Eerie 138

Nestor Redondo provides the cover for this issue of Eerie, cover dated January 1983.

The first two stories of this issue are "The Mist" a continuation of the series that has appeared on and off again in Eerie for the past few years. Art for both stories is provided by Bill Draut (the third artist for this series!) and story is provided by Don McGregor. A seemingly ordinary woman, Victoria Westgate, is captured by the minions of the mysterious Lucifer de Montalbon, who believes her to actually be Auguste, a voodoo priestess who doesn't remember her actual identity. She is bound as part of a ceremony in the woods, and when lightning strikes, she gains powers that permit her to kill Lucifer and his minions.

Third is "Granny Gutman and the Limbo Men" by Fred Carrillo (art) and Rich Margopoulos (story). This story is another one of Eerie's very lame color inserts. Another incredibly lame super hero story, featuring an old woman who orders around three losers who turn into super heros at her beckon. An alien bad guy block up a volcano in order to wreack havoc on California, all so he can mate with one of the super heroes. The heroes defeat him and save the day.

Fourth is "Glythis" by E.R. Cruz (art) and Timothy Moriarty (story). A pair of scientists are working on developing a device that permits them to go to another dimension. Another scientist arrives, trying to steal their technology, and chaos ensues. Access to another dimension is opened, and one of the scientists is sent to that dimension, while Glythis, a humanoid monster that was about to be killed is sent over to Earth. The scientist meanwhile is about to be executed in Glythis' place. This was intended to be a series but due to the end of Warren Publishing the series ended here.

Last is "Sherlock Holmes - A Study in Scarlet" by Noly Panaligan (art) and Rich Margopoulos (story). Some very nice art in this story, which is part of a series originally started in the Rook magazine. This story features Sherlock Holmes solving a mystery where a man fell in love with a mormon girl but the mormans captured her and she died of a broken heart. The man seeked revenge and killed those who captured her, but ends up dying in his jail cell due to a heart defect.

1994 #29

John Berkley provides the cover for this issue, the final issue of 1994, from February 1983.

First is "Grandmother Running Box" by Vic Catan (art) and Bill Dubay (story). This story features the character of the title, from the Little Beaver series. Running Box is in pursuit of Little Beaver, and also teams up with some women warriors as well. This story ends with a to be continued, but was never concluded.

Second is "Goddess" by Peter Hsu (art) and Timothy Moriarty (story). This bizarre story features humans fighting some bizarre ape like aliens. They land on a mountain that ends up being a large naked woman, who is also a spaceship. Yes, the story's that odd. Rather obvious that the story is little more than an excuse for Hsu to draw lots of naked women.

Third is "Ghita of Alizarr" by Frank Thorne (story & art). In this story Ghita is able to chop off Rahmuz's arms and Dahib helps drop him into a chasm, killing him. With Rahmuz dead, his minions all vanish. Ghita and the others leave Urd, with Runthar and Dakini now in charge. A fairly good ending to the Ghita saga, I wonder if this was meant to be its ending or if it was meant to continue further had the magazine not died.

Fourth is "Farmed Out" by Delando Nino (art) and John Ellis Sech (story). This story takes place in Luna City in the future. An enforcer (a cop) hopes to win the lottery which permits the winner to be sent to the lovely nature of Earth. Our hero and his wife end up killing the real winners, blowing up their home, and taking their place on the ship being sent to Earth. But it ends up that the whole lottery is a trick, and that those who win it are actually gassed and turned into fertilizer. A very good ending for this issue's best story.

Fifth is "The Warhawks" by Abel Laxamana (art) and Bill Dubay (story). This story is the second part of a story started in issue 27, unfortunately an issue I do not own. This story features the Warhawks, a group of astronauts fighting aliens in space, who end up being actors. The entire thing ends up being part of a movie.

1994 #28

Steve Fastner & Rich Larson provide the cover for this issue, published in December 1982.

First is the final "Young Sigmund Pavlov!" story by Alex Nino (art) and Bill Dubay (story). Pavlov crashes on a planet filled with various robot creatures. He and the robots end up recreating the Wizard of Oz, albeit with various robot creatures in place of the notable characters from that story. This story ends with a to be continued sign, but this would be the last story in the series. This story is very unlike the other stories in this series, as it doesn't contain the usual extremely bizarre Nino art and over the top sex filled story by Dubay.

Second is "Too Many Termarrows" by Vic Catan (art) and Tim Moriarty (story). This story features two men who land on a planet carrying a secret weapon. One of the men has a key robbed by a woman he sleeps with, so they pursue her through the desert and eventually find that she is part of a group of wives of a sultan. Our two protagonists release their weapon, human eating termites that kill everyone but them.

Third is "Ghita of Alizarr" by Frank Thorne (story & art). This story features Ghita taking part in a ceremony with Rahmuz where she is brought underground, where oddly enough, stars start appearing. A mummy which is Khan Dagon appears, then soon varous other corpses and monsters as well.

Next is "Angel" by Rudy Nebres (art) and Bill Dubay (story). This dull series finally comes to an end with this story. Angel and Ape find a group of savages that have captured a communist scientist who plans to destroy them. They end up being saved by a Tin Man superhero.

Last is the finale of "Diana Jacklighter, Manhuntress!" by Esteban Maroto (art) and Dan Hallassey & Bruce Jones (story). Lots of revelations in this story, where it is revealed that pretty much the entire quest of Diana to this point has been a lie. Her ally Jason has been the true villain all along, and the convict Frank Branner was actually an engineer named T. L. Hoyt who is a good guy on her side. With his help she returns to Earth and defeats Jason once and for all. A very good end to the strongest series of the latter part of 1994's life.

1994 #25

This issue, dated June 1982 features a Ghita of Alizarr themed cover by Lloyd Garrison. Actually not that bad an issue. Everything here is at least somewhat memorable in its own way, rather impressive considering this was an era where Warren's work was very substandard. Sorry, was unable to find an image of the cover for this issue to show you all.

First is "The God of the Month Club" by Alex Nino (art) and Kevin Duane (story). Similar to issue 22's Young Sigmond Pavlov segment, this story is pretty much all nonscensical garbage, but Nino pulls off an amazing art job where the art from each page can be combined with the other pages to form a giant image, in this case, the phrase "God of the Month Club". In fact if you own multiple issues, you can expand the art to form a seemingly infinite image. Very bizarre, but very well done.

Second is "Diana Jacklighter, Manhuntress!" by Esteban Maroto (art) and Bruce Jones (story). In this story Diana heads after Frank Branner, the escaped convict who is reported to have a plague. Diana crashes her ship on the planet he's on, with her only hope to steal the ship he had. Unfortunately for her, she is captured by him, who seems to be completely unaffected by the plague. At gunpoint he forces her to fix the ship for him and she ends up falling for him, even though she may be infected as a result. Looks like the series will start going in a different direction after the events of this story.

Third is "Ghita of Alizarr" by Frank Thorne (story & art). In this story Ghita is brought by her captives to Urd, managing to kill two of them along the way, but stopped by the third. She arrives at Urd where she is paraded in front of the people, who aren't all that impressed with her. She meets Runthar while there, the boy she had met in Urd during her youth.

Fourth is "Angel" by Rudy Nebres (art) and Bill Dubay (story). In this story Angel and Ape are in South Africa, where a conflict has been going on between white and black people. They meet a white hunter, who got caught in a bear trap. After freeing him and healing his wounds, he discusses the conflict, which involved chemical warfare, which resulted in mutations occuring. They meet one such mutation, a baby who was responsible for leaving the bear traps. Although Angel tries to heal him, the mutant instead tries to kill her, and she is saved by the white hunter. The best story thus far in this rather poor series.

Last is "Small World, Isn't It?" by Delando Nino (art) and Timothy Moriarty (story). In this story a man creates a device which permits him to shrink anyone to an extremely small size, albeit it temporarily. Unfortunately for him the government seizes him, with the intent of using his device to defeat their enemies. Eventually enemy forces get their hands on it too and the entire Earth blows up, with only the man and his wife surviving, with him in a shrunken size inside of her space suit.

1994 22

This issue of 1994 features a cover by Steve Fastner & Rich Larson. Quite a poor issue with little memorable here except Nino's art on the first story.

First is the latest segment of "Young Sigmond Pavlov" by Alex Nino (art) and Bill Dubay (story). As with the other Pavlov stories, this features a nonscensical story where Pavlov sees a lunatic, this time a bizarre looking monster. As usual this story has many two page spreads, and in fact the pages can all be combined horizontally to becomes a single giant image. Very interesting art, but a story thats not interesting at all.

Second is "Love Among the Ruins!" by Delando Nino (art) and Bill Dubay & Tim Moriarty (story). This story takes place in a future where Earth has been attacked by tentacled monsters. Years pass and the monsters are barely seen, so few believe they are still around. A man dreaming of a beautiful woman heads underground where he sees her for real. He brings his friends down as well, but it is all a trap as she is one of the monsters and summons other ones to eat all of them. The best story of the issue.

Third is "Bringing Up Baby", part of a new series, Ariel Hart. Art is by Peter Hsu and story is by Bill Dubay. A horrible story with little to no story to it, featuring Ariel under pursuit from some evil doers.

Fourth is the second "Angel" story by Rudy Nebres (art) and Bill Dubay (story). This story features Angel kidnapped by a large beast similar in appearance to her friend Ape. A man arrives and saves her, but she tells him that the creatures are just lonely and he shouldn't have done that. Yawn.

Last is "Mike Marauder: Knight Errant of the Spaceways!" by Rueben Yandoc (art) and Rich Margopoulos (story). Mike attacks an evil villain who *gasp* uses robots to let women have sex. After Mike interrupts things time and time again, the women cut off his penis, and it is he who is now in the position where the story's villain is helping him out. Margopoulos rips this story off from one he did in Eerie 118, making this an extremely lame way to end the issue.

Vampirella 103

A really nice cover for this issue by Enrich featuring Vampirella swimming. Jose Gonzalez contributes yet another table of contents portrait of Vampirella.

First up is Vampirella's story, "The Last Prince!" by Jose Gonzalez (art) and Rich Margopoulos (story). Gonzalez returns to Vampirella to deliver his first new story since issue 82. He would handle the lead Vampirella story from now until the end of the magazine's life. This story features Vampirella dissappearing below the depth of the ocean where she meets Ariel, a prince of the sea who looks just like Adam. He lets Vampirella live with him and others who have lived beneath the sea. It ends up that the others are all diead however and he's been hiding his true form from her. Vampi and he head for the surface and while she makes it, he is unable to make it out of the sea and returns to where he came from. A short story at only 8 pages, but much higher quality than the epic stories we've had in Vampi over the last couple of years of this magazine.

Next is "The Mephisto List", the final story in the Cassandra St. Knight series. Art is by Auraleon and story is by Rich Margopoulos. A rather dissappointing finale to a dissappointing series. Cassandra is recruited to help a tibetan monk discover who stole 'The Mephisto List', which enables its user to summon demons. Both suspects are murdered, causing Cassandra to find the true culprit, a servant to the head monk. The series ends here with no apparant conclusion whatsoever.

Third is "The Final Solution!" by Jose Ortiz (art) and Rich Margopoulos (story), part of the 'Pantha' serial. Dr. Rictus attempts to prolong his life by extracting cells from Pantha, which will kill her. Pantha breaks free of her bonds, defeats Rictus's wife, his bigfoot son, and finally Rictus himself.

Fourth is "Terror in the Tomb!" by Luis Bermejo (art) and Nicola Cuti (story), part of 'The Fox' series. Sha-Ming and Will head with her uncle to Ch'In's Tomb where he finally obtains the wand he's been seeking; it ends up being a fake however and the real one is buried within a dead buried soldier. While this seems like an apparant resolution to the storyline, this series will continue for a while longer.

Fifth is "Pentesilia" by Esteban Maroto (art) and Timothy Moriarty (story). The story features the battle between the country of Thornodium and the Amazon country of Sapphae. Sapphae's queen, Pentesilia refuses to bow down and battles Gleyin, who had originally attempted to be an ambassador between the two countries. After a long battle he succeeds in killing her. Quite a dissappointing story from a story and art standpoint compared with Maroto's recent Vampirella work.

The issue wraps up with "Lover" with art by Artifact (Val Lakey, John Lakey and Laura Buscemi) and story by John Lakey. This story features a space shuttle manned all by women and their robot companion, nicknamed Lover. Lover runs amock, killing all the women aboard except the Captain, the only one that didn't mistreat him. Not a great story, but the artwork is quite good and Lover is quite a scary looking robot.

Vampirella 102

This issue features a cover by Enrich, a redo of his cover for issue 60. Joze Gonzalez contributes another table of contents with Vampirella.

First is Vampirella in "Return of the Blood-Red Queen" by Gonzalo Mayo (art) and Rich Margopoulos (story). The sister of the original Blood Red Queen of Hearts (who first appeared in issue 49) collects hearts and seeks revenge on Vampirella for her sister's death. Vampirella also faces trouble when her blood substitute ends up not working. By the end Vampi ends up on top and the Blood Red Queen is killed. A rather lame redo of a storyline which had already been done before in much better fashion with the original Queen. Mayo's art also seems a little down compared to usual at times in this story.

Second is Pantha in "A Night Full of Zombies Part Five" by Jose Ortiz (art) and Rich Margopoulos (story). Pantha escapes from being attacked by alligators. Adam meanwhile is held captive by Munroe and Baron Samedi, but when Pantha arrives they defeat the both of them. They return to see Dr. Rictus, only to be attacked by his son, a Bigfoot! It seems that Samedi plans on stealing Pantha's body...

Third is Cassandra St. Knight in "Kill Quake!" by Auraleon (art) and Rich Margopoulos (story). Cassandra, trying to prevent a quake that will hit New York is attacked by a druggie who had a vision of Cassandra killing him, which was actually a vision of his past life. Luckily she is able to save herself.

Fourth is The Fox, "Night of the Devildogs!" by Luis Bermejo (art) and Nicola Cuti (story). Sha-Ming and Raven are captured by men from the 'Boxer Revolution' who hold them captive until Sha-Ming summons Kuei demons to destroy their captors. The demons warn her to not let her uncle get the wand of Ch'in Shin Huang. They return to the boat where they plan on stopping him, but are spied upon as they head to the mainland where a festival is taking place. Thats where this segment ends.

Fifth is "Perseus" by Esteban Maroto (art) and Tim Moriarty (story). The story surrounds Perseus who seeks to rescue his mother from King Craccus. To do so, he finds Medusa and beheads her, then uses her face to turn his enemies to stone, including Gorgons and a Serpent beast. He rushes into Craccus's castle and unleashes Medusa's head once again, but this turns both Craccus and his mother to stone. Perseus is cursed with the knowledge that he killed his mother. Amazing artwork by Maroto on Medusa in this story.

Last is "Alicia" by Alphonso Font (art) and Carl Wessler (story). In France during late World War II a thief breaks into a house and finds a picture of the owner, who looks just like him! His wife arrives and mistakes him for her husband, but so does a group of zombie soldiers angry at him for betraying them. Their pursuit results in his death. After its revealed that the husband was around the whole time, hiding from them and helped tremendously by this recent turn of events. This is Font's only Warren appearance. Wessler stopped writing for Warren long before this issue making one wonder if this was a story that was originally intended to run years earlier.

Creepy 141

One of Creepy's last issues, featuring a cover by Richard Corben.

First story is "I Created the... Gargoyle!" by Delando Nino (art) and Danielle Dubay (story). This story is about a pair of men working on a cancer treatment who find a way to cure it, but it turns the patient into a gargoyle like monster. One of the men thinks that their work has failed because they've done it on animals, so he volunteers for the treatment. His cancer is cured, but he too turns into a monster that runs amok before being destroyed.

Second is "The Puppet Master" by Fred Carillo (art) and John Ellis Sech (story). A hit man gets mad at his mob boss for his treatment of him in public so he kills him. He also kills a homeless puppet player who saw it happen. He tries to escape on a plane, but finds himself controlled by the ghost of the puppet player.

Third is "The Check-Out Counter" by Alfonso DeLeon (art) and Timothy Moriarty (story). An interesting story about a pair of men who are searching for the Garden of Eden in a post apocalyptic world. They kill an old man and follow a boy to find it... which ends up being a convenience store run by a robot which kills them and takes their organs then they try to take some food. The boy survives, but ends up loosing his tongue.

Fourth is "Covering All Bases" by Martin Salvador (art) and Kevin Duane (story). The story features a newscaster who is always all over the place. It ends up that he cloned himself multiple times. Although one is murdered, getting him in trouble, he is able to get out in the end.

Fifth is "Candle in the Wind" by Jun Lofamia (art) and Gerry Boudreau (story). The story features an investigation of people who are spontaneously combusing. Eventually it is discovered that it is due to a nurse treating people for cancer. It cures the cancer, but eventually causes them to burst aflame. By the end of the story the last remaining patient wraps his arms around her and they both burst into flames.

Last is "Moral Blood" by Al Sanchez (art) and Don McGregor (story), the first of a continuing series. The story is Don McGregor's return to Creepy after a long absense. Its a horror story told in an old west setting. A group of demon like creatures attack a caravan. Not that good in this opening entry of the series.

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.