Creepy 129

Jeff Easely provides the cover for this issue of Creepy. Rudy Nebres draws a one page intro from Uncle Creepy. Like most issues from this period, a boring issue with nothing much here to impress the reader.

First is "The Terrible Truth About Danny" by Martin Salvador (art) and Bill Dubay (story). This story tells of a young boy with pyschokenetic powers who can cause objects to do whatever he wants to get revenge on anyone whose done him wrong. A beautiful girl moves in next door but unlike other boys doesn't like her. One night he decides to force himself on her to be like everyone else but instead decides to kill himself by blowing his own head up.

Second is "The Saga of Popeye Jackson!" by Paul Neary (art) and Gerry Boudreau (story). This story tells of a revolution from a robot man who used to be human. Some pretty good art from Neary, but a poor, rather dull story.

Third is "Working Class Hero" by Carmine Infantino & Alfredo Alcala (art) and Roger McKenzie (story). This story features an accountant in his forties who looks much older than that who is bored with life, but is suddenly transported to thousands of years in the past where he helps a woman who escaped from her slave master. They go meet with a wizard, the man who brought him back in time by accident and they defeat the slave master. The wizard tries to transport him back to the present, but he ends up in the revolutionary war period instead. Some good art, but a poor, pointless story.

Fourth is "The Last Voyage of Sinbad" by Fred Carillo (art) and Budd Lewis (story). The Sinbad of legend is actually a dim-witted man who desires more than anything else to have friends and have the rain stop. Some treasurer hunters recruit him to join them and when they find how dumb he is they instead plan to have him be the fall guy when they discover a genie that will kill whoever summons him. The genie instead grants Sinbad's wishes to have friends and stop the rain.

Fifth is "He Who Lives!" by Danny Bulandi (art) and Budd Lewis (story). A confusing story about a man on a spaceship who goes down to a planet, sees weird visions, and encounters a vampire who he kills, making him a vampire himself.

Last is "Strategic Retreat" by Herb Arnold (art) and John Ellis Sech (story). This story features a humanoid dinosaur who hires soldiers to kill his old men and help him escape. While escaping however the soldiers sign a new contract with his enemy, giving him only two weeks to live.

Creepy 133

Pretty good, complex cover on this issue by Jeff Easely. Unfortunately the issue's stories are rather poor quality, as expected for this era. This issue features a one page introduction of Uncle Creepy by Rudy Nebres.

First story is "Junior" by Abel Laxamana (art) and Bill Dubay & Timothy Moriarty (story). The story is about a freak named Junior who looks like a tentacled monster. Although friendly, when he escapes into the outside world he is viewed as a monster and is killed.

Second is "The Dead Remember" by Martin Salvador (art) and Bruce Jones (story). The story is about a boy who takes a watch from a dead man who fears that the corpse will come after it to take it back. He brings it back to the body only to realize later that he brought it back to the wrong body.

Third is "Kobold" with artists Romeo Tanghal and Alfredo Alcala and writer Budd Lewis. The story is about an older man in a post-apocalyptic world who battles various monsters in order to reach his wife. Also, the world will be ending in a day. Didn't like this one.

Fourth is "Bring on the Clowns" by Fred Carillo (art) and Michael Fleisher (story). The story is about a serial killer who dresses up as a clown. An accountant gets into an encounter with a mugger and is mistaken for the killer, but he eventually comes across the real killer, who chops his head off then kills himself, leading everyone to believe for good that the accountant was the killer.

Last is "Savage Cargo" by Paul Neary (art) and Jim Stenstrum (story, as Alabaster Redzone), a sci-fi story about a woman and her bodyguard who are subdued by criminals. The criminals steal the egg of their pet, which ends up being a ferocious creature that will eat them.

Vampirella 86

Here's the final Vampirella issue from the Louise Jones era. Only four stories, but aside from the Vampi story its not that bad an issue. The cover is by Terrance Lindall.

First up is "Revenge of the Renegade Wizard" by Gonzalo Mayo (art) and Bill Dubay (story, under the name Will Richardson). Vampi, Adam and Pantha fight Tenichi, an evil wizard they had originally fought in issue 73. An action filled story that just is not that interesting to me, like most of Vampi's later stories.

Next up is "Snarking Down" by Auraleon (art) and Bruce Jones (story). Its about a man going to see a woman and her husband who he hasn't seen in years. While working on another planet, the husband got as a pet a 'snark', an ugly tentacled creature that has the ability to hypnotize people into thinking its their lover. Naturally his wife wants to get rid of the thing, but there are unintended consequences and it is she who ends up dying.

"Brain Food" by Jun Lofamia (art) and Michael Fleisher (story) is third, about a man who discovers the healing powers of a tribe living deep within a jungle. He also finds out their favorite meal, monkey brains. He kills one of them and steals what he thinks is a magic blanket, only for them to catch him, cause two new heads to grow on his body, and eat the brains of all of them.

Last up is the "Pygalion Effect" by Val Mayerik & Jeff Easely (art) and Nicola Cuti (story). The story's about a girl who can make inanimate objects alive. Her father tells her to stop, but when she's kidnapped, she uses her powers to rescue herself.

My personal fave is 'Snarking Down' although the last 2 stories are fairly good too.

Vampirella 84

No two ways about it, this is quite a poor issue. The cover is by Steve Harris, in his only Warren cover. Vampi's story for this issue is "Phantasmagoria of Terror" by Jim Janes & Rudy Nebres (art) and Bill Dubay (story). The story features Vampi, Pantha and Adam confronting a man with psychic powers and a motorcycle gang. Just horrid, horrid story.

The issue's only real quality story, "Vampire Bite" by Auraleon (miscredited to Jose Ortiz) and Nicola Cuti (story). A man seeks a real vampire to bite his wife since she is sick and going to die soon. Eventually he gets his wish, but she ends up being cremated without his knowledge!

Third is "Steak-Out" by Abel Laxamana (art) and Jean Michelle Martin (story). The story is about a guy who goes on a planet of vegetable people and his encounter with a vegetable vampire, which he kills by driving an actual steak into its heart.

Fourth is "Final Act" by Pizarro (art) and Pierce Askegren (story), about an actor whose consciousness is put into the movie, where he is repeatedly killed. He gets so sick of it that he kills himself.

Last is "Native Strain" by Val Mayerik & Jeff Easely (art) and Marc Laidlaw (story) about vampires plotting to use a blood blank and blood transfusion of their own blood to take over the world.

With four out of five stories featuring vampires in some form or another, this issue is just painfully repetitive. In addition, the final three stories are all done by writers that did very little for Warren; its not hard to see why as none of the stories were that good.