. Reggie Whyte is an old custodian who watches as the apartment building he has lived in nearly 30 years is destroyed by a wrecking ball. In flashbacks we see his brief marriage including the conflict with his wife that led to her leaving, and the landlord coming in to tell Reggie that the building is being destroyed to make room for a parking lot. To try and stop this, Reggie kills his landlord with an ax and also arranges it so the wrecking ball falls off and kills several people. Reggie is found in the wreckage near the body of his wife, and we find this is the real reason why he din't want the building destroyed, as he killed her and walled up her body in the wall. But on the final page as he is brought into a police car we find out hat there were several other skeletons in the building. He was not the only murderer! A fairly decent story and debut here for Gual.