Nightmare #21

This issue of Nightmare features a cover by Jose Miralles and is cover dated October 1974. Unfortunately we're back to another reprint dominated issue (two in a row now for Nightmare), with only the first story being a new one.

Said new story kicks us off, with "Let Her Rot in Hell", by Al Hewetson (story) and Jose Cardona (art). A man is sentenced to a night in the Cardona prison. The man begs the judge for anything else, but is taken away. A young woman is then brought before him and also sentenced to the prison. Once inside, she wonders why the man before her was so frightened. When the man is let out he begs to be kept there, but when they free him he instead jumps to his death. The woman is then brought into the cell, which seems normal. But later that night a vampire appears and bites her neck, turning her into one. As the guards come to free her the next morning she begs to not let them leave, to expose her to the sunlight. But they don't listen, so like the man before her she jumps to her death. This is a fairly strong story, with a good twist. Cardona's art is well done, as usual.

"Let Her Rot in Hell"

Next is "Valley of Blood" by Chuch McNaughton (story) and Jack Katz/Frank Giacoia (art), from Psycho #2. A couple, Bart and Valerie head to a mysterious temple in the Himalayas. On the way they are warned by a man, Dargos, about a vampire castle and find a dead vampire skeleton in the ruins of the temple. After getting into a car accident, Valerie is found to need a blood transfusion and gets one from Dargos. The two of them then disappear. Suddenly vampire attacks from a pair of vampires start occurring. Bart eventually comes across the vampire woman, staking her and Valier turns back to human, dying. Dargos then appears and attacks him.

Next is "The Cosmos Strain" by Steve Stern (story) and Mike Kaluta (art) from Nightmare #6. The story features the starship Parnassus, which travels the universe, studying a contagion that has destroyed all life on the planet Medallion. The scientist Broome, his assistant Zork and the robot Darukk investigate, heading to the planet where Zork mistakenly lets out the contagion and Broome is killed. Zork and Darukk realize the only thing to do is use the Sterilibomb, blowing up the planet, and killing them.

"The Cosmos Strain"

Fourth is "Comes the Stalking Monster!" by Tom Sutton (story) and Tom Sutton/Syd Shores (art) from Psycho #4. Dr. Aleister Kohner is obsessed with the occult and along with his girlfriend Erica summons the demon Asmodeus in a pentagram. Asmodeus agrees to teach him the knowledge of the ancients, which he does. However over several weeks Al finds himself growing weaker, his hair losing color and falling out. He summons Asmodeus who reveals that radiation has been emitting from the pentagram. Erica, having worn a pentagram necklace is unharmed and at story end is revealed to be the master of Asmodeus.

Next is "Sleep" by Steve Stern (story) and Jeff Jones (art), originally from Psycho #6. This story takes place in space on a space pod where a Doctor Zim hypnotizes his assistant, Robinson. He then has Robinson speak of what he senses an hour from now (at which point Zim expects him to have been dead from an injury) so he can find out about life after death. As the hour approaches, Zim realizes the horrible truth though, that they will both be dead as their space pod has approached the sun! Jones' art is quite good here, and this was a fairly good sci-fi story.

"Sleep"

Next is "Corpse by Computer!" by Robert Kanigher (story) and Doug Wildey (art), from Nightmare #6. Millionaire inventor Phillip Talbot has created the supercomputer Debbie, which operates many things in his mansion. Upon bringing a woman home with him, Debbit kills her with a mechanically controlled knight. Debbie desires Phillip as her companion and won't let him have anyone else. When Phillip starts a relationship with the psychiatrist Karen Benton, Debbie kills her too. Phillip has had enough and tries to delete Debbie's memory, only for her to electrocute him to death.

We wrap up with "Sand Castles" by Ed Fedory (story) and Pablo Marcos (art), originally from Psycho #6. A pilot is transporting two criminals, Benny and Tony, to Mexico, when their plane's engine explodes, forcing them down to the desert sands below. Thus starts a long journey to civilization. With their water running out, the pilot kills Tony, then fills the canteens with his blood. So it probably shouldn't come as that big a surprise pages later when the pilot reveals to Benny that he is a vampire! he kills Benny, filling his canteen with his blood but the days continue to pass and the blood congeals, becoming undrinkable. The pilot eventually finds a castle however and makes his way inside, finding Benny and Tony's ghosts waiting and they throw him down a chasm into hell. Yet again a Skywald story has a rather confusing ending though as our last panel shows their destroyed plane, with several skeletons there making one wonder if any of what happened was real. This was a fairly good story (although a bit too drawn out) and I don't mind them mixing things up at the end, I just wish it was more definitive on what was real.

Psycho 1974 Yearbook

The Psycho 1974 Yearbook is another issue dominated by reprints, with only one new story. Again the stories are mostly from early in Skywald's run. The cover is made up of covers of various prior issues. Paul Pueyo provides the one page frontispiece.

We begin with the issue's sole new story, "The Brides of the Frankensteins", part of the Saga of the Frankenstein's Monster series. This story has story by Al Hewetson and art by Cesar Lopez. Frankenstein's monster desires a mate and Dr. Frankenstein agrees to create him one. Frankenstein grows wary of what he has done though and seeks to kill the monster and its mate. After heading to town, he decides to return to the desolate place where the monster and his now created wife are. He destroys her, but the monster declines to kill him, instead killing Frankenstein's wife. This is where the story ends. This story is fairly faithful to a segment from the original Frankenstein novel, except my recollection is that Frankenstein destroys the monster's mate before she is brought to life, earlier than he does so here.

"The Brides of the Frankensteins"

Second is "Slime World" by Chuck McNaughton (story) and Ralph Reese (art). This story was originally published in Nightmare #5. A couple, Sidney and Susan, make their way into the Parisian sewers after a mysterious man tells them to follow them. Underground they find a race of people who have been mutated by the slime in the sewers. They capture and mutate people, either joining their forces, or serving them as food. Sidney and Susan escape their bonds and split up, and after a few weeks Sidney starts transforming into one of the mutants, both physically and mentally. Eventually he is permitted to become someone who tricks people into following him into the sewers, much like what originally happened to him. One of the stronger earlier stories from Skywald's run; Reese also provides some good artwork.

Third is "The Man Who Stole Eternity" by Gardner Fox (story) and Bill Everett (art), originally published in Psycho #3. A thief named Mike kills a man in an alley and steals a pearl necklace from his wife. He hears that he can make a lot of dough by stealing from a Magic Museum. However upon going there he finds a variety of monsters that draw him into a realm of even more monsters! Eventually he sees the woman he stole from, revealed to be a sorceress. She demands he steal her the elixir of life which he agrees to, especially after she sends some monsters after him while he sleeps. He successfully steals the elixir, and wanting eternal life, drinks some before giving it to her. A couple of days later, Mike finds himself completely unable to move. He is declared dead and is buried, alive! While he has eternal life, he has to spend the rest of it in a coffin!

"Slime World"

Next is "Beware Small Evils!" by Jack Katz and Frank Giacoia (story and art), originally published in Nightmare #3. In the polluted future of... 1983 (lol), a motorcyle gang, the Spitfires are running amok. Meanwhile a Senator is visiting a scientist who hopes to use the plant culture mutation #320 to restore oxygen to the atmosphere. When the Spitfires arrive at his lab and cause some of the mutation to fall outside, it quickly spreads, consuming the spitfires, growing and multiplying. Using detergent and oil supplied by the senator, the mutations are destroyed, although this leads to any remaining oxygen running out.

Next is "The Inner Man" featuring story and art by Tom Sutton, with assist on the art by Dan Adkins. This story was also originally published in Nightmare #3. Dr. Wroclaw experiments on the soon to be executed prisoner Varga, shrinking his body considerably. Varga is soon mistakenly swallowed by Wroclaw when he downs a pill and ventures his way through his body, eventually reaching his brain. Being inside Wroclaw, Varga is able to control his actions, causing him to slap, then strangle his wife, then murder a man at a pawn shop and run over people in a car. Eventually Wroclaw is decapitated by a closing elevator door and some subconscious monsters kill Varga. A pretty fun story, especially when Wroclaw starts going on his rampage.

"The Deadly Mark of the Beast"

The issue concludes with "The Deadly Mark of the Beast!" with art by Syd Shores/Tom Palmer and story by Len Wein. This story was originally published in Skywald's very first horror issue, Nightmare #1. A werewolf has been ravaging the countryside. A man named Collins is convinced that a newcomer to the village, Blake is the werewolf because he's seen walking around at night with his hound. But when Blake is revealed to be blind, people dismiss Collins' claim and leave. When Collins' wife is killed, he becomes enraged, taking Blake at gunpoint at his home and saying they'll wait until the full moon. When Blake grows agitated at the full moon, Collins guns him down. But Blake's hound suddenly reveals that it is a wereman and kills Collins! The ending to this story was quite hilarious and is similar to a comedic episode of The X-Files from a few years back during its short lived resurrection.

Nightmare #8

Vicente Segrelles provides the cover for this issue of Nightmare, cover dated August 1972.

We start with the frontis "Andras, The Grand Marquis of Hell" as drawn by Pablo Marcos. Andras is a owl-headed humanoid wielding a large knife and riding a fierce looking wolf!

First story is "Snowbound!" by Ed Fedory (story) and Felipe Dela Rosa (art). Dela Rosa, making his Skywald debut here, would go on to be one of their most prolific artists, I believe being outpaced only by Pablo Marcos and Ricardo Villamonte. His style takes a lot of getting used to. Lots of detail, but often quite ugly looking characters. I didn't care for his art at all at first, but he has started to grow on me. In any case the premise of this story is that a ship is trapped in the Antarctic, being completely frozen solid in the water in the dead of winter. The dwindling crew has to resort to killing dogs to eat. The lack of food eventually causes the crew to start turning on each other, and roughly the last 3/4 of the story features the crew killing each other off one after another, with one of them believing it is due to them suffering from demonic madness. A rather so-so ending aside, this is a pretty decent way to kick off the issue.

Second is "Hey Creep: Play the Macabre Waltz" by Al Hewetson (story) and Ferran Sostres (art). This odd story features some people at a concert hall comes across a short, silent old man carrying a violin. Upon asking him to play the violin he does so, but this results in people being unable to control their bodies, they start dancing non-stop and even one woman collapses from the pain. Eventually everyone collapses and the old man departs. As the story ends it is revealed that he was a martian who crashed on Earth and grew frustrated at his lack of employment.

The horrific monster of "The Tunnels of Horror"

Third is "Rot, Robin, Rot!" by Al Hewetson (story, credited to Jay Wood) and Dan Sevilla (art). This is a brief, 3 page story that tells of how the famous Robin Hood and his merry men are now quite old, 700 years old in fact, and are now in modern times where they come across some hippies riding in a bus. They try to steal from the hippies but upon being told that Robin Head has been dead for 700 years, Robin and all his men immediately disintegrates to dust. While brief, this was a fairly fun story to read.

Fourth is the cover story "The Tunnels of Horror" by Al Hewetson (story) and Pablo Marcos (art). Walking the streets of New York, a woman, Alexandra, comes across a horrifying monster, which has a snake-like form, but a more humanoid-like face. The monster chases her and she flees to the police, who convinces an officer, David, to help her out. Upon finding some slime, Davis decides to go down to the sewers with a shotgun to find the creature, but it immediately grabs him! They are able to kill the creature by shooting it in the face, but as its blood fills the sewer, they get covered head to toe and pass out. They later wake up in a long, foul tunnel, that seems to be moving. They make their way through it, only to find that they had been ingested by the creature's far larger mother! This is quite the strong story, and Marcos provides some great artwork with a truly horrifying looking monster.

Fifth is "Satan's Graveyard" by Al Hewetson (story) and Syd Shores/Dan Adkins (art). Shores is credited as Jim Elder, a pseudonym already used for Pablo Marcos. Friedrich is a horrifyinly ugly looking man who is mocked and disrespected due to his appearance and the fact that he worships Satan. Satan arrives, and provides him everlasting life. Meanwhile the townsfolk have had enough with Friedrich and form a mob, who grabs him and sets his home aflame, then bury him. As the story ends Friedrich finds that he does indeed have everlasting life, but as a spirit, accompanied by many other people. A decent art collaboration here, I particularly like the usage of real life photos in several shots, something that was quite rare. I seem to recall Ernie Colon and Leo Duranona occasionally doing it at Warren. The story on the other hand is quite "eh" and this is the first of two stories in this issue where Satan is summoned to grant eternal life. Both written by Hewetson by the way.

A Berni Wrightson cameo in "Hung Up"

Sixth is "Hung Up" by Bruce Jones (story and art). A man named Jeff has killed his friend Bernie and wife Mary, having beaten them to death with a large wrench. He gets to work pouring kerosene around his New York apartment, then sets the place ablaze. He then throws their bodies out the window, trying to make it appear as if they jumped to their deaths due to the fire. The story then flashes back to how this arose. Jeff longed for Louise, Bernie's wife for years and grew sick of his wife Mary. They started pursuing each other romantically and started sending fake letters from their spouses to each other, trying to get it so they would have an affair themselves. This led to Jeff catching them together at his apartment, as he hoped would happen, and killing them. When Jeff leaves his apartment and returns later, he immediately finds himself arrested however. With all his planning, he got quite unlucky as the beads Mary was wearing around her neck caught around a flag pole just under their apartment. Jones' art is quite strong as usual, as is his story, which shows a level of depth and a twist ending that we would often get from him a few years later when he became a prolific writer for Warren. What I find most interesting about the story though is that most of the characters appear based on real life people. Jeff looks like the artist Jeff Jones (who appeared in Skywald not that long ago), Bernie is the famed horror artist Berni Wrightson, and I would assume that Louise is based on Jeff Jones' at the time wife, who would eventually become an editor at Warren. Although her character doesn't resemble the real life individual as much as Jeff and Bernie do.

Seventh is "The Sting of Death" by Chic Stone (story & art). A man named Otto brings a doctor to his lair, located by a cemetery. Otto is convinced that a soul exists, as studies have found some sort of aura departing the human body at the moment of death. Otto decides to try this out, and locks the doctor in a glass force field after stabbing him, so he can see his soul. Otto's cape mistakenly opens up the force field though, causing the soul to escape. Otto is soon attacked by a wasp and dies after his body becomes covered in welts. It is revealed that the doctor had been reincarnated into the wasp.

The Devil appears in "The Weird and the Undead"

The final story of the issue is "The Weird and the Undead" by Al Hewetson (story) and Ferran Sostres (art). A man named Smith works for an advertising agency but isn't too happy at being just a salaried employee. He desires for the devil to appear, only for him to do so! The devil agrees to give Smith eternal life. Smith happily heads outside, only for people to start collapsing around him. Some sort of noxious gas has started spreading around. Soon the city starts getting flooded as well. Smith finds himself the only person left alive and the water continues further up, sinking all of Manhattan underneath it. We then discover that Smith and all of our society is part of a microscopic society on a slide being investigated in a laboratory. Suddenly the scientists in the laboratory notice it is flooding and they die from a noxious gas, so the cycle continues... This was an odd one. It seemed somewhat like two disjointed ideas, the Devil giving Smith Eternal life, and human civilization being microscopic, crammed into one. The end twist of the scientists investigating us on a slide also being microscopic themselves and having the same thing happen to them was totally unnecessary though.

Our issue concludes with a one page pin-up of the Phantom of the Opera by Pablo Marcos.

Psycho #4

Today I'm covering Psycho #4, cover dated September 1971. This cover is handled by Ken Kelly, the prolific cover illustrator for Warren.

The one page "Innsmouth Apparition" frontispiece is provided by Larry Todd.

First story is The Heap in "Night of Evil" by Ross Andru (story) and Ross Andru/Mike Esposito (art). The Heap watches as the authorities bring bodies of corpses from the last story, including Hitler, to his friend Monty Elliot to investigate. After they leave The Heap reveals itself and through writing to him, Monty realizes it is his friend Jim and agrees to help him try and turn back to human. When Monty's daughter arrives, The Heap hides and leaves. He comes across some thieves who have kidnapped a woman and had witnessed him fighting zombies in the previous story. He attacks them and frees the woman, but falls into quicksand, sinking as the story ends. A big cliffhanger to end the story, but I'm sure the Heap will make it out okay and this storyline will continue.

Next is "Out of Chaos... A New Beginning" by Marv Wolfman (story) and Rich Buckler (art). This story is quite the mess, the weakest of the issue. The universe is being destroyed, and Satan is upset. He summons an Oracle whose face shocks him any time he looks upon it. Satan leads an army to the surface where they battle forces led by a man named Hyperion, who Satan slays. Meanwhile a group calling themselves the Procreators of Eternity are creating a universe in the shape of a fetus. The ending of the story says it will be continued in the next issue, so looks like we'll get at least one more segment for this, which I'm sad to see!

Third is "Museum Piece" by Len Wein (story) and Serg Moren (art). Andre Lamont owns and manages a House of Wax. His son Louis had been in a car accident years before and is quite ugly and a hunchback as a result. At the time of the accident, the doctors thought he was done for, but Andre was able to help him recover through unrevealed means. The arrogant Louis wants to go to America to form his own Wax Museum when the opportunity arrives, but Andrew refuses and Louis attacks him. Louis decides to set the place aflame and start anew in America, but finds he is made of wax himself and melts!

The Heap on a rampage!

Fourth is "Comes the Stalking Monster!" by Tom Sutton (story) and Tom Sutton/Syd Shores (art). The story is credited to Larry Todd, and Sutton goes under the pseudonym David Cook here. Usually Sutton dominates in any collaborative efforts, but not here: I hadn't realized he even worked on this story until I looked up the credits. Dr. Aleister Kohner is obsessed with the occult and along with his girlfriend Erica summons the demon Asmodeus in a pentagram. Asmodeus agrees to teach him the knowledge of the ancients, which he does. However over several weeks Al finds himself growing weaker, his hair losing color and falling out. He summons Asmodeus who reveals that radiation has been emitting from the pentagram. Erica, having worn a pentagram necklace is unharmed and at story end is revealed to be the master of Asmodeus.

Fifth is "Escape" by Dennis Fujitake (story and art). This is a brief 2 page story. The evil Baron Renphrew is captured and chained to a wall in a dungeon. He plans on getting away by having men he paid for dig him out. They are able to dig into the dungeon, but break their way through a stone above the Baron's head, which crushes him! A brief, fun story. Fujitake's art reminds me a lot of Jeff Jones. We'll be getting more quality work from him in the future.

Sixth is "Plague of Jewels" by Bruce Jones (story and art). A pair of men, Gary and Wayne, make their way through the jungle with some jewels they have stolen. They find an Incan idol which upon touching causes them to fall into a chasm. Wayne has broken his leg and needs some help from Gary. They make their way to a massive pile of treasures and the two fight each other, with Gary killing Wayne. Suddenly a group of walking skeletons come before Gary and bring him to a chamber where a beautiful woman awaits, her face masked. She claims to be Princess R-Shann, last of the Incan nobles and wants to marry him, his blonde hair matching that of the legends of those she was to marry. Upon marrying her though, she removes her mask, revealing a rotted face. Gary flees, but trips over Wayne's grave. The Princess tears his eyes out and he remains there beside her. This story kinda goes all over the place, but I particularly liked the last few pages. Jones provides quite a strong art job.

"Plague of Jewels"

Seventh is Frankenstein in "Freaks of Fear!" by Tom Sutton (story) and Tom Sutton/Jack Abel (art). Frankenstein's monster desires to learn about his past before he became a monster. He comes across a group of freaks and stays with them, covering his face. One of them is a beautiful woman, Lilith, who is blind but can see the past and future. The monster has her look into his past, but he is then drugged by the head of the Freak Show, who removes his mask and puts him on display at Notre Dame cathedral. There, Quasimodo the hunchback, steals Lilith, causing the monster to go after them. The monster falls as the story concludes. Meanwhile, Dr. Victor Frankenstein (his name now changed to Henry) finds himself revived by his own teacher, Dr. Pretorius, but only his head! Unlike Sutton's earlier collaboration with Shores, this is quite obviously his story, and it looks a lot like a solo effort, even though Abel is credited for the inks. Henry's face seems totally restored at story's end, which is odd, as he had a freakish appearance in the prior story.

The issue concludes with a one page pin-up of The Heap by Bill Everett.

Nightmare #2

Time for Nightmare #2, another issue filled mostly with reprints. The cover for this issue is from Boris Vallejo, who did several covers for Warren and will do a number more here for Skywald.

First is "Children of the Cold Gods" by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito (story and art). With the Earth becoming overpopulated, mankind seeks to cryofreeze people and then colonize other planets. Dr. Bradford is in charge of the procedure, and is woken up to tend to the cryogenic controls which have sunk far past safe temperature levels. Bradford is devastated to see his frozen fiance broken up into many pieces because her body has become so brittle! But the temperature continues to sink further, to a level so cold that a mysterious being that calls itself one of the Gods of the Cold is able to interact with our reality. The "Cold Gods" put back together the body parts of those broken into pieces via cryosleep, causing some monstrous creatures. But by lowering the temperature so far down that air itself becomes a liquid he is able to permanently freeze the monsters.

Our second story is "The Phantom of Philip Hawks" by A.C. Hollingsworth (art). A ship's crew comes across an abandoned ship in the ocean, the Mary Kane. Upon going on board they find various dead bodies including that of a couple. They find the log of the ship as kept by the woman, Mary Kane. The log tells of how she and her husband got married and her father built them the ship. However a man named Philip Hawks desired for Mary, and got killed after being beat up by her husband. He cursed the Mary Kane as he lay dying and it resulted in the death of everyone on the ship. Suddenly Hawks' voice and a spectral image of him appear, forcing the men to flee the Mary Kane on their life boat just in time. The Mary Kane continues to sail the sea, haunted.

Human beings put back together in a horrifying way, in "Children of the Cold Gods"

Third is "The Mirror of Death". The handsome Steve Lajos returns to shore while at sea. He goes to a club where he meets a woman but once alone beats her to death, selling her jewels for money. Upon another stop ashore, Lajos comes across a temple of Mirrors, made to honor the God Struga of the Seven Hands. It is said the mirror reveals the appearance of a man's soul. Lajos goes inside, finding his reflection in the mirror to be extremely ugly and monstrous. This causes him to believe the mirror and temple are phonies. He kills the guide there and smashes the mirror. But when he tries to go outside he realizes he is stuck in the mirror held by Struga. While a rather brief story, I did find the reflection of Lajos to be quite ugly and scary, good job by the uncredited artist.

The following story is "The Circle of Circe!" by Gardner Fox (story) and Syd Shores/Mike Esposito (art). On the Isle of Crete, the slave Ulysses is defeated in a tournament and forced to head to the Isle of Aeaea to find the Golden Tusks of Atlas. Ulysses and 100 of his fellow slaves head there, many dying on the way. When they reach Aeaea, a giant dragon grabs Ulysses and brings him before the beautiful Circe, who wants him for her husband. Ulysses refuses, causing Circe to turn one of his fellow slaves into a wolf, then has a snake attack him. Suddenly Ulysses' mean arrive, leading to a big battle. Circe puts a stop to things and transforms Ulysses and his remaining men into wolves, then she and her fellow women also transform into them. She reveals she is from the Star System Omega, where their males died out many years before in constant warfare. They have searched the universe and are now taking Ulysses and his men to be their mates.

Next is another one-page Nightmare Pin Up, this of the Creature of from the Black Lagoon, as drawn by Bill Everett.

Next is "Time Stop", the text story by Art Stampler. It is quite the rarity for the text story to be the best story of the issue in a comic/magazine, but that's the case here! The story starts off as a cliche mummy story as our protagonist goes to Egypt along with Dr. Vetry and his daughter Vera, digging into the pyramid of a priest of Anubis. Upon coming upon the mummy, they find it alive and our protagonist hits it with an axe, stopping it. All of a sudden things start to go really bonkers. The mummy is revealed to be some sort of robot and Vetry reveals himself to be an alien! He is Wheete Frippe from the planet Freim V, a race that had immortality but whose council decided to impose mortal lives because society became stagnant. Frippe rebelled against this, stealing a teleportation device and heading to Earth to find the secret of immortality from the priest of Anubis. He is attacked by our protagonist, who suddenly finds himself transported to another realm where those of Frippe's race convince him to stop him, giving him the power to absorb Frippe's attacks. Our protagonist returns and kills Frippe. It is then that Vera, revealed to be Frippe's teleportation device reveals yet another big twist, that Frippe was the only sane member of the council that decided to give up immortality. The council had decided to end immortality for all but themselves, robbing their subject's life and Frippe was the righteous one. Our protagonist discovers he has doomed the universe and commits suicide. Wow, this story had several great plot twists; its funny, as I hit this text story and found it to be the longest one yet (unlike previous ones, not even having any images), I pondered skipping it, especially as the prior two were massive busts, but I'm quite happy I didn't. In fact I'd say this is the best story we've had so far as part of my Skywald coverage.

Lajos's reflection is revealed in "The Mirror of Death"

Next is "Blood For the Vampire" with art by Norman Nodel/Vince Alascia (art). The small town of Ravennes in the Alps is haunted by a vampire, Eric Lustveg. The story then brings us into a lengthy flashback as we see how Eric grew up, but was a cruel boy, as if he was possessed by the devil. Upon growing up he kills a guest at the inn he works at and when he's about to be hung instead slits his own throat and rises as a vampire. When people try to put a stake through his heart they find his body missing. Back in the present, a young couple named Rod and Dot Blair head to Ravennes and upon exploring find a vampire's coffin, with Eric inside. They are saved due to the dawn and Rod stakes Eric. But the villagers tell him he should have only staked him once, not several times, so Eric rises again to continue sucking people's blood. Quite a flimsy excuse there at the end to enable Eric to continue his reign of terror. Coming after the best story of the issue is the issue's biggest flop.

Our next story is "The Massacre of Mankind!" This story tells of how mankind got overthrown by its robot slaves. The story takes place in a society where robots are responsible for various menial tasks and are rated based on their performance. It begins with the wedding of Alan and Nara, who are called by Alan's father who is worried about the fact that higher graded robots are responsible for the robot factories. They head to the factory trying to see the robot in charge and Alan's father is let in, only to be killed. The robots refuse to listen to any orders from Alan or Nara, and then the robots start running amok. Humankind is forced to flee into caves and hope they can one day fight back against the robots. Oddly enough this story just ends in the middle of things, making me wonder if we will get a second part in a future issue. Although since this is a reprint story and Skywald is soon to move to all new stories, I doubt that we will get anything further.

The issue concludes with "Pressed for Time" by Marv Wolfman (story) and Dan Adkins (art). Ephram Knowles is killed after having his body crushed by rocks. However he suddenly finds himself in a courtyard, alive again, being accused of witchcraft. As witnesses speak against him, we flash back to how Ephram was obsessed with obtaining eternal life ever since he was a boy. Over time he committed various nefarious acts and eventually is able to summon the devil, who agrees to make it so his days will never end. Back in the present Ephram is sentenced to death by having his body crushed by rocks. He then realizes that while his days will never end, he will be reliving his own execution over and over again. While a rather "eh" story whose ending I saw coming a million miles away, it did have a rather unique method of execution by putting him between two boards and stacking so many rocks on the top one that it crushed him.

This is another story dominated by reprints, with "Children of the Cold Gods!", "The Circle of Circe!", and "Pressed for Time" being new stories along with the one page pin-up and text story. One more issue of reprints to go (Psychos #2) and we can finally move into all new material.

Nightmare #1

The cover to this issue, dated December 1970, is by Brendan Lynch. The art and script for these stories are uncredited; those I have listed below I obtained from Richard Arndt's book "Horror Comics in Black and White".

We begin with the cover story, "The Pollution Monsters" with art by Don Heck/Mike Esposito and story by Mike Friedrich. Bikers Butch, Annie and Sunny sell 'the soul of the nation' to an old man offering them a fuel that is far more powerful than regular gasoline. They use it on their motorcycles and ride off. The old man is quickly revealed to be the devil. As they ride, the fumes from the motorcycle creates giant pollution monsters that run amok. The rest of the story is these monsters on the attack. They eventually seize the three main characters and turn them into pollution monsters as well. This two-part story is quite the flop to kick off the start of my Skywald coverage, a rather pointless and silly tale.

Second is "Master of the Dead!", drawn by Norman Nodell and Vince Alascia. Pierre Jarnac is obsessed with trying to raise the dead and lead them under his command, causing his own brother to have him committed. Pierre fakes things long enough for them to let him out on good behavior then finds a job as a caretaker at a graveyard where he renews his obsession and experiments. Finding no success, he calls out to the dead to rise for their own sake, and they do so! Yet when his brother arrives and Pierre starts calling out to the dead to kill those who mean them no harm, the dead turn on him and stomp him to death.

In "Dance Macabre" drawn by Bill Everett, a couple, Jack and Daisy Blake are dancers on the island of Morando. After being fired, they come up with a voodoo-themed dance of the restful dead, thinking it will be over the top and make them famous. It does, and they get more and more well known but start seeing visions of the dead claiming they will be punished. This causes the two to grow apart and eventually hate each other. Jack tries to strangle Daisy, but she pulls out a knife and the two end up killing each other.

In "Orgy of Blood" by Ross Andru/Mike Esposito (story and art), a man named Phillips meets a woman at a bar that he takes to her home only to discover she is a vampire when she chains him to the bed and drinks his blood. Phillips wakes, revealing it to all be a dream and sees his psychiatrist who hopes that a prescription will solve things. Phillips dreams intensify however. The vampire woman first brings her daughter with her, and in a later dream brings her mother too and they all feast on him. Phillips is told only a sanatorium can help him but when the nurse arrives and looks quite familiar, Phillips realizes that the psychiatrist visits were all a dream, and getting bitten by the vampires was the reality. A rather silly tale, I found it funny just how further and further over the top it was getting as the vampire brought more members of her family to feast on Phillips.

Next we have the one page "Nightmare Pin-Up" drawn by BIll Everett. This is a one page illustration of a Grave Ghoul digging what else, a grave. The one page of art without a story is something Warren also commonly had done for many years, so this is quite in line with what I'm used to.

The three page "The Skeletons of Doom" is a text story by Art Stampler, featuring a young woman named Myra whose research into ancient pharaohs gets her seized by a group of underground skeleton men who worship Isis who has power through a giant diamond. When a fellow captive Alan (who for some bizarre reason suddenly is called Rich for much of the climax) damages the diamond, they are able to escape to safety. Bill Everett provides a few images for this story.

"Help Us to Die!" features a man named Jim Torrence who is obsessed with Egypt. While at the museum with his wife Mary, he spots a newly discovered mummy, who he sees opening and closing its eyes. Jim thinks if they steal the mummy they could be world famous and even find the secret to eternal life. That night they steal the mummy and bring it to a cave in the hills. The mummy is revealed to be alive after all and they help it remove its bandages, revealing an old man with a small canister with him. Jim reads on the canister to drink it for eternal life, and that only those of royal lineage may partake of it. The mummy gets angry causing Jim to attack it and smash its head against the rocks until it seemingly dies. Jim and Mary then drink from the canister, only to find that while the vial provides eternal life, it doesn't provide eternal youth. We see the years quickly go by and they become withered and aged, hoping for someone to find them and help them die. A rather silly story, Jim reads a warning on the canister, yet promptly ignores it and soon he and his wife discover eternal life isn't as great as they thought it to be.

Next is "The Thing from the Sea". The original art for this story was by Wally Wood but Mike Esposito has also amended the artwork A man named Smithers gets into a gambling argument with a colleague named Murray while working as crew members on a ship. Smithers throws Murray, presumably to his death. But Murray soon rises back to life and starts his long walk back to the shore. Smithers arrives on land and meets Murray's fiance, eventually getting into a relationship with her and asking her to marry him. But just then Murray's rotted, bloated corpse arrives. It grabs a hold of Smithers and brings him into the sea with him until they both sink under the water. The ending of this story is extremely similar to the story "Scared to Death" from Tales from the Crypt #24, which incidentally enough was also drawn by Wally Wood.

Our following story is a mere 3 pages, "The Creature Within". Playwright Nathan Foxx dreams of a horrifying vampire-like creature. This inspires him to write a play, which quickly sells out due to his good reputation. However the night of the performance the monster appears to attack the lead actress, and the lead actor is soon killed as well. Foxx is told they were bitten by some kind of animal and wonders if it was the creature from his dreams. All of a sudden the creature appears out of nowhere and kills him. This story was super rushed, but it was also so predictable it was good to get it over with quickly. The play in the story seems somewhat inspired by The Phantom of the Opera and the lead actor's name is a reference to the star of the movie, Lon Chaney.

The issue concludes with "The Deadly Mark of the Beast!" with art by Syd Shores/Tom Palmer and story by Len Wein. A werewolf has been ravaging the countryside. A man named Collins is convinced that a newcomer to the village, Blake is the werewolf because he's seen walking around at night with his hound. But when Blake is revealed to be blind, people dismiss Collins' claim and leave. When Collins' wife is killed, he becomes enraged, taking Blake at gunpoint at his home and saying they'll wait til the full moon. When Blake grows agitated at the full moon, Collins guns him down. But Blake's hound suddenly reveals that it is a wereman and kills Collins! The ending to this story was quite hilarious and is similar to a comedic episode of The X-Files from a few years back during its short lived resurrection.

Overall a rather mediocre issue to kick things off with. A lot of the issue (Master of the Dead!, Dance Macabre, Help Us to Die, The Thing from the Sea! and The Creature Within!) are reprints from various 1950s horror comics.

Creepy 38

Ken Kelly's cover of an axe wielding maniac starts off this issue. It was Kelly's first cover for Creepy. Clif Jackson provides the frontis, "Creepy's Loathsome Lore: Killer Plants!"

First story is "Wooden Cross!" by Rich Buckler (art) and Steve Skeates (story). A young man is called to a town by his uncle only to find him dead of a 'plague' when he gets there. It ends up that the plague is actually a vampire. The young man suspects the vampire is the head of the town, but it ends up being the son of the town doctor who he manages to kill with a cross after being made a vampire himself. Buckler's art appears very heavily influenced by Angelo Torres in this story.

Next is "The Vengeance of the Hanged!" by Syd Shores (art) and Chris Fellner (story). A corrupt judge sentences innocent people to die by hanging, doing so for some just to show his power to an enemy lawyer. One night he has a dream of being pursued by the corpses of the innocent people he's had hanged over the years. During the dream he is hung by them. He is found dead of a heart attack the next day, with rope burns appearing on his neck.

Next is "Sticks and Stones to Break Their Bones" by Tony Williamsune (art) and Stu Schwartzburg (story). A man finds many ancient carvings of people with modern weapons. This causes him to go to the military, telling them that ancient civilizations must have reached modern levels only to be wiped out, forcing civilization to start over. The military doensn't believe him, choosing to focus on their latest weapon... a primitive catapult. Not much of a sensical ending here.

Fourth is "The Way Home!" by Mike Royer (art) and T. Casey Brennan (story). A disoriented man talks to manequins, sits in a bar occupied by skeletons, and has dreams of going home to see his mother, who is with another boy, and kills her. He sees a black haired woman in a trenchcoat who says she'll bring him home... which ends up being a cemetary.

Royer provides the art again for the following story, "Sleepwalker!", with writing by Gerry Conway. A young woman beliees herself to be a vampire and attends therapy to cure herself of it, which she believes is successful. The killings continue however. She soon realizes that her husband is the true culprit, who had it blamed on her. Not only that, but he's a ghoul, who makes her his next victim.

Sixth is "Secret of the Haunted Room!" by Ernie Colon (art) and Bill Warren (story). A young man is given a house as part of his inheritance, under the condition that he live there for the rest of his days. The house is haunted however, and he soon meets a young woman inside who claims to be from 1910, not the present year, 1970. It ends up that she's a vampire, and makes him her next victim. This story is enhanced by inclusion of some real life shots, a shot of the cover, and some extra detailed drawings from Colon.

The story concludes with "The Cosmic All" by Wally Wood (story & art). Astronauts heading across the universe find a blob like creature on each planet they come to. They finally find a planet with humanoid people who attack them and are killed, leaving behind a message that their death was clean compared to whats going to happen to the astronauts. They decide to sleep there and the next morning two of the astronauts find everyone else reduced to skeletons. They escape, but one of them sends their ship crashing to Earth. Immediately after the flesh falls off their bodies, turning into the blob seen before, known as the 'Cosmic All' that is bringing peace to the universe by turning everyone to blobs. A very interesting sci-fi story.

Eerie 32

This issue of Eerie features a cover by Richard Corben of a beautiful woman and a beast like man. The frontis for this issue is "Eerie's Monster Gallery: The Minotaur" by Clif Jackson.

Up first is "Superhero" by Tom Sutton (art) and Steve Skeates (story). The story features a superhero battling crime in the city. The local mob does all they can to stop him, even sending an expert hit man after him, but he fails as well. At the end of the story it is revealed that the superhero is a vampire. The local cops worry about what will happen if the city runs out of criminals.

Second is "The Waking of the Hawk!" by Clif Jackson & Syd Shores (art) and Gardner Fox (story). A pair of explorers in the mountains find a hidden cave with a hawk-like man, frozen, and various advanced technological devices. One of the men, seeking to get rich off the devices, thaws the hawk-like man, and kills his companions. He nurses the hawk man back to health with the promise that he'll explain the devices. They leave the cave and come across the flying saucer the hawk man came to Earth in. The hawk man kills the explorer however and eats him so he'll be strong enough to fix his ship.

Third is "The Wailing Tower!" by Frank Bolle (art) and Larry Herndon (story). It features a man who is in a plane crash but is rescued by monks who live near a tower they call "The Wailing Tower". Seeing the jewels in their possession, the man steals them, but is caught, and flees from them into the tower. He reaches the top where he discovers that the monks have been worshipping Satan!

Fourth is "Bookworm" with art by Richard Corben and story by Gerald Conway. 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.

Fifth is "I Fell For You" by Jack Sparling (art) and John Wooley (story). A girl yearns after a rich singer who she had spurned in her youth. The two get married, but she plots with his agent to have him killed by falling out of a plane. That happens, but his body falls on their car, causing a crash that kills all of them.

Sixth is "Soul Power!" by Mike Royer (art) and Don Glut (story). A man is deathly afraid of dying and rotting away, so he deals with Satan to live forever. He lives forever, but ages as normally and at about 200 years old collapses in the desert because his body is so decrepit. When vultures start attacking him he willingly sumits himself to Satan.

Last is "Ice World" by Bill Barry (story & art). It features astronauts who land on a frozen planet. Before long however, the temperature starts rising tremendously and beasts appear. They try to escape to no avail. It ends up that they landed in a freezer that was being defrosted.
Overall, a pretty good issue! Not a single bad story here.

Creepy 37

The cover for this issue, by Ken Barr, features a group of abominable snowmen attacking a pair of climbers. The frontis for this issue is "Creepy's Loathsome Lore: I Was Buried Alive!!" by Tom Sutton.

Up first is "The Cadaver" by Bill Stillwell (art) and Chris Fellner (story). A trio of students work with a professor to bring a dead man back to life with electricity. The dead man reveals himself as a murder victim, and they decide to have the professor kill him. But the dead man ends up killing the professor instead and takes his place at the school.

Next is "King Keller" by Syd Shores (art) and Nicola Cuti (story). The story features a rocket that crashes into a city of yetis, which causes a sound to eminate from it, causing the yetis to kidnap human sacrifices. A man, Keller, is able to stop it, but they refuse to let him leave, fearing it'll come back if he goes.

Third is "I Hate You! I Hate You!", by Mike Royer (art) and Bill Warren (story), a time traveling story about a man who hates his father, kills him, goes back in time and kills him back then, only to end up finding out that he is his own father, which is why his father treated him so bad throughout his life, knowing that he would kill him some day.

Fourth is "Tender Machine 10061" by Ernie Colon (art & story). The story features a man treated like a machine called 10061 who saves a factory's machine by stopping a 'deviant'. But it is only a matter of time before 10061 starts to think for himself due to a note he receives, and he too is considered 'deviant' and is killed.

Next is "Coffin Cure" by Don Brown (art) and Doug Moench (story). This story is about some sort of con where a guy convinces a man to have himself buried alive to avoid being captured by the police. The ending for this story and the art is rather confusing, so to be honest I don't know exactly what happens!

Next up is "The Castle" by Pat Boyette (art & story). The story is about a man who has a party in a castle and tells the guests about the evil baron who used to live there, who was horrifically burned and brought in many women who he blinded so they couldn't see his face. The Baron arrives in the present and takes the eyes of the host.

Last is "The Cut Throat Cat Blues" by Ernie Colon (art) and T. Casey Brennan (story). The story is about an artist who commits murder then later finds himself killed by cartoon characters. The last page, on the inside back cover, is in color.

Creepy 34

Our next issue is Creepy #34, featuring a cover by Ken Barr, of his interior story "Lifeboat!". The frontis for this issue is "Creepy's Loathsome Lore" by Dan Adkins.

First up is "X-Tra X" by Jack Sparling (art) and Robert (Michael) Rosen (story). A man who is a werewolf approaches a professor whose been studying genes and believes that an extra chromosome is responsible for criminal behavior. The man volunteers to be experimented on by the professor to cure him from being a werewolf. He ends up dying from the procedure, which ends up being okay with the professor as he's a werewolf too.

Next is "Lifeboat!" by Ken Barr (art) and Bill Parente (story). Astronauts come across a planet with a died out race, except for one man, Aceles, a man of large stature and great strength. He goes back on the ship with them peacefully, but it soon becomes clear that the entire race on that planet are contained within him and he is seeking to revive the species by transforming the astronauts into those of his species. The astronauts respond by throwing him out of the ship to his death. Pretty good story.

Next is "The Cool Jazz Ghoul" by Ken Kelly (art) and Al Hewetson (story). This story's unique by being Ken Kelly's sole interior story, outside of this and a single frontis, he did exclusively covers for Warren. His art's okay here, but not great. Covers clearly suited him better. The story surrounds a jazz musician who ponders making a deal with the devil, but instead embalms his body and sells it for lot of money.

Fourth is "Minanker's Demons" by John G. Fantuccio (art) and Buddy Saunders (story). This rather poor story is about a wizard who captures a princess and the knight that tries to rescue her. When the knight reaches his castle, the wizard summons a demon, who kills him because of a crack in his pentagram that prevents him from being protected.

"The Forgotten Prisoner of Castlemare" by Tony Williamsune (art) and Robert (Michael) Rosen (story) is about dueling barons who try to get rid of each other. One ends up getting locked up in a jail cell and the other is killed by a trap. This story is based on the Castlemare prisoner ad in the Captain Company section of the Warren mags.

Next up is "The Swamp in Hell!" by Don Vaughn (art) and Al Hewetson (story). A swamp beast rises out of the swamp and heads to a nearby town. All are frightened except a blind old man who befriends the monster. The monster ends up vanishing because of the kindness of the old man.

Last is "Ando!" by Syd Shores (art) and Robert (Michael) Rosen (story). This story is about a baron and his powerful henchman, Ando, who bullies the local populace into paying the baron high taxes. The baron's quest to create a super race of people continuosly fails. He realizes that he must find a strong person to experiment on, so he uses Ando. Only it makes Ando too strong, he refuses to obedient to the baron anymore and kills him.

Creepy 35

This issue is a rarity in that its Creepy's only non-ad issue ever. From what I've heard, a competitor of theis was putting out a no ad horror magazine, so Warren decided to do the same thing. Unfortunately the experiment only lasted for a single issue (although 1984 would be no ads in the early days of its existence as well). As a result, this has more stories than any other Creepy issue with new content (I believe some of the all reprint issues may have more). The cover, by Kenneth Smith features a small green creature on a skull.

Our first story is "Tough Customers" by Tom Sutton (art) and R. Michael Rosen (story) about a group of mobsters that hustle a butcher for protection money who always refuses. Each hit man sent to kill him never comes back, so finally the boss himself arrives, and realizes that the butcher has killed all his men and served them to ghouls, which quickly arrive for him as well.

Next is "Legend in Gold" with art by Roger Brand and writing again by Rosen. This story features a pair of men searching for a rock that can turn things into gold. One of the men gets too greedy and touches it, turning himself into gold. Somewhat of a fantasy story which seems out of place with all the horror stuff here.

Third is "Polly Want a Wizard?" by Ernie Colon (art) and Howard Waldrop (story). A man tells the police about what happened to a magician he was working for, Mr. Black. Mr. Black was a talented magician who was teaching our protagonist various tricks, some of which involved the killing of birds. As our protagonist is about to kill a parrot for Mr. Black, demons suddenly arrive while he's working on his magic and kill him. Not a good story, but Colon's art is very nice here.

Fourth is "Army of the Walking Dead!" by Syd Shores (art) and R. Michael Rosen (story, yet again!). In Germany during World War II, a doctor finds a way to bring dead soldiers to life as zombies. The zombies initially result in things turning out quite well for the nazis, but the zombies go out of control and the doctor, the only one who can control them, ends up getting killed. Hitler orders the zombies and anyone who knows about them to be wiped out, erasing the story from the history books.

"Godslayer" is next, with art and story by Bill Stillwell. A swords & sorcery tale with nice art, but a just horribly boring story, as many in this genre were.

"It's Grim" features art by Syd Shores and story by Al Hewetson. A businessman who owns a taxidermy store fears that his business partner and wife are going to kill him. He gets all worked up over his partner's bizarre behavior, only for it to end up that he was simply working on stuffing a puma. Or was he? Uncle Creepy explains in the ending that he actually just coated the puma with a substance that would temporarily freeze it and as soon as it wears off, the puma will kill him. None of this is ever shown though, making this an odd way to finish the story.

Next is "The Druids Curse" by The Ciochetti Brothers (art) and Buddy Saunders (story). Its about a crucified druid who curses the soldiers who killed him, saying that they will all drown. Soon all but one have died from drowning. The last survives a shipwreck and heads to the desert, thinking he's beaten the druid's curse, only to drown in his own blood when he's mortally wounded. Rather odd and unique looking art by the Ciochetti Brothers in their only Warren appearance.

"Gunsmoke Charly" by Alan Weiss (art and story) is our next tale, about a gunfighter who makes a deal with the devil such that he'll never be harmed by a bullet. It works and he becomes a great gunfighter, but eventually is done in by something other than a gun, the heat of the desert.

Last is "Justice!" by Pat Boyette. An accountant whose boss catches him leering at his wife can't resist doing it again, but goes overboard and kills her when she screams. He then kills his boss as well and tries to get away with their dismembered bodies, but is chased by the police. He hides in the sewers but is eventually put on trial for being a ghoul. He tries to prove himself innocent by putting their bodies back together, but isn't that successful.