Creepy 36

An early issue of Creepy featuring a terrific cover by Kenneth Smith. The frontis is "Creepy's Loathsome Lore: The Body Snatchers Who Stole A Giant!" by Tom Sutton.

First is "One Way to Break the Boredom" by Jack Sparling (art) and James Haggenmiller (story). A rich man is bored with his life, and when the devil arrives he gives him his soul in order to become a vampire, a life that he plans to be very exciting. It is exciting for a while, he travels from place to place, kills many people, and always survives the execution whenever he is captured. Eventually however he arrives at an old city in the country with an old custom for executions, shooting with wooden arrows, something which kills him for real.

Next is "Weird World" by Tom Sutton (art) and Nicola Cuti (story). An astronaut arrives at a bizarre planet where he meets a beautiful woman, but also a talking frog and her father, a bizarre looking alien creature. He soon finds out that the planet is a mental asylum for crazy aliens. He heads into his ship to take off from the planet, but once he goes inside he becomes insane for real.

Third is "Frankenstein is a Clown" by Carlos Garzon (art) and Bill Warren (story). A famous clown later in his career becomes well known as an actor playing a friendly monster on TV. Unfortunately for him he perishes in a car crash. A mad scientist brings him back as a real Frankenstein monster. He heads to a memorial for himself, but realizing how dangerous he is, he decides instead to kill himself for good by jumping out of a window.

Fourth is "On the Wings of a Bird" by Jerry Grandenetti (art) and T. Casey Brennan. As good as Grandenetti's art is it can't save this absolutely horrific story which was startling enough awarded by Warren as the best story of the year! A man, Ahzid, is trapped in a desert prison with a talking statue. He dreams of the day that he'll be able to escape due to a bird that sits there, but never takes off. He has a dream of actually leaving on the bird, but when he wakes up he finds that the bird has already left and that he's trapped here due to sleeping in. This story would have a sequel in issue 42.

Fifth is "Forbidden Journey" by Rich Buckler (art, his Warren debut) and Greg Theakston (story). This story tells of four astronauts heading to a world with a natural resource, 'thurium' that will make them rich. One of the astronauts kills the three others, but when he arrives at the planet he finds it is nothing more than a waste dump and his ship falls into quicksand, trapping him there.

Sixth is "If A Body Meets a Body" by Jack Sparling (art) and R. Michael Rosen (story). A man is in a car crash with his friend. He awakens and heads home only to find his wife crying over his death. His friend arrives and tells him that they're both dead and they should head to the spirit world. At the urging of his friend the man jumps off a cliff. It ends up all being a trick however as the friend and wife are together, and he falls to his death. Only it ends up that the friend truly is dead, something he and the wife soon discover.

Last is "Frozen Beauty" by Richard Corben (story & art). This was Corben's Warren debut. A hideous queen, Maleva, summons Darman, a sorceror, offering him gold in exchange for making her look like her beautiful niece. They head to a cave in the icy mountain where he casts a spell such that Maleva will have her niece's exact appearance. Her niece is left frozen there in the cave so she'll always look the same. Instead of paying the sorceror however, Maleva has him stabbed and left in the cave. Maleva doesn't get to enjoy her beauty for that long, as Darman, still left alive due to the cold starts eating the corpse of Maleva's niece, resulting in her body being torn to shreds. A very nice debut for Corben.

Creepy 41

This issue of Creepy features a rather odd looking cover by Ken Smith. The frontis for this issue is "Creepy's Loathsome Lore: The Hangman of London" by Richard Bassford.

First is "The Thing in Loch Ness", Bruce Jones's Creepy Debut. He provides both the story and art here. Bruce Jones would later become Creepy's best writer during the Louise Jones era. A man in Scotland falls in love with a bar owner's wife. They plot to kill the owner, who is hit by a car and tossed into Loch Ness. The man, seeking to pay off their debts so they can head to America, creates a fake Loch Ness Monster using an inflatable creature. It works, tourism goes up tremendously enabling them to pay off their debts. But when he heads back in the Loch Ness to get rid of the fake creature, the true Loch Ness Monster and the Bar Owner's corpse are there waiting for him.

Next is "Skipper's Return" by Ernie Colon (story & art). A rather interesting story about a chimp being sent out to space. He sends messages to his former trainer, and comes back to Earth, now evolved such that he can talk, and gets revenge by having his trainer sent out to space himself.

The Bill Dubay story "The Final Ingredient" is third. This is yet another solo story with Dubay handling both the art and story. A young woman wants a man to fall in love with her, so she asks her aunt, a witch to create a potion to make that happen. The witch needs a man's head, so the young woman sets up an axe to chop off a traveler's head. This works, and the potion is successful. The young woman and her lover ride off, only to have their heads chopped off by the axe.

Fourth is "Prelude to Armageddon" by Wally Wood (art) and Wally Wood & Nicola Cuti (story). Some very sexy art by Wood in this story about a medieval war between various creatures such as centaurs, minotaurs and other creatures. The moon explodes during the battle, dealing heavy damage to the Earth and wiping out the battlers, leading to our society many milleniums later.

Fifth is "Extra Censory Perception" by Gary Kaufman (art) and Steve Skeates (story). This story is about a comic book editor who goes crazy with censorship. Walking down the street, he kills a man asking for a match when he finds a knife on him, then kills a young woman because her skirt is too short. The police find him crazy, stamping the logo "censored" with her blood.

The issue concludes with "A Tangible Hatred" by Richard Corben (art) and Don McGregor (story). A very incomprehensible poor story from McGregor which has some very nice Corben artwork. It features a rotting corpse hitchhiker who is created due to people's hatred. The story features, Detective Turner, a recurring character in many McGregor stories. As is often seen from him, absolute crap from McGregor with a lot of political/hippie nonsense.

Vampirella 9

Another early issue of Vampirella; this has an odd cover featuring one by Boris Vallejo that is actually shrunken and surrounded by some art from Wally Wood's internal story, in black and white. An odd cover design that was never repeated by Warren. The frontis for this issue is "Vampi's Feary Tales: Lilith" by Jeff Jones (art) and Nicola Cuti (story).

First story is "The Testing!" by Tom Sutton (art) and Archie Goodwin (story). Vampi in this tale investigates Chaos by finding a book about them at a library. An evil witch there however and a corpse she brought back to life fight Vampi, who luckily is able to defeat them. At the same time, Conrad and Adam Van Helsing continue their pursuit of Vampirella and plan when they'll take her out.

Second up is "Monster Bait!" with art by Joe Wehrle and story by Don Glut. A girl is pursued by a dinosaur like creature in a cave. A hero arrives and saves her and heads to her kingdom with her. Only when he arrives he finds that it was actually a trap to bring him to a group of vampires, which kill him. The art on the female lead in this story is quite dreadful, as she looks rather manly.

Following is "Fate's Cold Finger!" by Ken Barr (art) and Doug Moench (story). A man, Frank, is spurned by a girl he likes, who goes with a much more successful man instead. Frank decides to kill himself, but is always unsuccessful at doing it. The girl meanwhile decides she dislikes the successful man since all he talks about is money, so she calls up Frank and says she'll go out with him. But as he leaves the house, an icicle falls on him, killing him!

Fourth is "The Curse" by Wally Wood (story & art). A man has no memory of his past and finds himself in a bizarre reptilian man like form. A beautiful woman, Zara, tells him that he's been transformed into this state by a sorceress that they need to kill using an enchanted sword. Our hero fights off many beasts and eventually the sorceress herself. It ends up however that Zara was the one who transformed him, as she was given eternal life and wanted to die, which could only be done by killing the sorceress. After her death our hero turns back into his true form, a lowly lizard.

Fifth is "Jack the Ripper Strikes Again" by Jerry Grandenetti (art) and Chris Fellner (story). This story features an investigation of a Jack the Ripper esque murderer. While many suspects are found and executed, they always end up being the wrong person. Eventually it ends up that the secretary to the detectives investigating the case is the killer.

Sixth is "The Boy Who Loved Trees!" by Barry Smith (art) and Barry Smith & Gardner Fox (story). The story features a boy who finds creatures that live in the woods, that only he can see. He heads there to party with them, and the neighborhood bully and friends follow and beat him up. The creatures from the woods save our hero however, and kill all the bullies.

Last story is "The Work Order For the Day" by Alac Justice (story & art). An odd tale told in the future, 1985, where humanity works based on orders from a large machine. A lightning storm destroys the machine, leading to some interesting revelations.

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.