Creepy 103

Walt Simonson and Kim McQuaite provide the animal themed cover for this reprint issue of Creepy, dated November 1978. This reprint issue seems to be animal themed, except for the ridiculous inclusion of "Thumbs Down" which was reprinted numerous times throughout the years.

First is "Angel of Doom!" by Jeff Jones (art) and Goodwin (story), from Creepy 16. This story features Thane the barbarian, a recurring character throughout the years in Creepy. In this story Thane is part of a tribe that continously makes sacrifices to a monster. When his lover is killed, Thane heads out, ignoring the tribe's warnings and battles the monster, a giant insect creature. He defeats the creature, but the tribe decides to continue making sacrifices anyway, so Thane leaves. The tribe is soon plagued by the monster's children and are all killed after Thane leaves.

Second is "Bookworm" with art by Richard Corben and story by Gerald Conway, from Eerie 32. A man goes to work as an apprentice to an elderly man with a large book collection. The elderly man tells him how he's studying the black arts. One night our hero discovers the old man dragging a corpse with him and follows him. The elderly man is in a crazed state and attacks him, but is killed by the apprentice. Suddenly a giant worm appears, who the elderly man had been finding food for, and forces the apprentice to start supplying him with food from now on.

Third is "On Little Cat Feet!" by Auraleon (art) and John Jacobson (story), from Vampirella 38. A witch, Kitty, lives in a rooming house with her artist friend Eulalia. Kitty is kicked out of the place by the landlady and plots revenge by turning into a cat and poisoning her claws. She kills the landlady's cat, taking its place, then kills the landlady as well soon after. Eulalia meanwhile recruits an actor as a model for her latest work, a statue of Nero. Kitty, still in her cat form, wanders by and Eulalia has the actor hold her in his arms. Eulalia reveals herself to be Medusa, and when she reveals herself ends up turning both the actor and Kitty into a statue.

Fourth is "Thumbs Down!" by Al Williamson (art) and Anne T. Murphy (story), from Creepy 6. This story features a crooked arena games master who has his top gladiator killed only for him to com e back from the dead to take revenge. This story would probably be reprinted by Warren over the years more than any other story.

Fifth is "Lucky Stiff" by Ramon Torrents (art) and Gerry Boudreau & Carl Wessler (story), from Vampirella 38. A very cautious man ignores a beautiful young woman who starts at the place where he works. At the end of the day she invites him to come to her home at the other side of town. The story shows what would happen if he went. He arrives there, only to be attacked by cats. She tells him he doesn't deserve to live and that he is going to be fed to him. The narrative then reveals that he actually didn't go there, as he was hit by a car along the way.

Last is "The Black Cat" by Berni Wrightson (story & art), from Creepy 62. This story is an adaption of the Edgar Allen Poe story. A man and his wife own a beloved black cat. Eventually the husband grows tired of the cat, then upset at it. After the cat bites him, he cuts out one of its eyes and soon after hangs it. That very night his house burns down. Wandering into a bar, he finds another black cat that has one eye that starts following him. He brings it home and the wife quickly becomes fond of it. The husband loses control and tries to kill the cat. When his wife gets in the way he kills her by slamming an axe into her head. He hides her beneath a brick wall and is confident that the police won't find it when they stop by. The cat however, which was also walled behind the brick wall ends up attracting them to her corpse due to its screams.

Vampirella 83

Jose Gonzalez and Kim McQuaite provide the cover for this all reprint issue of Vampirella, cover dated December 1979. Alas, by this point even the Vampirella reprint issues didn't have the usual new Vampi story they used to have.

First is "The God of Blood" by Jose Gonzalez (art) and Mike Butterworth (story, as Flaxman Loew), from Vampirella 30. In this story Vampirella meets a fellow illusionist who wears a mask and was actually given power from Chaos, which he chooses to abuse. The illusionist captures Vampirella and dresses as the sun god, but the actual sun god shows up and kills him, then kisses Vampirella as the story ends. This story is continued with the next story.

Second is "The Betrothed of the Sun-God!" by Jose Gonzalez (art) and Mike Butterworth (story, as Flaxman Loew), from Vampirella 31. In this story Vampi is the lover of a Sun God that can only appear once a month, but kills anyone who even appears to be attracted to Vampirella. At the same time Pendragon receives a message from a long lost relative and the two of them travel to Paris. The 'relative' is actually a con artist who cons people into putting her in their will, killing them soon afterwards. When handsome poet writes a poem for Vampi the Sun God desires to burn the entire city of Paris to the ground, but Vampi convinces him instead to simply strike the con artist's house with lightning, which kills her and her entire group of henchmen. Vampi then decides to break things off with the Sun God. Gonzalez's art here is very impressive.

Third is "Second Childhood" by Ramon Torrents (art) and Bruce Jones (story), from Creepy 88. This story is about a man, nicknamed Knobby and his rich friend, Chadwick. Chadwick, who with his wealth can have any woman he wants becomes enamored with a priestess in a small African village. Forbidden to be with her, he burns down the village and brings her back to the US. She refuses to sleep with him until drunk one night he rapes her. After their baby is born, Chadwick ends up going into an institution, being unable to write or talk anymore. Knobby goes to his home where he finds Chadwick's baby, which is revealed to actually have Chadwick's mind.

My number one warren story of all time is fourth, "Yellow Heat" by Russ Heath (art) and Bruce Jones (story), from Vampirella 58. Heath's art is some of the best to ever appear in a Warren story. This story takes place in Africa before World War I and surrounds Uthu, a young warrior in an African tribe. When a beautiful woman from an opposing tribe is captured, Uthu desires her for himself and challenges the chief when he claims her. In order to obtain her, the chief orders Uthu to accomplish a warrior's quest where he singlehandedly must kill a full grown lion with only a spear within 3 days. A near impossible task, things get even tougher for Uthu when a lion ambushes him unprepared. He gets very lucky however when a large snake attacks the lion, killing it. Uthu kills the snake and drags the lion back to his tribe, victorious. He enters the hut where the captured woman is waiting for him... and thats as far as I'm going to go. This story is memorable largely for having one of the biggest shock endings in Warren history and I'm not going to spoil it for my readers. Let me just say that the final panel is extremely horrific and startling, but ultimately makes sense within the confines of the story once you read it again. Just a fantastic, fantastic story.

Last is "Harry" by Jeff Jones (story & art), from Vampirella 32. This story was originally printed in color, but is black and white here. A very fast paced story at only 6 pages, it features a little girl walking around with her stuffed bunny rabbit Harry. Talking to herself, it becomes clear that her parents were killed in a fire because they didn't like him. Her head starts hurting and she collapses; someone else later finding Harry.

Eerie 92

This issue has a sports themed cover by Kim McQuaite, featuring the opening story.

First is "Cold Sweat" by Jose Ortiz (art) and Bill Dubay (story). A pair of hockey players traveling in space are brought to a iceberg shaped asteroid where they are forced to play hockey with a number of robots. It ends up that the robots are controlled by an alien whose planet they were to play in their next match. By shooting a puck at his hidden lair, they are able to destroy him and escape.

Second is the Rook in "Strangers in the Strangest Places!" by Abel Laxamana (art) and Bill Dubay (story). An alien, Organ Lo who is a big fan of the Rook desires to be in the old west with him, so he transfers himself back in time to that very location. There he is helped by an old woman, Granny Fincher who demand so much money from him that he has to resort to becoming a crook to pay her back. This is the first part of a two part story concluded in the next issue.

Third is "Lets Hear it For Homo Sapiens" by Auraleon (art) and Gerry Boudreau (story). This story was originally intended for Creepy 95's apes special. This story tells of a revolution of evolved animals and a young girl that befriends one of the intelligent chimps during their battle.

Fourth is the second Moonshadow story, "Suzanna, Don't You Cry" by Jose Ortiz (art) and Bob Toomey (story). In this story Moonshadow wanders through the desert, finding 'The City of the Changer', which is actually a secret underground lair. There he finds Suzanna, a lover and mentor from his childhood when he became an assassin. Suzanna looks exactly as she did back then. Through flashbacks we find that Moonshadow ended up killing her when she was ordered to kill him. Suzanna takes off her clothes for him, then completely rots away, causing him to become comatose.

Fifth is a new series, Abelmar Jones with "Bad Day 'Cross 100th Street" by Alex Nino (art) and Bill Dubay (story). this story tells of two inner city youth who go to work for a wizard, resulting in the typical number of bizarre looking monsters showing up. Not very good, but this series would continue on for a while.

Gaffer's long awaited conclusion ends the issue in "Final Wish" by Leo Duranona (art) and Roger McKenzie (story). A rather unexpected, but still good conclusion for this series. Infact this might be the most depressing ending a series in Eerie ever had. Gaffer dies of old age and leaves his third and final wish to Jaime. Many years pass, Jaime is now an old man himself, living in a mostly abandoned New York in the midst of a devastating winter. Even worse, news of a war soon comes. Jaime rushes to the old slip of paper where Gaffer left him his wish only to be shot by looters. Jaime wishes for peace on earth just as a nuclear weapon strikes New York, causing a blinding white light that engulfs Jaime and everyone else. The true conclusion to this series appears left to the reader's interpretation. Did Jaime's wish for peace on Earth occur due to everyone being wiped out? Or was the light signalling the end of the devastating winter? Alas, this was it for this series so we'll never know. A minor blooper by the production department in this story, with the "End" logo appearing on the second to last page.

Vampirella 81

A half reprint/half new issue of Vampirella, featuring all Vampirella stories. The cover is a reprint of Sanjulian's cover for issue 16, with a recolored background by Kim McQuaite.

First is "Vampirella and the Alien Amazon" by Pablo Marcos (art) and Bill Dubay (story). This story, which continues from the previous issue has Vampirella and Pantha captured on a spaceship by a Lupae alien woman. The alien woman explains the origin of the battle between the Drakulons and the Lupae, and how the Lupae caused the destruction of Drakulon. With the help of the demon summoned by Pendragon in the previous story, Vampirella and Pantha escape from their captor, and get back to Earth where they're reunited with Adam, Conrad and Pendragon.

Second is "Scourge of the Dragon Queen", by Gonzalo Mayo (art) and Bill Dubay (story), wrapping up the Vampirella storyline that had been taking place throughout the issues in the late 70's. Vampirella and friends are in Hong Kong, investigating the murder of multiple heroin drug dealers from a dragon. Through some investigation Vampirella encounters the dragon, which is actually a shape shifting old man who was taking revenge for his murdered son. His revenge completed, the old man kills himself.

Third is "And Be A Bride of Chaos", a reprint from Vampirella 16. Art is by Jose Gonzalez while story is from Archie Goodwin. Vampi and Pendragon are hired to perform for Count Dracula himself, who is holding a meeting of various members of the Cult of Chaos to decide who will be the bride of Chaos and bear his child. While one of the priestesses, Lucretia strongly desires to be the bride, Dracula chooses Vampirella instead and takes her captive. Dracula tells of his origin, about how he is originally from Drakulon and is able to take on the bodies of various people. Conrad Van Helsing arrives and tries to kill Dracula, but the powers given to him by Chaos prevent him from dying. Vampirella arrives however, freed by Lucretia, and rescues Conrad. Chaos takes Dracula's powers away and he crumbles into dust since the stake remains in his heart. Lucretia meanwhile, as a mere mortal crumbles to dust upon Chaos's arrival.

Last is "Dracula Still Lives, a reprint from Vampirella 18. Art is by Jose Gonzalez and story is by T. Casey Brennan. Continuing from the previous story, Dracula is once again brought to life when another man sits inside his coffin. He summons the conjuress, a powerful woman he had originally summoned when he was on Drakulon. Vampi meanwhile heads after Dracula into a mirror world where she decides to spare his life. Conrad, believing she is going to turn his son into a vampire seeks to destroy the mirror, trapping her in there forever, but Vampi is able to make it out okay.

Vampirella 75

A terrific cover for Vampirella starts off this issue. It's by Jose Gonzalez and Kim McQuaite, featuring Vampi and a furry black creature behind her.

First is "The Blob Beast of Blighter's Bog" by Jose Gonzalez (art) and Bill Dubay (story). Vampi, in Hollywood is recruited for a new movie with Pantha's help. The movie is directed by Emile Gorgonzola and is also starring his fat wife Beatrice who is a cannibal that desires to eat Vampi. Beatrice is actually an alien who has controlled Emile's mind and gotten him to bring her victims. With her getting old her power is slipping and Vampi and Pantha are able to defeat her and escape. A nice play on words with the villain of this story and some very nice art by Gonzalez.

Second is "Peter, Peter" by Leo Duranona (art) and Gerry Souter (story). A man named Peter in the early 1800's is very successful at carving wooded creatures based on drawings he has made. He becomes fairly well off by selling them for use on ships, but with the War of 1812 most of the ships are destroyed, his work is no longer in vogue and he loses it all, including his wife to illness when former customers won't give him a loan. He seeks to get revenge, first by burning all his pictures, resulting in all the ships they are on burning as well. He then makes pumpkins carved like the faces of those he wants revenge on and give it to them, which result in burning the people when they put the flame inside. He then ends it all by carving a pumpkin to match his own face, then smashes it. A very good story, the best of the issue easily.

Third is "Sasquatch Love" by Jose Ortiz (art) and Cary Bates (story). A trio of campers discover a sasquatch which they call Martha. In order to get pictures of her and test a love potion they're making, one of them dresses up as a sasquatch and temporarily lives with her. In order to let him escape, one of the other two dresses up as a sasquatch as well and do some things which Martha mimicks. When a fly flies inside the man's mask though, they take off his mask, causing Martha to tear the head off their colleague.

Fourth is "Business is Booming" by Isidro Mones (art) and Bob Black (story). An undertaker murders his wife and gets away with it. Enjoying what he did, he starts murdering other people on the street and doesn't get caught. When a potential victim gets away from him, he runs to his lab where those he killed get their revenge on him.

Last is "A Matter of Principle" by Azpiri (art) and Budd Lewis & Len Wein (story). This story features a man in a post apocalyptic future who enjoys eating worms and maggots. He fights off birds to get them, and waits around corpses to get at them. He finds a few men fighting over a women, so he kills them, but since she's already dead he plans to use her to attract more bugs to eat. A disgusting story with so-so art from Azpiri, who only did two stories for Warren. One part of the art is dated "72" making me wonder if this was a story they held on to for a while before printing.

Creepy 96

An alien encounter special for this issue of Creepy, featuring an alien on the cover by Kim McQuaite.

First story is "Predation" by Rudy Nebres (art) and Bruce Jones (story). This story would win the Warren award for best art in a story for 1978. The story features a pair or alien lovers who look like humanoid frogs that come to Africa and decide to spend their day in the bodies of a pair of lions. Meanwhile a husband and wife head hunting into this area with a tour guide. While the husband does work, the wife and tour guide head out hunting and she ends up killing one of the lions, and the other soon is killed as well. The aliens however decide to occupy their bodies, and are forced to stay on Earth because their ship gets destroyed.

Next is "Trilby and the Star Rovers" by Luis Bermejo (art) and the team of Bill Dubay & Budd Lewis (story). A young boy named Toby is spoken to by the Trilby of the title, who comes from another planet. His parents don't believe him however, thinking he's making it up. When Toby is taken for real by Trilby however, his parents soon realize that he wasn't lying after all.

Third is "Bonga and Me" by Esteban Maroto (art) and Nicola Cuti (story). A young woman named Felci, the last surviving member of her tribe is kicked out of the tribe that destroyed her's. She wanders through the woods where she meets a baby dinosaur which she calls Bonga. When Bonga grows up into a Tyranosaurus Rex like creature, she heads back to the tribe and takes over, declaring herself chief. She works on taking over multiple other tribes, but suddenly Bonga dissappears when aliens, who originally lost him on Earth arrive to get him back. They are forced to seek her help however to keep him under control. This story was clearly originally intended for Eerie 90, which is a girl & lizard monster special issue. Maroto's artwork is quite poor compared to his usual excellence.

Fourth is "Alien!" by Martin Salvador (art) and Bill Dubay (story). A depressing story about a pair of men at war with alien creatures that look like giant walking frogs. One of the soldiers decides to leave two orphanned aliens alone, including one which is half human, half alien, but it comes back to haunt him later when they come after him and his friend.

Fifth is "The Green" by Luis Bermejo (art) and Bruce Jones (story). A young man, a 'Green', gets assigned for transporting ammunition through space rather than going into battle like he had hoped. As the months pass by on their long mission, his commanding officer tells him of their destination, a planet occupied by beautiful woman who will continuously have sex with them, as well as the fabulous food and exciting battles they will get into there. When they finally arrive, the Green realizes that it was all a lie, and was just a story his commander told him so he wouldn't go crazy on the way there. A fun story that I would rank as my favorite of the issue.

The issue concludes with "Alien Strain" by Alex Nino (art) and Bill Dubay (story). A 'Banggi' and his human friend are attacked by various aliens when they arrive at a planet where they have transported some robots. The mob has good reason to fear him however, as by arriving the Banggi has caused an epidemic where thousand of Banggi larva work their way through various prostitutes, infesting the planet. Very odd looking aliens here by Nino, as usual for him.