Showing posts with label dunne. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dunne. Show all posts

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Creepy 17


The last Creepy issue of the original Goodwin error before things completely fell apart. Even so things start to fall apart here as this is an average issue, but clearly not as good as the ones that had been coming before this. Frank Frazetta provides the cover for this issue as well as the frontis art for "Creepy's Loathsome Lore", which was originally published in Creepy 2.

First is "Zombie!" by Rocco Mastroserio (art) and Archie Goodwin (story). A pair of men watch a voodoo ritual, but one of the men takes a picture, which causes them to realize their present. His companion is killed, but he manages to escape. When zombies start coming after him, he jumps into what he thinks is salt water, thinking the salt will stop them. Alas, he actually jumped into a river, which is fresh water, and the zombies are able to get him.

Second is "Thundering Terror!" by John Severin (art) and Clark Dimond & Terry Bisson (story). This story was clearly originally intended for Eerie, with Cousin Eerie hosting it. This story is about an old man who tells of his brother, who was obsessed with killing buffalos. One such encounter resulted in the death of a man who was trying to stop him. Over the years our narrator becomes successful and grows a family while his brother vanishes and returns from time to time, always doing nothing but hunting buffalos. An old man, our narrator finds his brother dead after he tries to hunt one last buffalo, and sees the ghost of the dead man on a ledge above him. Like any story told in a western setting, Severin was perfectly suited for this story.

Third is "Mummy's Hand" by Joe Orlando (art) and Russ Jones (story, miscredited to Orlando). This story was originally published in Monster World 2 in 1965. It features the mummy coming back to life, going on a rampage, and eventually being defeated. A rather boring mummy story which had a companion story run around this same time in Eerie.

Fourth is "Heritage of Horror" by Donald Norman (art) and Archie Goodwin (story). A young woman has horrific visions of her husband as an axe murderer. She finds out the truth, that he isn't one, but it ends up he's a hangman instead, and makes her his next victim.

Fifth is "Image in Wax!" by Tom Sutton (art) and Archie Goodwin (story). This was Sutton's Warren debut. A man is jealous of a competitor's ability to create realistic, but horrific wax creatures. He decides to murder the man by setting the place on fire, and kills him, but the man melts, revealing him to be a skeleton covered in wax. The competitor was actually brought back from the dead to watch over the wax figures, who are actually real monsters, and with him dying the monsters force the killer to take over taking care of them, making him a wax man too.

Sixth is "A Night's Lodging!" by Maurice Whitman (art) and Rhea Dunne (story). This story is about a man who is confronted by vampires after getting into an accident with his carriage. He tells them if they let him live he'll build them a hotel and bring many victims to him. He does so, but is eventually turned into a vampire himself. A very lame rehash of "The Invitation" from Creepy 8, which had Whitman as one of the writers.

Last is "The Haunted Sky!" by Roger Brand (art, his Warren debut) and Archie Goodwin (story). A pilot encounters his dead colleagues while aflight in an experimental airplane. Although the doctors don't initially believe him, there is proof left behind of the ghost's existence.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Creepy 31


An extremely bizarre cover for this issue by Vaughn Bode and Larry Todd, their first for Warren. It features a chicken like creature standing over a torn apart robot man. The frontis for this issue is "Creepy's Loathsome Lore" by Tony Williamsune (art) and Bill Parente (story).

First is "In the Face of Death!" by Tony Williamsune (art) and Al Hewetson (story). A very short story at four pages featuring a man without a face who goes after a man named Arthur Merlin who stole his face. Only when he reaches Merlin he finds that he has lost track of time and become very old.

Next is "Telephoto Troll!" by Roger Brand (art) and R. Michael Rosen (story). This story is about an astronomer who takes pictures of things on a far away planet only for them to appear when the photos are developed. This results in a monster from the planet appearing. He destroys the photo, saving himself, only for his wife to develop multiple copies, resulting in multiple monsters appearing!

Third is "A Night's Lodging!" by Maurice Whitman (art) and Rhea Dunne (story), originally printed in Creepy 17. This story is about a man who is confronted by vampires after getting into an accident with his carriage. He tells them if they let him live he'll build them a hotel and bring many victims to him. He does so, but is eventually turned into a vampire himself. A very lame rehash of "The Invitation" from Creepy 8, which had Whitman as one of the writes.

Fourth is "Snowmen!" by Tom Sutton (story & art). A rich man gets extremely over the town's failure to catch a child killer. His lonely son meanwhile makes snowmen in the yard when he refuses to let him play with anyone. A vagabond is blamed for the attacks when the rich man's son says he did it, so the vagabond is hung. Only it ends up that the little boy was the killer all along, leaving the corpses in his snowmen. A very good story, which would win the Warren award for best story of the year.

Fifth is "A Wooden Stake for Your Heart!" by Bill Black (art) and Don Glut (story). A local castle dweller is blamed for the populace for recent vampire attacks. Although he looks like a vampire he really isn't one, and when the townfolk stake him to death, they open a nearby door which contains a number of monsters he had locked up, which are now unleashed on the town.

Sixth is "Death of a Stranger" by Ernie Colon (art) and T. Casey Brennan (story). A rather bizarre nonscensical story as usual from Brennan, about a man who thinks he's going to die, and that's what happens.

Last is "Laughing Liquid" by William Barry (art) and Kevin Pagan (story). This story is about a man who keeps having visions of alien like creatures and develops a fear of liquid for that's where they come from.