Eerie 40

Sanjulian provides the cover for this issue of Eerie, cover dated June 1972. The two page feature "Eerie's Monster Gallery: Dracula's Castle" by Auraleon (art) and Fred Ott (story) is on the inside front and back cover.

First is "The Brain of Frankenstein" by Mike Ploog (art) and Fred Ott (story). This story features a story within a story, told by the son of Dr. Frankenstein. The son revives his father by putting his brain in a corpse's body. At the same time a friend of his, Hans, plots to kill him because of the rampage from his father's monster. Hans's attempts to destroy Frankenstein and the monster his father become fail however, and the father's brain is put into Hans's body.

Second is "The Once Powerful Prince" by Jaime Brocal (art) and Steve Skeates (story). This story features Targo, the prince of Atlantis, who had previously appeared in Eerie 37. In this story a ring that Targo wears that permits him to breathe underwater has been stolen, so he goes after the man that took it and after a long confrontation is able to take it back.

Third is Dax the Warrior in "The Paradise Tree" by Esteban Maroto (story & art). Dax finds himself seized by a tree when he tries to cut it apart for firewood. The tree carries him down into an abyss and he finds a palace with an entrance in the shape of a snake. Inside he finds Astartea, a beautiful woman, as well as many other women. Astartea can have anything she wants, but is a prisoner there, forced to remain there by a demon. When Dax rebels against this, the demon appears, and she is turned back into her true form, a snake.

Fourth is "Deathfall" by Sanho Kim (story & art). This is a rather surrealistic story featuring a man on death row and him recalling why he was put away. Eventually he is put to death. Not much to say on this one.

Fifth is "The Prodigy Son" by Jose Bea (art) and Don Glut (story). The "son" of the title is a man at a freak show whose twin brother's body (all but the head) hangs out of his chest. A woman in the crowd gets him to marry her, thinking its all fake. When she realizes once and for all that its real, she starts sleeping with other men. Her husband meanwhile starts having horrible pains in his chest. He comes across her sleeping with another man, but before he can kill her his twin brother finally breaks free of his body.

Sixth is "Pity the Grave Digger" by Auraleon (art) and Buddy Saunders (story). An old grave digger warns his young colleague of the dangers of the graveyard including a vampire he destroyed and corpses being found completely devoured. The colleague doesn't believe him, but the old gravedigger is soon found consumed by a group of tiny demons.

Creepy 44

Vicente Segrelles provides the cover for this issue of Creepy, from March 1972, one of only two Warren covers.

First story is "With Silver Bells, Cockle Shells And..." by Irv Docktor (art) and F. Paul Wilson (story). A former convict encounters a scientist at a bar that he thinks has money, but he only has seeds. The convict kills the man, then buries his seeds in the ground. He finds out the seeds will make him rich, but they also reveal him as the killer when they look like the very man he killed. Some very interesting art from Docktor in his sole Warren appearance.

Second is the cover story, "Something to Remember Me By!" by Tom Sutton (story & art). A man's wife and her lover get him to die by scaring him to death with a fake grave. They bury him without a locket of his, and believing in a curse that he'll come back to take it, they dig up his grave to put in in his coffin, but his grave ends up falling on them, crushing them.

Third is "A Certain Innocence" by Nebot (art) and Steve Skeates (story). Normally a very dependable writer, Skeates turns out quite an odd one here, this story I'd expect more from a T. Casey Brennan or Don McGregor than him. Its about some hippie girls who enjoy some records, but find some weird words on them, which when they speak turn men into giant monsters.

Fourth is "The Last Days of Hans Bruder" by Frank Bolle (art) and T. Casey Brennan (story). This story features a nazi concentration camp doctor's sad history as he tries to end people's misery as soon as possible, including killing his former lover knowing what the other nazis are going to do to her. In the present time he takes an experimental drug rather than testing it on other people, and it kills him.

Fifth is "Like A Phone Booth, Long and Narrow" by Jose Bea (art) and Jan Strnad (story). This was Strnad's Warren debut. A man's phone obsessed wife convinces him to bury her with a phone in the event she dies, as her family has a history of being buried alive due to an illness. It happens to her, but when she calls him, he's too drunk to pick up the phone.

Sixth is "The Ultimate High!" by Martin Salvador (art) and Steve Skeates (story). This was Salvador's Warren debut. A man is about to settle down with his girlfriend, but before decides to go on one last big adventure to experience the ultimate high from a drug used by Tibetan monks. He uses the drug but the high is so intense that his entire life passes him by and he's an old man by the time he feels normal again.

Seventh is "Dorian Gray: 2001" by William Barry (art) and Al Hewetson (story). In this story Gray retains his looks not because of a deal with the devil, but because he's a vampire! Eventually he's found out however, and ends up falling into a vat of chemicals, which completely destroys his body. Another Dorian Gray themed story appeared in Vampirella around the same time as this story.

Last is "Sleep" by Mike Ploog (art) and Kevin Pagan (story). A pair of thieves are able to steal from people by cutting the hands off a corpse and lighting a finger on fire when they enter someone's house, which causes everyone to fall asleep. Eventually one of the thieves kills the other and heads into his final house, but lighting the fingers don't work as the house is filled with vampires!

This issue would mark the last Creepy appearance by Ploog and the last Warren appearances overall by Bolle and Barry, as the spanish artists quickly became the dominant artists of Warren.

Eerie 35

A terrific cover for this issue of Eerie by Enrich. Unfortunately most of the stories are only so-so. The frontis for this issue is "Eerie's Monster Gallery: Monster Sightings!" by John Cornell.

Up first is "Retribution" by Steve Englehart (art) and Englehart & Gardner Fox (story). It features an army that kills a priest in a snake chamber. The priest comes back to life due to the snake god's powers and seeks revenge.

Second is "The Comet's Curse!" by Frank Brunner (art) and Buddy Saunders (story). The story features a prisoner who tells his captors that a comet will come and curse them while he will live forever. All of the soldiers but one die, and chaos runs supreme in the city. The prisoner escapes and the last soldier is killed when a ceiling falls on him. Thousands of years later the soldier's body is dug up and comes to life, killing the prisoner.

Third is "The Tower of the Demon Dooms!" by Mike Ploog (art) and Gardner Fox (story). It features a man whose lover is killed, but brought back to life by a sorcerer. He kills the sorceror and claims her back, but she ends up being a vampire. So they can stay together they summon a demon to bring them to hell, but he is forced to be a vampire there as well.

Fourth is "I Am Dead, Egypt, Dead" by Victor De La Fuente (art) and Doug Moench (story). The story is about three archaeologists, Jim, Diana and Ray who find a tomb filled with treasure. Jim and Diana conspire to kill Ray and take all the treasure for themself. They do it by inducing a heart attack when Jim dresses up as a mummy. Only when the two of them head into the tomb Ray ends up not being dead after all and dressing up himself as a mummy, kills Jim. Ray and Diana having been together laugh about their plot, but end up dying when they drink water that Jim had poisoned in their canteens.

Fifth is "Cats and Dogs" by Jerry Grandenetti (art) and Bill Dubay (story). A man comes back from the war to stay with his parents and brother, whom he always fought when they were younger. Everyone in the town is afraid because of a werewolf that has been around. The brother ended up being the werewolf, but the soldier is a leopard man and the two battle it out.

Last is "Money" by Sanho Kim (story & art). The story features a man obsessed with money who meets an old man on the mountain who warns him to look, but not take it. The man comes across some money but others want to take it from him so he goes to the mountains himself where he stays alone permanently.

Vampirella 14

Here's another fairly early issue of Vampirella. the cover's by Sanjulian, one of his earliest for Warren. Blogger isn't working too good today, so I unfortunately can't seem to upload the cover. Sorry!

As usual, our first story stars Vampirella, this one titled "Isle of the Huntress", drawn by Jose Gonzalez and written by Archie Goodwin. The early Vampirella stories were probably the best of the stories featuring her. As for Gonzalez, he was perfectly suited for drawing Vampirella. This story surrounds Vampi, Pendragon and Adam arriving on an island where a werewolf like
beast roams. The werewolf is actually a woman who lives on the island with her husband, who while looking for a cure also procures bait to be hunted by her in her wolf form. Vampi & friends are able to save themselves from being prey and kill the two of them. A pretty good story, in stark contrast to some of the recent Vampis I've been covering from the later issues.

The cover story, "The Wedding Gift" is up next, with art by Mike Ploog and story by Nicola Cuti. The story features Pandora of the Greek legend who is imprisoned and helped by her husband, in exchange for subjugating herself to him.

The "Sword of Light" by Sam Glanzman (story and art) is third, featuring a Queen's kingdom being taken over by a warrior king, Yekkun. One of her subjects deals with a witch to save her by tranforming him into a rat and carrying a ring to her, which she is able to transform into a sword of light and kill Yekun. This would be Glanzman's sole story for Warren.

Fourth is "Deadman's Treasure!", with art by Tom Sutton and story by Lynn Marron, in her Warren debut. A large oaf of a man named Ernie is revealed to have a past life as a pirate when he is hypnotized at a carnival. A man attending the carnival and the hypnotizer use him to find themselves the treasure, but find him too much in character when they discover it, as in
his pirate persona he kills the both of them.

Last is "Wolf Hunt" with art by Esteban Maroto, in his Warren debut, and story by Joe Wehrle. An old man finds a woman who transforms into a wolf in the moonlight and captures her in his castle. She is eventually able to escape and take revenge. As always, Maroto's art is quite good here, the best of the issue.

Overall not a great issue, but the artwork is pretty good across the board at least.