Creepy 55

An all reprint issue of Creepy, the cover being a montage of many previous covers. This issue is dated August 1973.

First is "Brain Trust" by Angelo Torres (art) and Archie Goodwin (story), from Creepy 10. A new doctor in town is perplexed by the town eccentric, a large man who doesn't show up in public often, and smells like shaving cream. Eventually the grocery store owner refuses his business and he dissappears. The doctor finds out that the man was one of a set of mutated twins. Having died in a car crash, his other brother used his brain to control his actions. When the doctorcomes upon him, the living twin uses the dead one's body to kill himself.

Second is "Welcome Stranger" by Al Williamson (art) and Archie Goodwin (story), from Creepy 2. Two men from Hollywood that work in the movie industry come across a town where they find some strange events occuring. They soon encounter some ghosts. It ends up all being fake, an act by the townfolk who want a movie filmed there, but their work had resulted in frightening the two men to death

Third is "Act Three", which is written and drawn by Johnny Craig. This story, from Creepy 18 is about an actress whose husband has turned into a werewolf. The two of them are able to get a doctor to create a cure, but when he injects both of them with the serum, the actress turns into a werewolf herself.

Fourth is "Thundering Terror!" by John Severin (art) and Clark Dimond & Terry Bisson (story), from Creepy 17. This issue 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.

Fifth is "Incident in the Beyond!" by Gray Morrow (art) and Archie Goodwin (story), from Creepy 3. A ship heads through space, testing a new warp drive to ensure it works. There was one prior try at the warp, which failed before. Along the way they find an apparent alien ship, which they destroy. The warp drive works, but they find that it has not saved them any time, and they find another ship trying the drive thinking they're aliens, so they are destroyed as well, like they had destroyed the original ship.

Sixth is "Prelude to Armageddon" by Wally Wood (art) and Wally Wood & Nicola Cuti (story) from Creepy 41. Some very sexy art by Wood in this story about a medieval war between various creatures such as centaurs, minotaurs and other creatures. The moon explodes during the battle, dealing heavy damage to the Earth and wiping out the battlers, leading to our society many milleniums later.

Last is "The Law and Disorder" by Luis Garcia (art) and Dennis P. Junot (story), from Creepy 47. This story features a man who is angry at the board of trustees of a college, thinking they are responsible for his father's death. He creates a disintegration ray which he lets into their hands, and they die of radiation once using it. The protagonist then dies suddenly at the end of the story, with little explanation.

Creepy 47

Ron Cobb provides the cover for this issue of Creepy, dated September 1972. The cover was originally to have been done by Sanjulian, featuring the interior story The Land of Bone (and that cover actually appears on the preview page), but it failed to meet the deadline and wouldn't be used until Eerie 123. The frontis for this issue is "Creepy's Loathsome Lore: Not Sherlock by a Long Shot" by Jose Bea (art) and Doug Moench (story).

First is "The Land of Bone" by Esteban Maroto (art) and Buddy Saunders (story). This story features a warrior Costan who finds himself in a world where every person he meets is a skeleton. He is joined by a skeleton wizard, Wikkander, who tells him that his lover Aruna has been captured by the Wizard Poxxalt. The two of them fight off various creatures and then defeat Poxxalt. Costan is shocked to find Aruna a skeleton herself, and gives Wikkander a ring on her finger. Once he gets the ring, the truth is revealed. Costan was a skeleton himself, and only thought that he was human and everyone else was a skeleton. Wikkander, a descendent of his brought him to life to free Aruna from Poxxalt.

Second is "Mark of the Phoenix" by Reed Crandall (art) and T. Casey Brennan (story). This story features a student drug dealer who finds that he is dying of cancer. In order to live forever, he makes a deal with a Phoenix which will enable him to live forever, unless his body is completely destroyed. The Phoenix tells him that he will have to be set ablaze and reborn every 10 years however, and this frightens him terribly. He gets so nervous of a pigeon following him that he ends up killing himself for good.

Third is "The Law and Disorder" by Luis Garcia (art, his final Creepy appearance) and Dennis P. Junot (story). This story features a man who is angry at the board of trustees of a college, thinking they are responsible for his father's death. He creates a disintegration ray which he lets into their hands, and they die of radiation once using it. The protagonist then dies suddenly at the end of the story, with little explanation.

Fourth is "The Eternity Curse" by Martin Salvador (art) and John Thraxis (story). This story features an enemy of the pharoah who is cursed to live forever. His corpse lies in the ground for thousands of years, getting out in present times, when he starts attacking some victims of a plane crash, absorbing their life force until he is restored to a normal appearance. A similar theme as to what takes place in the modern version of the Mummy movie.

Fifth is "Point of View" by Luis Dominguez (art) and Steve Skeates (story). This story features a number of stories all converging into one. A man is fearful of a powerful being that he suspects is after him. In another a woman leaves her boyfriend very frantically. In the third, an older man drives drunk despite his wife's warnings. All converge when the car is about to hit the woman, and our protagonist notices a caped woman distracting her, who is actually the person he is fearful of. A rather confusing summary? Probably cause this is a rather confusing story that ends rather abrubtly.

Sixth is "This Burden, This Responsibility" by Jerry Grandenetti (art, his final Creepy appearance) and Steve Skeates (story). Another odd story by Skeates, featuring a man in a future where computers run almost everything. He gets a bigger office for his good work, then gets in trouble when he comes in late, being killed by his computerized superiors.

Seventh is "Futurization Computation!" by Bill Dubay (story & art). This short three page story tells of a modernized computer device, which ends up robotic teachers for a school.

Last is "The Beginning!" by Tom Sutton (art) and Seve Skeates (story). In contrast to Skeates's two earlier odd stories, this one is quite good. It takes place in a future Earth where normal humans are fighting mutants who have mutated due to contaminated food. One of the human soldiers sees a beautiful woman whom he becomes obsessed with seeing. He finds her, then fights off a superior who calls her Queenie. She brings him through a wall where he finds out the truth, that she's a mutant and she's lured him to other ones who seize him.

Creepy 43

Ken Kelly provides the cover for this issue of Creepy.

First is "Three Way Split" by Jorge Galvez (art) and Dennis P. Junot (story). This story features two businessmen who are enemies of each other. A doctor who was fired by one of them goes to the other, with a way to get revenge on the rival by becoming him through a brain transplant. The operations is successful, although the rival convinces the doctor to help him as well. By the end of the story all three have switched bodies with each other, and all three end up dying.

Next is the cover story, "The Mark of Satan's Claw" by Jaime Brocal (art) and Fred Ott (story). A man comes to a small town, curious of some murders of children that are occuring. Law enforcement is unwilling to help him, but a man there admits to him that the town is full of Satan worshippers and that he left them when they started sacrificing children. Satan himself kills the man, but our protagonist is led to his girlfriend, who also left the Satan worshippers. Our protagonist is revealed to be Satan himself, and kills her too for betraying him.

Third is "The Men Who Called Him Monster" by Luis Garcia (art) and Don McGregor (story). This story was Luis Garcia's Creepy debut. An extremely nice art job, with the werewolf being obviously influenced by the original Wolfman movie starring Lon Chaney Jr. The main character, a black detective, who is hired to find the boy that is the werewolf, was based on Sidney Poitier. This story featured the first inter racial kiss in mainstream comics, although it only occured because Garcia misunderstood McGregor's line "This is the clincher" in his script. As usual, the story features McGregor's nonscensical political ramblings.

Fourth is "Quest of the Bigfoot" by Jerry Grandenetti (art) and R. Michael Rosen (story). This story features a pair of scientists investigating bigfoot. They eventually come across an Eden occupied by the bigfoots. One of the scientists morphs into bigfoot and attacks the other scientist. But that scientist reveals that he is the abominable snowman and kills him, wanting to take over the bigfoot's realm for his species.

Last is "Mirage" by Felix Mas (art) and Gerry Conway (story). A man and a young boy wander the desert after a plane crash. They eventually come across a group of women that end up eating him. At the end of the story it is revealed that the whole experience was a mirage, caused by the boy because he was upset at the man for hitting him.