Scream #8

Salvador Faba provides the cover for this issue of Scream, cover dated August 1974. After two reprint dominated issues its great to be back to one that is all new stories.

We kick off with an Edgar Allen Poe adaption, "The Tell-Tale Heart" with adaption by Al Hewetson and art by Ricardo Villamonte. One of Poe's most famous stories, and this adaption is a rather faithful one. Our protagonist obsesses over the eye of the old man that is his employer. One night he spies on the old man while he lays awake in bed, then when the old man notices him rushes at him, causing the old man to have a heart attack and die. Our protagonist cuts up the old man's body and hides it in the floor boards. The next morning the police arrive, having heard our protagonist's scream the night before. He lets them around, growing more and more nervous as a beating sound starts occurring. Eventually this drives our protagonist crazy enough to tear open the floor boards, revealing the body beneath. Poe's story is a good one; although I was a little off put by how over the top and goofy at times Villamonte's art is.

"My Prison in Hell"

Next is the Nosferatu series, with "My Prison in Hell" by Al Hewetson (story) and Zesar Lopez (art). Nosferatu asks for another of his guests to tell his tale, the pig-masked Anton Dubchek, who was commander of a Siberian prison camp. Dubchek is quite tough on his prisoners, for example throwing a prisoner down a pit for calling him a pig. The food served is slop, even for the guards, with the pigs eating better than the humans. Dubchek justifies his horrible treatment of prisoner by claiming they are criminals, lunatics and madmen. One of his prisoners, Zametov comes to him, claiming that a revolt is being planned and some of his guards are traitors. Zametov claims they are having a secret meeting and he can lead him to them, but when they arrive Dubchek realizes it is a trap and he is bound up and fed to the pigs. Back in the present, Dubchek takes off his mask and hood, revealing himself to be just a skeleton. While I continue to love the atmosphere this series brings and Lopez's amazing artwork, we are really getting to a point where the stories are very formulaic. This story has quite a similar ending to a previous story in the series where the protagonist reveals rats ate his body. It may be time to consider putting this series out to pasture. Also, speaking of the art, many panels in this story remind me of art from Fernando Fernandez stories for Vampirella, such as "The Truth". I'm wondering if Lopez either swiped them or they were taken from the same photo reference. Beyond that, Lopez's art also looks a bit more rushed than usual.

"The Slither Slime Man Rises Again"

Third is "The Slither Slime Man Rises Again" by Al Hewetson (story) and Jose Cardona (art). The titular character, who was called Elias Mund when alive, rises from his grave once more. The narrative turns back to October 1953 in Savannah Georgia. We focus on the solitary life of Elias, still alive at this point, who lives alone in his home, acting as the town undertaker. We are told that Elias is disliked, taunted and shunned by the locals. On the night of Halloween, the hard of hearing Elias doesn't realize some trick or treators are at his door. They decide to play a trick on him, breaking into his home while in their costumes, of a vampire, werewolf and rotting corpse respectively. Elias meanwhile is reading about the supernatural and when they come in believe them to be the real thing. He kills them, only to then realize they are children. Distraught, Elias kills himself. He and the children are buried and ever since he periodically rises from the grave thinking he's got to cleanse the world. This is an origin story of sorts, featuring a character that appeared all the way back in Psycho #9. I'm wondering why we return to him now and if this is Hewetson starting up a series for what appeared to be a one-shot only character in his original appearance. We did see a character who looked a lot like him in a story in Nightmare #18, although he was just acting as a host in said story and called himself by another name.

"I... Am Torment"

Fourth is "The Mechanical Cannibals" by Rich Buckler (story) and Rich Buckler/Chic Stone (art). Stone is uncredited. This story is adapted from the story "From Fanaticism or for Reward" by Harry Harrison. We start the story with our protagonist, Jagen, acting as a sniper and killing a man. He then jumps through a door shaped portal that seems to bring him to another time and destroys any evidence he is carrying. Appearing to be on some mission, he transports to another place and after using another portal finds himself being barely able to breathe until another man brings him a respirator. He is told to ignore his instructions and follows the man, entering a hotel room where masked men pay him for the assassination job he performed. When they try to kill him, Jagen kills one of them and knocks out the other, fleeing. We then have what appears to be a time jump. A humanoid robot is ordered to go after Jagen, who has retired to a backwater planet where he enjoys hunting. The robot arrives and disarms Jagen, but rather than killing him, it shaves his head, scans his brain to learn who gave him orders, then departs. This story is quite an outlier to both the writing and art style we currently are seeing from Skywald, and from doing some research it appears that this story was originally intended for an aborted Skywald sci-fi magazine (from which other stories we've seen in the past were also intended for). I'm surprised they held on to it so long before publishing as I recall any other stories intended for that magazine appearing long ago. Perhaps at this point Skywald, who just had to do 2 nearly all reprint issues, is in a similar spot to what Warren was in at the end where it was publishing old inventory stories of low quality.

Fifth is the latest in the Saga of the Victims series, "I... Am Torment" by Al Hewetson (story) and Jesus Suso Rego (art). We continue right where we left off, with a pterodactyl swooping down and grabbing our heroines, Josey and Anne. Suddenly another pterodactyl appears and battles it, grabbing a hold of Josey and Anne once it kills its foe. It brings the two of them to a nest to feed its young, but we quickly realize it is on top of a volcano, which blows! Somehow the nest is able to carry our heroines away while the pterodactyls are killed, but it eventually sets on fire until they make it to the open sea. After sleeping, our heroines wake up right before a pirate ship! They are soon found by the captain and crew, all of whom are corpses, and force them to walk the plank. Suddenly a giant whirlpool forms, enveloping the ship and both Josey and Anne fall off into the water, about to be sucked down, until a giant tentacle grabs them! It is here where the story ends. This series continues to be totally bonkers, really putting our two heroines through the ringer. This particularly segment was a bit less interesting to me than the prior two, with the first half of the story in particular being a bit too light on story in order to give us a recap of prior events and the experience with the pterodactyls.

Psycho #15

Vicente Segrelles provides the cover for this issue of Psycho, cover dated November 1973.The cover identifies this as an all ghoul issue, although the cover is a man turning into a werewolf! In fact, not all stories are ghoul related, although most are.

The frontispiece for this issue is "How to Make a Mummy" by Al Hewetson (story) and Maelo Cintron (art). It features what else, but directions on how to make a Mummy.

We kick the issue off with "The 13 Dead Things" by Al Hewetson (story) and Jesus Duran (art). This story was originally intended for issue 13, and was the cover feature for that issue, but due to a delay in the artwork wasn't published until now. It was certainly worth the wait! This is the most over the top, hilarious Skywald story yet. In the 1600s, the Count of Monte Godo lays chained in the black cells of an asylum, with rats for company. When an old man in the fellow cell dies, our protagonist gets an idea, about how he can fake his death and escape the asylum when they toss a sack with his "dead" body into the moat outside. He imagines how he will get his revenge on the 13 who wronged him. We are treated to panel after panel, for three full pages of our protagonist brutally murdering people one after another. He strangles his wife and her lover. He stabs people through the chest, he cuts their heads off. He bashes a banker's head in, he shoves a knife through the head of his lawyer, he smashes a judge in the face with an ax, on and on, and collects everyone's heads to feed to the rats in the cells. Our protagonist then realizes the downside of his plan, what if the sack is tied too tight, and he drowns? He swears that won't stop him though, and we once again are treated to panel after panel, page after page as our protagonist, now a rotting corpse, brutally slaughters the 13 people all over again. Back in reality, our protagonist decides to set his plan in motion and play dead. But when he realizes he can't move, he discovers that most of his body has been consumed by the rats! This story is such a perfect representation of the Skywald style. There's not much of a plot to this story, but wow, across 12 pages we are treated to about as much over the top mayhem one can possibly get in a short story. Just when you think page after page of our protagonist brutally murdering people is as ridiculous as you can get, we go through it all over again, even more ridiculously as his corpse does it! This was such a blast to read, the best Skywald story thus far.

"The 13 Dead Things"

Second is "When the Bad Moon Rises... I Am a Ghoul!" by Rodion Eis (story) and Maro Nava (story). Got no idea who Rodion Eis is; it wouldn't surprise me if its one of Skywald's usual authors under a pseudonym. This story features a couple of newlyweds, Peter and Tina who are on their honeymoon. When Peter gets asked by his employer to take photos of the Andes for a travel feature, they decide to go ahead with it and hire a bush pilot, Stein. Stein is a drunk and due to the plane's battery being dead they are forced to touch down in the Andes, then travel through them, making their way into the mountains where they are attacked by ghoul bats. Eventually Stein is killed and Tina reveals that she is a ghoul herself, desiring to eat his body. Nava's style here is drastically different than that which he used in his prior story, where he looked a lot like Jerry Grandenetti. None of that here. Also the art style is really grimy and dark throughout, at times making it hard to read.

Third is "The Ghoul" by Al Hewetson (story) and Ferran Sostres (art). The passenger ship S.S. Captain Cook makes a trip across the Atlantic. One of its passengers is killed by a beastly ghoul. The passengers of the ship start questioning the captain, even offering their own thoughts on what it could be (a werewolf, a homicidal maniac, a vampire, etc...). The captain is hesitant to believe any of them and soon there are more victims. Because they can't find the killer, the captain believes it must be one of them doing it and orders everyone to stay in their cabins. Eventually though we realize why they couldn't find the killer, the ghouls have actually been coming aboard through nearby icebergs! Soon a group of them jump on board and kill everyone on the ship.

"When the Bad Moon Rises... I Am a Ghoul!"

Fourth is "The House of Demons" by Chic Stone (story) and Amador Garcia (art). Vincent and his wife Melanie go to visit his dying uncle Sinclair. There they meet his nurse, Christine and she leads them up to him. Sinclair tells off Vincent, saying he knows he is here because he is dying and has been foolhardy since his parents died. He nonetheless lets them stay the night. Behind closed doors Vincent and Melanie fight with one another. Meanwhile a stranger watches them, then Christine, as she goes to the basement to feast on something. A scream emits out, waking Vincent, who heads downstairs and starts coming onto Christine. She tells him of a ghoul, a being with a rare disease which eats away at its cells unless it consumes new flesh, which will in turn make it younger and more powerful. Just then we realize that both Sinclair and Christine are ghouls, and Sinclair has been able to restore his youth by eating a local visitor. Vince is killed, but Melanie and the stranger come upon them. The stranger says by shattering the reflection of a ghoul he can kill them and he does so, causing both Sinclair and Christine to age to death. The stranger reveals himself to be Sinclair's son, but then reveals that he is a ghoul as well and strangles Melanie. This story is a bit over complicated and it is hard to tell the male characters apart because they look so much alike (granted, they are related).

"The House of Demons"

Fifth is "Ghouls Walk Among Us" by Augustine Funnell (story) and Ferran Sostres (art). A trio of ghouls kills a man in a graveyard. The next day the police, Bill and Carl, find the body. They report to the police chief who refuses to believe anything supernatural is going on and thinks it is just a clever insane man. The ghouls continue to find victims, including Bill and Carl. As the story ends we find that the police chief was one of the ghouls and has been wearing a mask. Sostres' art is fairly strong here, helping make up for a story which is only so-so.

Sixth is "The Town That Crumbled" by Al Hewetson (story) and Jesus Suso Rego (art). This one pager talks about corrupt, dead places on Earth, such as a ghost corpse in the wild west and a corpse in Atlantis, underneath the ocean depths.

Seventh is "I Laugh the Laugh of the Graceful Dead!" by Al Hewetson (story) and Felipe Dela Rosa (art). Suzette is a ballerina dancer, jealous of her rival Monique who gets all the accolades. She kills Monique by stabbing her with a knife then hides her body in a coffin. When Monique fails to show for a dance, Suzette is able to take her place as she had hoped. Yet suddenly Monique appears on the stage with her and gets everyone's applause. After it is over Suzette chases after Monique, finding her in the coffin where she left her. Monique rises from the coffin and strangles her, telling her she can't kill someone who is already dead. I'm not used to seeing a Dela Rosa story with predominantly female characters. There's no indication that Monique is a ghoul, she just as easily could be a vampire or a body risen from the dead.

"I Laugh the Laugh of the Graceful Dead!"

The issue concludes with a one page advertisement for Scream, featuring some strong art from Zesar Lopez.

Nightmare #12

Today I cover Nightmare 12, cover dated April 1973 and featuring a cover by Vicente Segrelles.

First is "Nightmare in the House of Poe" by Al Hewetson (story) and Ferran Sostres (art). Rodney Serle is staying in New Orleans yet finds the partying there out of control. He goes to stay at a local rooming house only to find some small humanoid monsters grabbing him out of his bed and forcing him down some creepy stairways then into another party. Rodney awakens, revealing it to be a dream, but strange things continue to happen to him over and over again as he continues to experience bizarre dreams that come to life. This lengthy story at 15 pages is quite surrealistic and features some strong art by Sostres. It reminds me a lot of the type of stories we'd see from Jose Bea at Warren, such as the "Picture of Death" which also featured a man in a rooming house/inn who gets seized by strange monsters.

Next is "Premature Burial" by Al Hewetson (story) and Juez Xirinius (art). With the last story being named after Edgar Allen Poe, this story is an actual Poe adaption, the first we have seen in Skywald (but not the last by a long shot as it will get quite common eventually). The first few pages of the story tell us of various situations where people were mistakenly buried alive or thought dead but really weren't. Our protagonist is afraid of this happening to him and arranges several ways for him to escape his coffin such as a bell and a way out of the coffin should he be declared dead. Yet when he strikes his head while on a boat, he awakens horrified to find himself in a coffin on said boat, and not his specially made one. After calling out people realize he's alive, although the final panel reveals that he was never in a coffin after all, just a tight bunk bed. A fairly good story here (this is a Poe story I'm not too familiar with so I don't know how faithful it is) and some excellent art from Xirinius.

Things get weird in "Nightmare in the House of Poe"

Third is "Kiss of the Vampires" by Chic Stone (story & art). Chic Stone hadn't done a story for Skywald in a while, having been pushed out by the Selecciones Illustrada artists and I suspect this was an inventory story held onto for a while before publication. Our story begins with Marisa, Priestess of the Undead chopping off the head of a man so she and her followers can drink his blood. The narrative then switches to Philip and Thatcher, a pair of men that have come to the town. Thatcher actually specializes in killing vampires and was called to the town to help with the recent incidents. Meanwhile Philip meets Marissa, not realizing she is a vampire and becomes her latest victim. Thatcher, after slaying a vampire himself is able to find the tomb where Marisa's followers sleep, slaying each of them with a stake. Marisa then arrives and she tries to possess him with her beauty, then stabs him with his own stake. She walks into a bear trap however and when the sun rises it kills her. Story-wise nothing too outstanding here but it was good to see Stone doing another story.

Next is "I am Dead: I Am Buried!" by Al Hewetson (story) and Xavier Villanova (art). Prisoner Ed Warton travels through the swamps in Arkansas but is captured, then is whipped and thrown in a pit as an example to the other prisoners. To the guard's surprise, he dies. Warton's corpse rises from the pit, slays several guards then escapes into the swamp. From here on the story takes a pretty big left turn as we see the point of view of the writer of the story, trying to figure out how to conclude things. Suddenly Warton's corpse appears for real, demanding him to figure out a way to get him out of the swamps. He then requests a nearby kid to tell him how to end the story. From there the narrative returns to a few days earlier, where Warton is revealed to be dead for good and never rises as a corpse. Although oddly enough the body of a man and kid are now in the pit with him. I quite liked the left turn this story took, which made what would have been otherwise a typical corpse rising from the dead story into something more interesting.

Skywald's first Poe adaption, "Premature Burial"

Fifth is "The Night of the Corpse-Bride" by Doug Moench (story) and Xavier Villanova (art). Frank Tanner is surprised to find that his uncle Phineas has left him five million dollars in his will when he passed away.The will includes a strange requirement though, Frank must get married in three days to get the money! Frank didn't even know his uncle that well, who had been married himself but his wife died on his wedding night. Frank meets a young woman named Barbara and asks her to marry him and she surprisingly accepts! When she discovers the true reason though, she flees from him, even though Frank has fallen in love with her for real. Barbara runs from him in a stormy night, getting struck by a car, but continues going until she reaches a graveyard. There Frank realizes she is just a corpse and was actually the long dead wife of his uncle Phineas! This story had a pretty good twist to wrap things up. Still bewilders me why his dead uncle would care about him getting married that quick though.

Sixth is "The Assassin-Bug" by Al Hewetson (story) and Antonio Borrell (art). We see a giant bug attacking a woman on the splash panel, then go back in time to a soldier in Asia. In exchange for saving a girl, her father gives the soldier an assassin bug, a small bug in a tiny cage that he says has special powers. Our protagonist returns to America where he becomes a hired assassin, and in a difficult jam on how to kill a prisoner, uses the bug on him. He continues to use the bug to kill people, yet finds that the bug is growing while he is shrinking with each successive murder. Eventually the bug turns on him. As the story ends however we see this is all his imagination, he never actually saved the girl and has been laying in a cell having lost his mind. The final panel also reveals that before going to war he was a bug exterminator.

"I Am Dead I Am Buried" completely breaks the fourth wall

The issue concludes with "Monster Monster on the Wall!" by Augustine Funnell (story) and Pablo Marcos (art). This story is Funnel's Skywald debut; he would go on to become an oft recurring writer for them. A mere four pages, this story features a kid who is bullied and beat up as a kid for being ugly. Now an adult, he returns to his hometown where some of the bullies find him. Yet it being the full moon, he transforms into a werewolf and kills them! Although originally intended as a stand alone, this story would become a recurring series and we'll see more in the series soon.

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 #3

Boris Vallejo provides the cover for this issue of Psycho, featuring Frankenstein's Monster. This issue is cover dated May 1971. Gone are the text story and the one page gallery feature this time, with the Frankenstein and Heap stories being longer than usual.

First is "Frankenstein, Book II: Chapter One by Tom Sutton (story) and Tom Sutton/Dan Adkins (art). Sutton is again credited as Sean Todd. The story continues on from the original Frankeinstein novel, although it uses the famous Frankenstein Universal monster movie look for the monster character. The monster, finding the body of Victor Frankenstein is dedicated to bringing him back to life as had been done to him. He eventually returns to Victor's laboratory and with help from Egor (who if I remember correctly wasn't in the original novel) tries to bring Victor back to life. The castle is struck by lightning, destroying it, but causing Victor to return to life. Upon heading to the village asking for help, he is instead hacked to pieces by the townsfolk! Victor's old teacher, Dr. Pretorius desires to bring him back again, and the story ends with the Frankenstein monster revealed to be still alive under the castle's rubble. A fun kick off to what will become a recurring series; I particularly like the scene when Victor realizes what's happened to him and flees from the townsfolk.

Next is "A Coffin for Captain Cutlass" by Gardner Fox (story) and Serg Moren (art). The captain Don Miguel Fuentes De Cordoba seeks to take down the titular Captain Cutlass, carrying a sealed coffin with him. Upon coming across Cutlass, he binds him, and opens the coffin, revealing a giant monster. Cutlass's lover Marian sets him free and he is able to get the monster back in its cabin. He seeks an alchemist, who enables the monster to speak and tell its tale. Cutlass eventually finds the ship of Don Miguel's and sets the monster loose on him, then sets the ship aflame, destroying the monster for good as well.

Famous corpses in this issue's installment of The Heap

Third is "The Heap Meets the Horror Master!" by Chuck McNaughton (story) and Ross Andru/Mike Esposito (art). Where we last left the Heap, he was trying to find his old friend Monty Elliot, hoping he could turn him back human. While traveling through the woods, The Heap frees a deer he was initially thinking of eating, then comes across a cabin where he slobbers down a dead rat and garbage. He is soon found by a man calling himself the Horrormaster, who has found the ability to raise the dead. The Heap is brought into his lair, where the corpses of some of the most famous evil people in history are, such as Attila the Hun, Rasputin, Caligula, Giles de Rais and others. The Heap defeats many of them and breaks free, finding the Horrormaster now resurrecting Hitler! The Horrormaster sends him to grab a family with two corpses, but the Heap rebels, getting into a big battle with numerous corpses and eventually breaking the horrormaster's staff and following him up a mountain where an avalanche crashes on the both of them. The Heap is revealed to be alive and continues on his quest to find Monty.

Fourth is "Gruesome Crewcut!" by Chic Stone (story & art). This hilarious (albeit quite gruesome) 3-page story is my favorite of the issue. A young boy named Jeff has girly long blonde hair. His father is angry at him, demanding he get a haircut. Jeff instead runs away from home. After several hours, he decides to go asleep under a tree. A mysterious pair of ghouls, Arnie and Rufus appear. Arnie has a bald, corpse-like head and desires Jeff's hair. As the story ends, Jeff has returned home, his entire scalp torn off and Arnie happily displays his new hair.

Jeff gets a haircut in "Gruesome Crewcut"

Fifth is "The Man Who Stole Eternity" by Gardner Fox (story) and Bill Everett (art). 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!

The issue concludes with "The Love Witch" by Marv Wolfman (story) and Ernie Colon (art). Colon, one of Warren's most commonly appearing artists during its down period of the late 60's and early 70's is credited here as Jack Purcell. The titular witch, Burnick kills numerous priests at Stonehedge and rides the giant lizard Friji. She dreams of a warrior killing Friji and sucking up her youth, turning her into an old lady. Eventually the warrior appears for real, killing Friji and she finds herself aged due to fearing his arrival. The warrior reveals himself to be Morpheus, God of Dreams. Then suddenly, in the final page things become a confusing mess, Burnick is young again, Morpheus flies away but she suddenly causes him to burst into flames, or at least that is my interpretation of what happened. I wonder if this is intended to continue into a future story as that would help this make more sense.

Nightmare #3

Boris Vallejo handles the cover for this issue of Nightmare, featuring the interior story When the Dawn Gods War, with a cover date of April 1971.

We kick off with "The Inner Man" featuring story and art by Tom Sutton, with assist on the art by Dan Adkins. Sutton goes under the pseudonyms of Sinclair Rich for the story and Sean Todd for the art. 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 insider 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 way to kick off the issue, especially when Wroclaw starts going on his rampage.

Second is "The Victims" by Gerry Conway (story) and Rich Buckler (art). Two scientists, Frank and Tad work on creating indestructible clones. Frank jealously kills Tad, thinking back to how they first met and his fear of him taking his fiance Susan. He soon kills Susan as well, but then realizes that he has actually killed their clones and they are still alive. An indestructible clone climbs out of a tank and kills Frank.

Third is "Vault of a Vampire", featuring, in his Skywald debut, Al Hewetson for the story and Serg Moren for the art. A vampire stalks ancient Rome, attacking someone in the Arena, and having previously appeared at other crowded events. A trio of men seek to destroy the vampire. During its latest attack, they follow the vampire to the graveyard and the crypt where it makes its home. They wait outside the blocked entrance, thinking they can wait out the vampire. A couple of weeks pass and they break in, finding that the vampire has started devouring its own flesh. They then kill it with swords. I question Hewetson's knowledge of vampires in this story, it should be seeking to drink blood, not consume flesh. If it was supposed to be a ghoul as well, this was never stated earlier.

Wroclaw goes on a rampage in "Inner Man"

Fourth is "When the Dawn Gods War!" by Gardner Fox (story) and Paul Reinman/Mike Esposito (art). The caveman Kroog is surprised to see several flying saucers land. Out from one comes the octopus-like alien Thropoli, who puts a head band around Kroog's head and tells him to help him find a human who has fled to this planet. Kroog is saved by a dinosaur by the hiding human, then later gives a head band above his mate. The hiding human causes lightning to appear, making himself come off as a god to Kroog, then convincing him to create a poison for the Tropoli via some plants. Kroog gives the poison to the Tropoli, who fly off. The hiding human meanwhile is revealed, having used advanced equipment to fool Kroog into thinking he's a god. He decides to call Kroog Adam and his mate Eve. Rather lame ending aside, the rest of this story is pretty good.

Fifth is "A Rottin Deal" by Bruce Jones (story and art), using the pseudonym Philip Roland. A young man named Peter travels with his uncle Felix, seeking an old mine around five days away. As they travel through the desert wasteland, devoid of water, Peter decides to kill his uncle and take his canteen. He travels from oasis to oasis but finds that Felix's corpse is following him, beating him to the water, contaminating it. Peter rushes ahead of the corpse, making it to the next oasis in time to drink some water. However he soon finds that his uncle had leprosy, and having uses his canteen, he now has it too! Jones' story and art here is quite strong, making this the best story of the issue. Jones would later become one of Warren's most prolific, and best writers during the Louise Jones era.

Sixth is the text story "Horror Man" by Art Stampler. Our protagonist is a doctor helping the movie star Tracy Collins, who is convinced he is a werewolf. The two of them go to the doctor's home where Collins runs amok, although remaining human, getting eventually run over accidentally by a mistake. When the police arrive however, Collins has transformed into a dog!

Following the text story is the one page "Nightmare Pin-Up #2", with art by Chic Stone. This features a number of rotting corpses rising from the ground, including one that looks quite a lot like Warren's Uncle Creepy.

"A Rottin Deal"

Our seventh story is "Soul of the Warlock" by Chic Stone (story & art). Erik Mortus is obsessed with summoning the undead, and when his wife comes across what he is doing falls to her death. Mortus drugs various men, trying to summon the sorcerer Esteban Delgado, but each time he does so, his captive's body catches aflame and burns up. He finally succeeds with summoning Delgado after capturing the fortune-teller Lefarge. Delgado is upset at Mortus for disrupting his rest though, and summons a group of corpses to kill him!

The issue concludes with "Beware Small Evils!" by Jack Katz and Frank Giacoia (story and art). In the polluted future of... 1983 (lol), a motorcycle 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.

The story features an incredibly lame joke at the end where the scientist has the Senator stabbed, claiming politicians are full of hot air.

Psycho #2

Upon opening this magazine I'm surprised to realize that its all new material, and we have already finished the reprint era. A good start! Hector Varella provides the cover for this issue cover dated March 1971.

The issue kicks off with "The Heap", the first appearance of a character who would be one of the longest running in the Skywald magazines and was also featured on the cover. This story is written by Chuck McNaughton and drawn by Ross Andru/Mike Esposito. Jim Roberts is living a wonderful life as a crop duster, about to get married to his fiance Audrey. However while piloting his plane one of the cables doesn't work causing him to crash in a forest where nerve gas is being used. The combination of the fire and gas transforms Jim into the horrifying The Heap. The Heap makes his way through a road and a graveyard, eventually coming across his own funeral where he realizes his friend Ryan set him up, selling him and his fiance a life insurance policy then screwing around with the cables in his plane so Jim would die and he can be with Audrey, collecting the insurance money. The Heap goes on a rampage against Ryan, Audrey and his underlings. As the story ends, The Heap wonders if his friend Monty Elliot may be able to find a cure for him.

Second is "To Laugh Perchance to Live" by Chuck McNaughton (story) and Jack Katz/Rich Buckler (art). Steve Weston, a man living in Manhattan suddenly finds himself transported to another world. Once there a large group of monsters call for him and start fighting each other over him, claiming they want to bring him to his throne. We see several pages of very bizarre monsters fighting each other and eventually Steve is brought to the throne, which has images in his likeness. He agrees to become their ruler and starts laughing, and we see him back in the real world, laughing maniacally. Was Steve crazy the entire time? Perhaps. In any case I enjoyed this story quite a lot with all the weird monsters in it fighting each other over him.

Third is "Death's Stranger" by Marv Wolfman (story) and Tom Palmer (art). Arthur Ashe has come up with a formula that will allow man to live forever. His scientific colleagues want him to destroy it, but he instead kills all of them, then uses the formula. However, the ghosts of his slain colleagues appear to torment him. Many years go by. Arthur enjoys eternal life at first but eventually comes war and he finds himself the last remaining human. The years continue, Earth reverts to prehistoric times including roaming dinosaurs. Arthur eventually decides to accept death and the ghosts of his slain colleagues bring him into a grave they have dug for him.

Next is the one page "Psycho's Gruesome Gallery: The Vampire" a one page feature drawn by Steve Hickman.

The Heap!

Next is "Revolution" by Rick Margopoulos (story) and Tom Sutton/Dan Adkins (art). Sutton is credited here as Sean Todd. Wary of the wrath of James Warren, who was viciously opposed to any of his artists working for the opposition, we will see several American Warren artists do stories for Skywald under pseudonyms. We'll see that also for this story's writer, Rich Margopoulos, who goes as "Rick Poulos" here, although Margopoulos would not become a mainstay at Warren like Sutton had been for a little while longer. On the Planet Sade slaves are constantly forced to fight in "games", battles in a coliseum against giant monsters. The King, upon hearing of a possible rebellion instead, desires more slaves to fight in more games to quell the populace. So the games become more and more severe, leading to a revolt by the citizenry, who also release all the monsters. The King and his men are forced to flee the planet on a spaceship, landing on another one where carnivorous plants soon attack them. The men flee towards what appears to be a city sitting atop a lake. The king tosses away all his underlings and his own daughter to save his own hide, only to realize that the lake itself is a blob-like entity that consumes him. Adkins' work is barely noticeable on this story, making it look like a Sutton solo story.

Our next story is "The Quest!" by Rich Margopoulos (story) and Chic Stone (art). A man comes across an old man in the park who gives him a painting of a girl tied to a pole as a three headed monster approaches her. That night he looks at it and is suddenly summoned to another world. The same old man says he has summoned him here to rescue his daughter from the vile king Moloch. So begins a lengthy quest where the two of them make it to Moloch's castle, but our protagonist is killed by the three headed beast. The old man returns to the park with his painting, hoping to find someone else. Sword and sorcery tales were never a favorite of mine in Warren and its the same here in Skywald, one of the weaker stories of the issue.

Next is "Dream Planet", written by Phil Seuling and drawn by Serg Moren. A spaceship approaches a planet and its crew has some very weird dreams. One man dreams of being on the planet and being enveloped by a blob-like creature. Another dreams of being attacked by leaves, ferns and fungus. A third dreams of being seized by a giant caterpillar, spun up in a web and has eggs hatch out of him and eat him. The scientists on board the ship believe these are visions that are being used as a defense of the inhabitants of the planet. They believe the inhabitants are physically quite weak. So the ship lands on the planet. The rather confusing last page implies that the monsters on the planet were real after all. At least that's my interpretation of it.

Monsters from To Laugh Perchance to Live

The issue concludes with the rather weak "Valley of Blood" by Chuch McNaughton (story) and Jack Katz/Frank Giacoia (art). 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 Valerie turns back to human, dying. Dargos then appears and attacks him.