Nightmare #4

Harry Rosenbaum provides the cover for this issue of Nightmare, cover dated June 1971.

First is "Phantom of the Rock Era" by Chuck McNaughton (story) and Ralph Reese (art). A young woman, Lala, sees Roddy Skeane, a guitarist and singer perform at a club and decides to hook her ride to his, thinking he will eventually become famous and she can take advantage of his fame and fortune. Lala is rather disgusted by his ugly face, but is convinced he will become famous and loves the lavish lifestyle she is hoping to get for them. Eventually Roddy reveals the rest of his band to Lala, and she finds out they all had died in a witchcraft ceremony and have been resurrected from the dead! Roddy wants her to join them permanently and sacrifices her so she can come back from the dead like them. I wasn't the biggest fan of this story, but Reese does a great job with the art. I am not the most familiar with him, he did one Warren story from around this time and had another printed many years later, but that was it for him. He'll do some more strong work coming up.

Second is "Shoot-Out in Satan's Coffin" by Mike Jennings (story) and Jack Abel (art). Newlyweds Holly and Keith find themselves in the desert out west on their honeymoon, spotting some ghosts playing a poker game in a tavern. Holly ventures out in the desert where she is captured by some prospectors who have found uranium, as well as a mutated Gila monster lizard who has grown to giant size! Keith had followed Holly and gets captured as well. They eventually flee to an abandoned town where they come across the ghosts playing poker again who save them from the prospectors. But the Gila Monster and other creatures are still around, leading to our protagonist's demise. I didn't particularly care for this story, the weakest of the issue.

Lila meets her end in "Phantom of the Rock Era"

Next is "The Mad Mind Doctor!" by Chuck McNaughton (story) and Dick Ayers/Mike Esposito (art). Dr. Streichman is a psychiatrist with a unique method of treatment, beating on his patients, which include a man who thinks he is a werewolf and a woman who thinks she is a vampire. A young colleague of his, Moran, tells him he's going to report him, causing Streichman to kill him and dump his body in the ocean! He soon is confronted by Moran's resurrected corpse, the werewolf, the vampire and another cleaver wielding patient. It was good to see Streichman get what was coming to him, but the structure of this story is rather odd in that the ending is revealed on the splash page!

Next is "A Nightmare Pin-Up #3". After being absent from Psycho #3, the one page feature returns, drawn here by Bill Everett. This features a beast like man with a bat like face attacking several people. Everett's work on these one page features have been quite strong.

Fifth is "Hag of the Blood Basket"!" by Al Hewetson (story) and Tom Sutton (art, credited by Sean Todd). The Hag of the title appears visually inspired by the Old Witch, one of the 3 hosts from EC's 1950s horror comics. Sutton was obviously a fan, and would eventually do a story for Warren that was a tribute to Graham Ingels, the artist primarily responsible for drawing her. Anyway, this lengthy story (a whopping 16 pages!) tells the journey of the Hag of the title as she is initially executed during the french revolution, with her head chopped off in the guillotine. We witness her lengthy journey into hell, the various creatures and monsters she encounters there and her desire to escape, only for the story to end with her headless body being chained up in an insane asylum. This story didn't always make the most sense, but the journey was worth it, and Sutton does a great job with the art work. I also felt kinda bad for the hag, she got a bit of a raw deal.

Next is "A Living Death" by Gary Friedrich (story) and Tom Palmer (art). A woman, Lauren Barker, dies after an encounter with her boyfriend, Derek. Lauren's brother Sam blames Derek for her death and gets upset when he attends the funeral. In reality, Derek is leading several possessed women whom he has brought under his thumb and has doing evil deeds for him like stabbing people or shooting them. Sam gets his lover Sandy to go undercover and try and become Derek's girlfriend, but she puts off his advances long enough for Sam to show up. Derek is revealed to be a vampire and is staked to death. Derek and his group of women kinda remind me of Charles Manson, making me wonder if this story was inspired by the real life events that would have happened not too long before this issue came out. The fact that Derek was a vampire I could see from a mile away.

A page from "Hag of the Blood Basket!"

Last is "The Horror on the Chapel Well" by Gardner Fox (story) and Serg Moren (art). A young man, Orsino, summons the devil due to the Duke seizing his lover, Isabella. Orsino is eventually brought before the duke and finds Isabella has killed herself due to only loving Orsino. The Duke tells Orsino that he will spare his life if he can paint the entire wall of a large wall with holy scenes, in just a single day, believing it to be an impossible task that will give him an excuse to kill him. With the help of the devil, Orsino paints the entire wall, although with monsters and demons. The devil has painted one creature in particular that will come to life if Orsino dies. Orsino is killed on orders of the duke, and the monster comes out of the wall, killing him. Every night there after, the monster comes out of the wall and the screams of the Duke can be heard again. The concept of this story reminds me a lot of the Clive Barker novel "Coldheart Canyon" which involved a painted mural whose monstrous inhabitants would come to life.

Vampirella 17

This issue's cover is by Enrich. The frontis for this issue, "Vampi's Feary Tales: The Story of Arachne" is by Auraleon (art) and Jan Strnad (story), featuring the origin of the spider.

This issue's Vampi story is "...Beware, Dreamers!" by Jose Gonzalez (art) and T. Casey Brennan (story). Vampi, Pendragon and Adam come across a masked man chained to the ground. Taking off his mask, they are drawn into a dream world. Meanwhile a man, Ernie Johnson, summons a demon serving Chaos and is ordered to kill our three heroes. Our heroes meet Norto in the dream world, the man they found on the ground. They are confronted by a pterodactyl then Johnson, now known as 'Deathslayer'. He kills Norto, which upsets the demon, killing him, and freeing our heroes from the dreamworld.

Next up is "Horus", drawn and written by Esteban Maroto. This story is the first of the series "Tomb of the Gods", which was originally printed in Spain a few years before its appearance here. Although part of a series, all of the Tomb of the Gods stories were self-contained and can be read in any order. The stories generally were quite surreal, and hence hard to summarize here. This story features a man and woman in ancient Egypt confronting the Egyptian God Horus, guarding the sleep of someone, who ends up being the man himself.

"Death in the Shadows" by Luis Garcia (art) and Doug Moench (story) is next. Garcia is my personal favorite of all Warren artists. This story features a girl who exhibits very strange behavior, such as sleeping only during the day. Her parents put her in an asylum, and she is eventually released. Although it appears that she's a vampire, in the end it ends up that its actually her father who is the vampire.

Next is "A Man's World" by Jose Bea (art) and Mike Jennings (story). A pair of reporters visit an all female colony which is located near where a murder took place. There they are treated like kings, including being fed a significantly large amount of food. Eventually they realize the truth, that the women have literally been eating men. They try to escape but are unsuccessful.

Fifth is "Lover of the Bayou" by L.M. Roca (art) and Jan Strnad (story), featuring a girl who lives in the swamp with her parents. She keeps hearing of an entity called 'The Lover' but her parents won't reveal exactly what it is. She heads out for a walk in the swamp and is rescued by a handsome man who tells her that he invented 'The Lover' as a way to scare people away from his home so he'd have some peace and quiet. Only it ends up that he's been lying, and he locks her in a room with 'The Lover', a tentacled monster, which kills her.

Last is 'The Wedding Ring' by Jerry Grandenetti (art) and Steve Skeates (story). A man goes to visit two old friends who got married. The man had always liked the wife and forces himself on her when he learns her husband is away. It ends up that she's a member of a strange cult that causes a ring to appear and shrink around his neck, strangling him.

Eerie 46

This issue features a cover with Dracula holding a female victim in his arms. The frontis for this issue is "Portrait of Dracula" by Auraleon (art) and Fred Ott (story). This two pager spans both the front and back inside covers.

First story is "Dracula", with art by Tom Sutton (the first two pages feature art from Bill Dubay) and written by Dubay. This story is the first of a three part series starring Dracula, who had originally appeared in a few Vampirella stories in issues 16 through 21. The story features Dracula being sent to a sea port in the early 1900's where he takes over a ship and encounters a haggered witch whose been eating hearts to stay alive. After the Conjuress (a powerful being who was also from the Vampirella series) is killed by her, Dracula kills both the witch and her assistant. Pretty good story here, which would continue over the next few issues.

Next is "The Things in the Dark" by Jim Janes (art) and Fred Ott (story). Janes was usually paired with another artist in his stories, and unless I'm mistaken, this is his only solo story. A caretaker of a graveyard asks a supernatural expert to help him solve the mysteries of the events taking place in the graveyard. It ends up that a group of giant worms have eaten all the bodies in the graveyard and the caretaker brought in the expert to be a meal for them. Janes's art is pretty good here, its too bad he didn't do more solo stories.

Third is "Garganza!" by Paul Neary (art) and Bill Warren (story). This story is Warren's version of Godzilla, feauturing a tyranosaurus rex running amock in Tokyo, and managing to wipe out all of human society only for things to start all over again millions of years later.

Next is "The Root of Evil" by Martin Salvador (art) and Mike Jennings (story). A bum is hired by a scientist to take part in an experiment to help humans be able to breath carbon dioxide. As the days go by, his body slowly turns into a tree while a nearby plant becomes more and more human. Eventually the tree-man is unleashed on society, but is luckily able to be stopped.

Fifth is "Planet of the Werewolves!" by Reed Crandall (art) and Gerry Boudreau (story). Crandall's art is absolutely dreadful here, the worst art he'd ever do on a story for Warren. A trio of astronauts come across a planet overrun by werewolves, except for a single man, who they bring aboard. One of the astronauts is killed while repairs are being done. Eventually the other two discover the truth, that the man they brought aboard is a vampire, whose going to get them to take him to Earth. Crandall's art kind of spoils what is otherwise not that bad a story.

Last is "The Giant", part of the 'Dax the Warrior' series, with art and story by Esteban Maroto. This series was a reprinting of 'Manly' which Maroto had originally done in Spain. Except for the final story, all the stories were stand alones and can be read in any order. I don't expect to review them in order on this blog due to that fact, although I will try to do the finale last. Anyway, this story surrounds Dax encountering a cyclops giant and the wizard controlling him. Dax refuses the wizard's offer to take his place and defeats both the cyclops and him.