Creepy 40

A terrific cover for this issue, by Larry Todd & Vaughn Bode. The frontis for this issue is "Creepy's Loathsome Lore: The Loch Ness Monster" by Clif Jackson (art) and Al Hewetson (story).

First up is the cover story, "The Fade-Away Walk" by Tom Sutton (art) and Don McGregor (story, his Warren debut). Taking place after a nuclear holocost, the story features two mutated men fighting around Mt. Rushmore. One of the men falls to his death after what else, but one of McGregor's typical pseudo-political ramblings between the two.

Second is "The Impersonation" by Pablo Marcos (art) and Steve Skeates (story). A secret agent who poses as other people tries to get out of the line of work since the real person always shows up. His boss convinces him to go on another mission because the guy he's impersonating is dead, so what happens? The guy comes back from the dead to reveal the truth yet again! They are both put into a trap they must escape from and the dead guy vanishes, trapping the agent in there for good.

"Swamp Demon" by Dave Cockrum (story & art) features a swamp monster that can appear as anything to someone who sees it. The natives sacrifice maidens to it, so one warrior heads into rescue his girl when it ends up being her. He thinks he kills the swamp demon and rescues her, but it ends up that the swamp demon survived and took her place.

"Disintegrator" is fourth, by Ken Barr (art) and Nicola Cuti (story). The story features a man who creates a disintegrator gun to gain back his life after his business partner swindled him. The business partner steals the gun from him, but it ends up that the disintegrator power was within him all along, not within the gun.

Next is "Lost and Found" by George Roussos (art) and Steve Skeates (story). A wizard loses his ability to walk through solid things, which is transferred to a man in the present. The man tries to steal from a bank vault with the power but the wizard gets it back just as he's going through the vault. The last panel is rather confusing, saying he dies because the vault passes through him, shouldn't it be the other way around?

Last is "Dual Dragon" by Gary Kaufman (story & art). Kaufman was a fairly good artist & writer who did about a half a dozen or so stories around this time for Warren. The story features a man who tries to defeat a dragon to impress a girl. A blind old man living in a cave gives him a necklace which enables him to find the dragon, but it results in him killing the girl instead! Afterwards, with the necklace on his neck he looks for her but can't find her, even though her decapitated head is right in front of him.

Eerie 33

Our odd looking cover for this issue is for the interior story Starvisions, both done by Larry Todd. The frontis for this issue is "Eerie's Monster Gallery: The Minotaur" by Clif Jackson.

First up is "A Trip in Time!" by Jack Sparling (art) and Steve Skeates (story). A man creates a time machine, thinking that his appearance in the past will have no impact. And it doesn't, because as he arrives in the past, he and his time machine quickly vanish entirely!

Second is "243 Blank Pages" by George Roussos (art) and Steve Skeates (story). A man finds a book which will cause anyone whose name is written in it then consequently burned to vanish. He does so to an enemy of his, but then becomes paranoid that the police are after him and destroys the book in a fire, having forgotten that he wrote his own name in it!

Next is "Whom the Gods Would Destroy" by Ken Barr (art) and Marvin Wolfman (story). A well written story about a battle consuming all who remain on Earth. It is eventually revealed that our heroes are battling only a hospital with self-defense forces, and soon only two are let, who die as well.

Fourth is "Escape Into Chaos" by Ernie Colon (art) and Steve Skeates (story). Probably the issue's worst story, it is about a man who keeps being plagued by bugs and other monsters, yet forgets about it and encounters the same fate over and over.

The cover story, "Starvisions" by Larry Todd (story & art) is our next one, a bizarre story about a large funnel like creature that appears to be made up of many stones that encounters a few stranded astronauts which it believes are just a figment of its imagination.

"The Pest" is next, by Richard Corben (art) and Al Hewetson (story). A bug killing device is created that uses toxic gas, and causes problems for ill adults or children. Its creator is getting rich off of it and could care less until he turns into a bug himself, well at least thinks he does, and dies of a heart attack.

Last is "The Painting in the Tower" by Pat Boyette (art) and Gardner Fox (story). An evil baron takes an artist's daughter and has his hands cut off when he refuses payment. The girl hangs herself soon after. The baron sees her corpse come back to life and lead him to a part of his castle where the father's chopped off hands paint a picture of him being tortured, and he slowly vanishes as the painting is completed.

Vampirella 8

An important issue for Vampirella, featuring the first story of her true storyline. The cover is by Ken Kelly and the frontis, entitled "Vampi's Feary Tales: Love!", written and drawn by Tom Sutton.

"Who Serves the Cause of Chaos?" by Tom Sutton (art) and Archie Goodwin (story) is up first. This is Vampi's first serious story (her previous two appearances were not serious stories). It introduces many things that would become commonplace in the Vampirella storyline including the characters Adam & Conrad Van Helsing, the serum Vampi takes to avoid having to drink human blood, and 'Chaos', a long time villain. This story surround Vampirella being brought to a retreat where a doctor nurses her back to health and creates a serum that prevents her from having to drink human blood. Eventually she realizes he is part of a cult worshipping Chaos. The cult plans to sacrifice Vampi, but he ends up saving her and they all end up dying. In a parallel storyline we're introduced to the Van Helsing, who are searching for the vampire that killed a relative of theirs. By the end of the story Conrad determines that Vampirella is the one responsible. A pretty good start for Vampirella!

Second is "The Demon in the Crypt!" by Billy Graham (art) and Gardner Fox (story). The story is about a queen, Amazonia, who fights a lizard like creature with many eyes that can transform into a woman. Amazonia beat her. Not a very interesting story.

Third is "Out of the Fog" by Ken Barr (art) and Steve Skeates (story). A man in England meets a woman at a bar and brings her to his place, where he ends up being a werewolf! Short story, but fairly good art by Barr here.

Fourth is "Snake Eyes" by Jack Sparling (art) and Nicola Cuti (story). It's about a girl who has very snake like features, and she looks more and more like one as she gets older. She gets angry with her boyfriend and kills him when he sells a pendant of hers. It ends up that she is the decendent of royalty. She gets it back and uses it to get to a secret chamber, where she is confronted by a Mongoose man who was responsible for wiping her family out.

"Signs of Sorcery" is next, with art by George Roussos and story by Don Glut. The story is about a magician who captures many people and brings to life creatures representing zodiac symbols. Eventually they all arrive and turn on him. Not too good.

Last is "The Gulfer" by Tony Williamsune (art) and Nicola Cuti (story). The story is about a monster called 'The Gulfer' that can only enter a house if invited. It takes the form of a little girl's cat and transforms once being let in, but the collar around its neck ends up strangling it.