My Top Skywald Stories

Many years back when I covered Warren I made a post of my favorite Warren stories; now the time has come to do the same for Skywald. For Warren it was fairly easy to determine my top stories, as there were quite a number that really stood out to me just from memory. For Skywald it was a bit harder. Very few stories were as striking to me, especially from an intellectual level. Not that I didn't enjoy going through the Skywald library; I absolutely did, but it unfortunately never hit the heights for me that Warren did. That said, I've spent the time going back over my prior posts and synopsis and have come up with my list of what I considered the highlight of Skywald. While my picks were primarily based on the writing, I will admit that the art at times also came into play, and many of the stories were concentrated from a few artists. Hewetson was the writer for all but one of those included in my top 10 list.

This list is specifically one-time stories; all ongoing series have been excluded. This wouldn't have had that major an impact on the list aside from a few stories that come to mind including one of the stories in the Shoggoths series, one of the stories in the Autobiography of a Vampire series and the Saga of the Victims series as a whole. I'm not sure if all 3 would have made my top 10, but they'd at least rank among my honorable mentions, which I have included below:

Time Stop - Nightmare #2
Gruesome Crewcut - Psycho #3
Slime World - Nightmare #5
Broken Sparrow - Nightmare #6
Horror Has 1 Thousand Faces - Psycho #7
Alone - Nightmare 1972 Special
The Transplant - Psycho #10
The Comics Macabre - Scream #1
What the Hell is Dracula Doing Alive and Well in 1974?! - Nightmare #19
A Tale of Horror -Nightmare #20
I Never Heard of a Ghost Actually Killing Anyone! - Scream #9
Kill, Kill, Kill, and Kill Again - Nightmare #22

My Top 10 Skywald Stories

10. "Whether Man or Scarecrow" - Nightmare 1973 Winter Special; story by Al Hewetson, art by Felipe Dela Rosa

This one is a fun combination of a Pinocchio-type story (with a scarecrow coming to life instead of a puppet) and the concept of having wishes. A scarecrow named Perry is approached by an old man one day who claims he can grand him three wishes. In a traditional tale, Perry would take advantage of this to become human and be with his crush, the farmer's daughter, Judy. And well, while he certainly tries for that, things go spectacularly bad for him in every way possible. Like many stories on this top 10 ranking, Hewetson takes things really over the top here, and its a blast.

9. "...Suffer the Little Children" - Psycho #9; story by Al Hewetson, art by Xavier Villanova

A governess arrives at a mansion to take care of two young children, Flora and Miles, only to find that things are totally not what they seem. Both children are mentally disturbed, impacted by the recent death of their brother. From here the story takes a lot of twists and turns, bringing the reader on an exciting ride up to its surprising ending.

8. "A Plot of Dirt" - Psycho #9; story by Doug Moench, art by Felipe Dela Rosa

Like EC comics, Skywald did a number of stories featuring corpses returning from the dead; this story was one of the best. It features Philip, a corpse summoned from the grave by the evil Craig, who was responsible for his death due to jealousy over a woman. Largely told from Philip's perspective, we have a sympathetic protagonist, despite being a corpse and hope he will be able to come out of Craig's spell and get his revenge.

7. "The Old Vampire Lady" - Psycho #16; story by Al Hewetson, art by Jesus Duran

Every once and a while Hewetson would eschew the typical type of plot and instead provide us a story that acted more as a historical account or biography. This is one of such stories. A young photographer comes across the titular vampire lady, who tells him her horrifying life from her childhood to now. Jesus Duran was one of my favorite Skywald artists and he does an effective job providing a scary atmosphere throughout.

6. "Now... Another Maniac!" - Psycho #18; story by Al Hewetson, art by Maelo Cintron

This story was a rare one drawn by Maelo Cintron that did not feature the human gargoyles characters. It also is unique for a Skywald story in that it has no supernatural element to it. Our protagonist plans to kill a man. While he is able to successfully pull it off, a bike he ran over comes back to haunt him in a big way. The story also is memorable for me as the first Skywald story I ever read, due to coming across it in a collection of horror comic stories years ago.

5. "The Artist's Other Hand" - Psycho #14; story by Al Hewetson, art by Jesus Suso Rego

One of the really fun things about Skywald was their willingness to break the fourth wall, and this story is a perfect example of that. It stars the story's artist, Suso, who gets sick of the ridiculous story his editor, Hewetson, writes for him. The two get into a big conflict over how to improve the story, and neither can come to an agreement resulting in a fist fight between the two. Hewetson loved to put himself in his stories (off the top of my head I think this happened at least 10 times, if not more) and this is the best such example.

4. "Limb from Limb from Death" - Nightmare 1972 Special; story by Al Hewetson, art by Pablo Marcos

One of Skywald's most gory and over the top stories. A trio of men are trapped in the Sahara desert. One of them, a doctor, convinces the other two that the only way they have to survive is to eat each other. Each of the other two men gives up an arm for this, under the promise from the doctor that if they are saved he will have his own arm sawed off. Well, they are saved before that happens, so the big question is whether the doctor will actually go through with it?

3. "Diary of an Absolute Lunatic" - Nightmare #14; story by Al Hewetson, art by Felipe Dela Rosa

A man named Munro appears in the 1920s in an insane asylum, claiming to be a time traveler. Coming from 70 years from the future, he tells of how a madman threatens to destroy the Earth if his demands are not met. Munro makes his way through time, including witnessing the Earth blow up! Is he telling the truth? While we don't know with absolute certainty, the ending to the tale provides a pretty strong indication. Beyond being a fun story to read, this story also boasts some strong artwork from Dela Rosa, particularly during the time travel sequence.

2. "The Day That Satan Died" - Psycho #13; story by Al Hewetson, art by Felipe Dela Rosa

This story proves that Hewetson could turn out a great story even if the ending is literally spoiled in the title. A young woman hijacks a small plane and then purposely causes it to crash into a snowy mountain. Its all part of a plot on her part to get one of the other passengers to sacrifice their soul so she can satisfy a deal with Satan to preserve her youth. Only she soon learns to her dismay that her fellow passengers include the abominable snowman, a vampire and Satan himself! The sheer ridiculousness of this story makes it quite a fun one to read and Dela Rosa's artwork serves the story quite well.

1. "The 13 Dead Things" - Psycho #15; story by Al Hewetson, art by Jesus Duran

An imprisoned count in the 17th century sits in a cell in a tower, and comes up with an idea about how to fake his death so he can escape and take revenge. For pages on end we see our protagonist imagining himself going on a rampage and brutally killing those who have wronged him. When he realizes a possible flaw in his escape plan this doesn't stop him from continuing to plot his revenge, and we see him once again slaying those who have wronged him, but this time as a corpse! The story is topped off by a hilarious, but very fitting ending. This story is so ridiculously over the top it needs to be seen to be believed. Just when you think it can't get any more absurd after seeing our protagonist kill so many people in horrifying ways, we get it repeated with him doing it as a rotting corpse.

Psycho #18

Xavier Villanova provides the cover for this issue, cover dated May 1974. An interesting concept, in the form of a jigsaw puzzle!

First is "The Macabre" by Al Hewetson (story) and Ricardo Villamonte (art). Movie actor Basil's agent comes up with an idea for him to hype up his role as vampires by having him pretend to be a vampire in real life, carrying around a coffin with him. But this leads to a real vampire encountering him, and when he discovers it is all a gag, the vampire bites him, turning him into a vampire for real! Basil flees from society, living on an island and only succumbing to his urges to bite someone occasionally. He eventually comes up with a cure for vampirism and drinks it, turning himself back into a regular human. Unfortunately for him at that very moment a mob of villagers have come to the village and slay him with an ax! Villamonte's art as often is the case leaves a lot to be desired, but this was a fairly strong story with a hilarious ending.

Next is a one page pin up of Lady Satan as drawn by Pablo Marcos. I'm not sure why we are featuring her in Psycho when she usually appears in Scream.

"The Rats'

Next is "The Rats" by Al Hewetson (story) and Felipe Dela Rosa (art). Our protagonist, Syd, has gone insane and we go to when he became insane, when he is riding a tractor and sees his family's entire home collapse into a fissure in the ground. We then see that he is in an asylum with people watching over him as he proclaims the rats will get him. We cross cut between them talking about him and him thinking back to him driving around, heading to a city but it being flooded and then running into an elevator overrun with rats. Syd eventually admits he is insane. We find that he is one of many individuals, who after being coddled by the government couldn't take it when some natural disasters happened. They head outside revealing that things actually have been flooded and he is obsessed over rats because he ate some when trapped in an elevator for three days. This story comes off as a less successful attempt at a redo of "Diary of an Absolute Madman" from the same creators a number of issues back in Nightmare.

Fourth is "A Descent into the Maelstrom", an adaption of the Edgar Allen Poe story by Al Hewetson, with Cesar Lopez providing the art. Two men look into the sea at a maelstrom, aka a whirlpool far off. The older of the two tells of how he was caught up in one a while ago. His ship was blast into pieces, with only him and his brother left alive. He eventually realized that in order to survive he had to be as light as possible and tied himself to a barrel. Meanwhile his brother refused to leave the much larger remains of the ship and was sucked into the whirlpool while he survived. As the story ends we realize that despite looking old with his white hair, he is a young man and looks that way due to his experience. A rather unconventional Poe story, that isn't macabre as usual and is more of an adventure tale.

"Now... Another Maniac!"

Fifth is "Now... Another Maniac!" by Al Hewetson (story) and Maelo Cintron (art). This is actually the first Skywald story I ever read, from a horror comics story collection I read a few years ago. It is a rare appearance for Cintron outside of the Gargoyles series. Our protagonist gets up at night, planning to kill a man. While pulling out of the driveway he runs over a bike. He finds his victim, takes him at gunpoint and forces him to dig his own grave, striking him in the head with it once its done, then buries him. When he arrives home he is shocked to find the police there. But it is not for his murder, rather he had run over a kid and killed him when he hit the bike at the start of the story. A fairly strong story with some effective art as well, this reads a lot more like a Warren story from this era than a Skywald one.

Next is "Uncle Ed's Grave" by Al Hewetson (story) and Alphonso Font (art). The titular Uncle Ed speaks to his nephew Ralph, admitting that he is a vampire. Ralph does not believe him, but Ed claims that most fantastical things related to vampires aren't real and he is nonetheless one. He speaks of how his own uncle made him a vampire when he was a child and once a year he drinks someone's blood, but otherwise lives a normal life. Ed tries to attack Ralph, but he throws him to the ground and he appears dead of a heart attack. We find that Ralph came here to seize his uncle's jewels, but with him now dead he needs to dispose of the body. He plans to bury him in the local graveyard. He talks of how Ed wasn't ever discussed as part of the family and his apparent insanity was the reason why. Yet when about to mark a gravestone for him, Ralph realizes that Ed was born in 1822 and is 150 years old, which explains why he was never spoke of. Suddenly Ed's arms break out of the ground and grab a hold of Ralph. It is here where the story ends, quite abruptly. I wonder if we'll get a second part as this seems like an odd place to end it.

"Uncle Ed's Grave"

Seventh is "The Boutique Macabre" by Al Hewetson (story) and Antonio Borrell (art). This is a brief story at only three pages. A man stops by the store Leah's Boutiques and inside meets Leah, a young woman who has many paintings of her killing people. She reveals how each of them are real. She killed the drunk that was rude and tried to assault her, she poisoned the old women who claimed it was immoral for a woman to operate her own business and then she shows him a blank painting. Leah claims he will be the subject of that painting and stabs him.

Last is "Monster, Monster, Watch Them Die" by Augustine Funnell (story) and Ricardo Villamonte (art). The story begins with our werewolf protagonist going on yet another rampage. Then we see Dominik, prince of the gypsies shoot Kirsten and we find that the veiled woman from the previous story has seized the amulet and restored her beauty. She leaves Nola to Dominik, who takes her at gunpoint and we later find has killed her. Our protagonist, discovering this, becomes enraged, turns back into a werewolf and kills Dominik, then cries over Nola's death. The gypsy storyline finally resolved, this would be the perfect place to end this very mediocre series, but alas, the ending states we will get more chapters...

Scream #4

Xavier Villanova provides the cover for this issue of Scream, cover dated February 1974.

First is the latest Lady Satan story in "Satan Wants a Child" by Al Hewetson (story, credited to Howie Anderson) and Ricardo Villamonte (art). Lady Satan is brought before a demon who reveals that Satan has not yet forgiven her and seeks something else from her, a child. She is to wait in a bed for him, but awakens with Anne back in control of her body. She departs, heading back to the town of Salem and figures the only way to stop things from happening is to stab herself. It fails to kill her however and Lady Satan returns to having control of her body. She travels to be with Satan, they embrace and when Anne resumes control of her body she learns to her horror she is with Satan's child. This series continues to be rather lackluster for me, and the act of Anne and Lady Satan exchanging control of Anne's body is getting old.

"The Skull of the Ghoul"

Next is an adaption of Edgar Allen Poe's "The Oblong Box" with adaption by Al Hewetson and art by Maro Nava. This story tells of how our protagonist, traveling on a boat at sea sees his friend Wyatt also come on board with several servants, his wife and a large oblong box that he believes includes a painting. Wyatt's wife is quite vulgar and grotesque and Wyatt seems fit to rage and pass out. Eventually a large storm hits the ship and as it is destroyed, Wyatt chains himself to the box and sinks into the depths of the ocean. As the story concludes the captain reveals all. Wyatt's wife was in fact his servant, his real wife was dead, included in the box which was filled with salt. Our protagonist considers with horror what must have been going on with Wyatt and the box in his room at night. A pretty good Poe story; Nava's aping of Jerry Grandenetti continues including an extremely obvious swipe of a character from the story "The Adventure of the German Student" from Creepy #15.

Third is "The Skull of the Ghoul" by Al Hewetson (story) and Ferran Sostres (art). Traveling in a carriage across Barcelona is a carriage manned by a guard who is keeping a hold of a woman prisoner. When the driver of the carriage collapses dead, the woman takes the opportunity to break from her bonds and kill her guard. Feigning that she needs help, she travels into the town and is greeted by a Countess Sostres to brings her to her manse. There the countess shows our protagonist around, including showing her the skull of Dracula. Our protagonist plans to steal it and flee yet that night as she is about to do so she hears talking. It is the countess, talking to the skull! Our protagonist is taken a hold by Sostres' servants and she reveals she is a vampiress; she killed the driver of the carriage and will now drink her blood as well. Rather standard vampire fare, but Sostres' art is quite strong. For some odd reason this story is split into two parts, although the first part is a mere three pages long.

"The Lunatic Mummy"

Fourth is "The Legend of the Cannibal Werewolf" by Ed Fedory (story) and Ricardo Villamonte (art). A hunter named Sir Percy shows off the stuffed werewolf he hunted in Africa. He is asked to describe how he hunted it and we see him traveling through the jungle, and being attacked by the werewolf. Returning to the present, he reveals that the werewolf wasn't seeking to kill him, but find a mate and he transforms into a werewolf himself, along with his mate slaying everyone there. We will see another werewolves in love type story a bit later on which I consider quite a bit better than this rather "eh" story.

Fifth is "The Lunatic Mummy" by Al Hewetson (story, credited to Howie Anderson) and Cesar Lopez (art). This story is Lopez's Skywald debut. A man named Emmanuel Humphrey travels through the desert, stopping to rest at an oasis. While sleeping a group of religious fanatics capture him, planning on sacrificing him. They bury him up to his head, about to let a snake kill him, but then change their mind, dig him back up and mummify his body, then bury him again. The authorities arrive and kill all the fanatics, but upon digging up Emmanual find that his body completely deteriorates. The plot of this story makes me wonder if it inspired a sequence from the first Creepshow movie where people are buried in sand up to their heads. Stephen King was reportedly a Skywald fan, so it is a possibility.

Sixth is "The Vampire Kingdom" by Al Hewetson (story) and Domingo Gomez (art). A pair of newspaper reporters search Peru, finding a half buried city, occupied by the man-bats, half man, half vampire creatures. The design of the man bats seem quite similar to a one page feature of them done all the way back in Nightmare #11.

"When the Dusk Falls... So Does Death"

The issue concludes with the latest in the Nosferatu series, "When the Dusk Falls... So Does Death" by Al Hewetson (story) and Zesar Lopez (art). Nosferatu ask another of his dinner guests to tell his tale, this time one with a werewolf mask. The man removes his mask, only to reveal another, iron mask underneath. The man says his name was Fernando Doma and he lived in Madrid. An eligible bachelor, he pursued a woman, Anastasia Rubio, causing her to break up with her current suitor. At the first full moon we discover that Anastasia is in fact a werewolf and upon biting Fernando turns him into one too. They pursue many victims but eventually Anastasia is killed by a cross dropped by her former suitor. Fernando transforms into a werewolf and kills him, but is taken in by the authorities who put him in an asylum and strap an iron mask around his head such that when he transforms into a werewolf, the growth of his head will crush it. As we return to the present, Fernando removes his mask revealing his mutilated crushed head. As often is the case, the Nosferatu story is the peak of the issue, with great art from Zesar. I must say though Anastasia just isn't that beautiful with her short hair, and most notably very dark circles around her eyes.

Scream #3

Xavier Villanova provides the cover for this issue of Scream, cover dated December 1973.

First is "The Phantom of the Opera" by Al Hewetson (story) and Jesus Duran (art). Having never actually seen the movie Phantom of the Opera, I am not sure how faithful an adaption this is. Raoul and his girlfriend Christine attend the Opera where the titular phantom has dressed up as death, from Edgar Allen Poe's Masque of the Red Death. As Christine practices singing, Raoul hears the voice of the madman and fears for her. Soon after he proposes to her (this part of the story is quite confusing as she refuses to ever marry on one page yet seems to accept a proposal a page later). Christine tells Raoul of how the phantom had actually captured her and after she unmasks him, demanded she take his hand in marriage. The day Raoul and Christine plan to elope, he finds out from The Persian, another man at the opera that the Phantom has captured Christine. Raoul and the Persian search for and eventually find them, with the Phantom demanding Christine marry him or he will kill all the guests. The Phantom then plans to drown Raoul and the Persian, escaping with Christine, yet she threatens to kill herself unless he save the two of them, which the Phantom does. As the story ends we find that he died soon after. Duran's art as usual is pretty good here (reminding me at times of Esteban Maroto in fact), but the lengthy story is quite confusing to me, especially with character motivations of Christine and the Phantom. Perhaps it would have helped if I was more familiar with the source material.

"Phantom of the Opera"

Next is Lady Satan in "What is Evil and What is Not" by Al Hewetson (story) and Ricardo Villamonte (art). Anne Jackson, the titular Lady Satan rises from her grave. Anne and her friend Berenice investigate the black witch queen whose spirit now inhabits her body, including rumors that she was a vampire and eventually burned at the stake when she cursed her killers. Lady Satan now in control of Anne's body again, she bites the neck of Berenice turning her into a vampire. As the story ends we are told Satan wants a child. I haven't been the biggest fan of this storyline thus far, and Villamonte's art often looks a bit rushed.

Third is "The Fall of the House of Usher", an adaption of the Edgar Allen Poe story by Al Hewetson, with art by Maro Nava. Our protagonist goes to visit his friend Roderick Usher, who lives in a gothic mansion and appears stricken by some wretched illness that makes him look quite decrepit. We also meet Roderick's ill sister Madeline, who looks as sick as he does. Eventually our protagonist is told that Madeline has died and he leaves her in a vault, wanting to wait to entomb her as is the family tradition. Later as a storm rages, we find that Madeline has not in fact died, she walks before them and collapses upon Roderick, killing them both. Our protagonist flees as the entire mansion collapses. This is a decent adaption of the Poe story, although Nava's story can be a bit too cartoonish at times for the characters. We've got at least one panel in this story with a Rafael Auraleon swipe (a commonly appearing artist for Warren).

Auraleon swipe in "The Fall of the House of Usher"

Fourth is "Messers, Crypts and Graves: Undertakers" by Al Hewetson (story) and Ruben Sosa (art, his Skywald debut). A pair of undertakers are partners, Graves and Crypts, with Graves getting angry at Crypts for spending too much money on a new hearse. We see in flashbacks how they swindle their customers, such as taking gold out of their teeth or claiming a cheap pine coffin is instead high priced walnut. Graves plots to poison his partner with a drink, but Crypts hears him saying it and pours out his rat poison, replacing it with something else. When they drink, Crypts fakes a heart attack and falls to the ground, but then gets up, revealing he is alive, causing Graves to collapse from a heart attack. Crypts then walls up Graves behind a brick wall. Graves has not died though and when Crypts reveals he knows all, Graves reveals that the rat poison really was meant for rats, and he used embalming fluid to poison him instead. Sosa's art is okay here, but not as strong as many of the other artists. It is an at least decent story though, and reminds me of the type of story we'd often see in EC comics.

Page length panel in "The Tale of Another"

Fifth is the latest Nosferatu story, "The Tale of Another" by Al Hewetson (story) and Zesar Lopez (art). Another of Nosferatu's dinner guests tells his tale, this time the frog-masked man Charles Freeman. An American, he used to hunt in the swamps of the everglades but as this practice came under fire he resorts instead to be a guide to "sportsmen" who decide to ignore the law and hunt anyway. It is through this he meets a man named Nicholas Dickens whose mauled face he claims came from a Rhino attack years ago in Africa. He claims a trunk is in the swamp with 2 million dollars inside. The two head there on a helicopter and Charles heads down to retrieve it, finding a horrific tentacled monster, an emissary of Satan guarding it. He is able to bring it up but demands an answer from Dickens as to what is in the trunk. Upon opening it he finds his corpse inside! It seems that Dickens was cursed by Satan and needed someone to find the trunk and open it to take his place and free his soul. Freeman removes his mask and reveals that he is now mutilated much like Dickens was and will remain in this state until he finds another to take his place.

Nightmare #14

Xavier Villanova, usually an interior artist for Skywald, provides the cover for this issue, cover dated August 1973. This is a hilarious cover, my favorite out of all of Skywald thus far and is its own mini story!

This issue's frontispiece is "The Easter Island Things!" by Al Hewetson (story) and Maelo Cintron (artist). It features the statues of Easter Island, going on a rampage!

First story is "The Diary of an Absolute Lunatic" by Al Hewetson (story) and Felipe Dela Rosa (art). In the 1920s a madman is brought to a lunatic asylum. The doctor of the asylum starts reading some papers that was along with the man. In them, the madman, whose name is Munro, tells of how he is a time traveler. In the year 1999 the Presidents of Earth gathered to celebrate. One such President however, named Tuckle starts making demands for money and special privileges; if not provided he will blow up the Earth. People ignore his mad ravings and start proceeding to impeach him. Meanwhile Munro starts traveling through time and by doing so sees the Earth explode! He goes back in time, seeing the birth of nature, of humanity, but eventually his craft crashes, leaving him stranded in this time. The doctor decides to burn all the paperwork, considering it the ravings of a madman. When his assistant talks to the doctor about how its funny that the crazy President Tuckle shares the same name as him, he strangles her and blames Munro, as the story ends. A fairly strong effort, my favorite story of the issue. Dela Rosa also provides some pretty strong artwork as we get to the later part of the story and Munro starts traveling through time.

Time traveling in "Diary of an Absolute Madman"

Second is "The Plastic Plague" by Jack Katz (story and art). It had been quite a while since we've seen a Jack Katz story for Skywald, making me wonder if this was an inventory story. A group of prehistoric-like people discover a message, from the past, when Earth's civilization was more advanced. It is from a man named Neal Dennis who created advanced plastic. It becomes extremely popular to use and a massive industry grows. There even become plastic people! But plastic people don't consume, the economy is expected to collapse and Neil is asked to create something that will destroy the plastic. He creates an organism that consumes the plastic. Naturally it escapes, and the organisms quickly grows into large slug-like beings. Society collapses and we see him putting together his message, bringing us back to the people we saw at the start of the story.

Third is "Death of the 80th Victim!" by Doug Moench (story) and Ricardo Villamonte (art). A serial killer is stalking and killing East Indian women, and chopping off their hand. It is investigated by Inspector James Reston and his assistant Rahib. After Rahib's wife is killed he and Reston head out at night where Reston reveals that he is the killer. As a boy when his father was stationed in India, he was kidnapped and tortured, with his hand being cut off. Despising Indians, he purposely made sure to kill them and cut off a hand. After killing Rahib, Reston returns home, revealing a chest full of hands and writes a suicide note, chopping off his other hand and dying.

Fourth is the one page "...Werewolf..." by Ed Fedory (story) and Juez Xirinius (art). This brief feature is about the werewolf of Le Geaudan, which terrorized France.

Fifth is "...And the Corrupt Shall Dine!" by Ed Fedory (story) and Fernando Rubio (art). This is an incredibly confusing mess of a story and it is quite difficult to identify what is going on. Two men dine, one being the guest of the other. Flashbacks show that the host was a vampire, yet the guest either purposely led away a mob someplace else, or to another vampire who looks the exact same and gets killed, with the host leading the attack. The guest, enjoying the meal, ask for the recipe of what they are eating. The host reveals it was blood sucking leeches, then reveals he is a vampire and kills his guest.

"Starchild"

Sixth is "Charles Laughton: Scream Screen Scenes" by Al Hewetson (story) and Domingo Gomez (art). This two page feature is the second part of the Scream Scene series that we just saw premiere in Psycho. It is about Charles Laughton, the silent movie director/actor. We see scenes from movies such as the Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Island of Lost Souls and Les Miserable. Similar to last time the brief scenes included aren't word for word adaptions to avoid copyright issues.

Seventh is "Starchild" by Bruce Jones (story and art). This is an inventory story held onto for a couple of years when Skywald's planned sci-fi magazine never happened. The robot Cyx travels through space with the titular Starchild, a girl who has grown up floating through space and is now 17 years old. Her parents were on board the ship Dori Ann, which was destroyed in a cosmic storm, but Cyx found her, still alive in her mother's womb and has kept her alive all this time. Finding a planet capable of life, she and Cyx go down there where she encounters various forms of wildlife, including a dinosaur! A spaceship eventually arrives and a man comes out. Starchild goes to be with him, leaving Cyx behind and the ship takes off. Jones' art is fairly good here, although a little lower quality than some of the other stories he had provided for Skywald. It was surprising to see a story with a happy ending! Not used to that for Skywald, or Jones personally for that matter.

Eighth is "The Creature from the Black Lagoon" by Al Hewetson (story) and Ricardo Villamonte (art). Although it isn't under the Scream Scene title, this story appears to be another in the series, being only two pages in length and featuring a short scene from said movie.

"The Butchered at Earth's Core"

Ninth is "The Butchered at Earth's Core!" by Ed Fedory (story) and Jesus Suso Rego (art). While "Death of the 80th Victim!" was about Indians in London, this story literally takes place in India. A man comes across a leper who says he will tell him a story. The man follows the leper to his home where he provides him some water. Upon drinking, the man's head starts spinning. The leper takes off its cloak, revealing it to be wearing some weird uniform. The leper carries him down into a tunnel, revealing a spaceship as he appears to be an alien! On board are many other aliens that look like lepers. Our protagonist wakes up, being surprised to find that he is going to be used as part of a factory with many human victims! A pretty good effort from both Suso and Fedory here.

We wrap up with the latest story in the Gargoyles series, "And they Did Battle with the Thing from Underneath" from Al Hewetson (story) and Maelo Cintron (art). Edward gets a job with a Mr. Roanoke who works on a tug boat, the Andy Jackson. He and Mina go through some difficulty and discrimination as they try to find an apartment for themselves. For the fourth time, some Satanists get involved, beating up Roanoke due to his employ of Edward. Suddenly a tentacled monster attacks Edward, who battles and kills it. His fight ends up being front page news in a newspaper! Edward decides that he and his family must leave Manhattan, at least for now and as the story ends they start hitchhiking. While Cintron's art is pretty decent, I'll admit to getting bored with the Gargoyles series at this point. The Gargoyles face discrimination for being gargoyles. Edward battles some monster summoned by or used by the Satanists. Over and over again. Yawn.

Psycho #13

Today I'm covering Psycho issue 13, cover dated July 1973 and painted by Vicente Segrelles. The cover features the story "The 13 Dead Things", yet that story doesn't appear within! It will appear a couple of issues later in Psycho 15. Is it worth the wait? You'll have to wait until then to find out...

This issue's frontispiece is "Prologue to Horror" by Al Hewetson (story) and Domingo Gomez (art).

First up is "The Day That Satan Died" by Al Hewetson (story) and Felipe Dela Rosa (art). On a small plane traveling towards Calcutta, captain Jack Boivon goes back to speak to his passengers, the large Bob, photographer Herbert and a young woman named Patti who is quickly revealed to be a radical communist and hijacks the plane. When Jack's co-pilot refuses to purposely crash the plane like she demands, she shoots him in the head and the plane promptly crashes into a mountain. Amazingly enough, all four survive. Patti reveals that she made a deal with Satan for her youth and beauty to last hundreds of years in exchange for her soul, but she's running low on time until the deal is up and needs someone else to give up their soul to retain it. She figures her fellow passengers have no choice but to agree to it or freeze to death. But this soon blows up in her face as Bob reveals he's the abominable snowman, Herbert reveals he's a vampire, and Jack reveals he's Satan himself! Patti's body immediately rots away, but Bob and Herbert, angry at having to live as monsters promptly stomp and tear Satan to shreds! I love this story, in fact may consider it my favorite Skywald story so far. Its the perfect representation of Skywald's drastically different style from Warren, where Hewetson is willing to go so over the top, enough so that one doesn't mind at all that the ending is spoiled by the title. Dela Rosa's characters often come off as quite ugly looking but that is in service to a story filled with monsters and villains like this one. The character Herbert makes a reference to working for Pilote magazine, a real magazine based out of France which would feature work from Selecciones Illustrada artists like Luis Garcia.

"The Day That Satan Died"

Second is "Monster, Monster, in the Grave!" by Augustine "Funnell (story) and Pablo Marcos (art). This story is a sequel to "Monster Monster on the Wall!" from Nightmare #12. Our protagonist, a bullied boy who is now grown up, and a werewolf, has killed a few bullies that had attacked him. He next returns to one of his childhood homes where a couple of more men wait. He breaks through and slaughters them. Afterwards he flees, running into the woods and finds a pistol, which he loads with a bullet and shoots himself in the head! I did not expect that ending at all! I figure that's got to spell the end to this series, right?

Third is "Let's All Drink to the Death of a Clown" by Doug Moench (story) and Fernando Rubio (art). A man, Mr. Cade, is pursued by a knife wielding... clown! Flashbacks reveal Cade, owner of a circus, pursuing one of his employees, a young woman named Beth, who is engaged to the clown, Bob. Bob punches out Cade when he continues to go after her, but thinks he and Beth have a secure spot in the circus and Cade won't get rid of them. Cade eventually does kill Bob, then fires all the other clowns in the circus as well. As we return to the present, he continues to flee, pursued by the killer clown, and is eventually confronted by many of them and is stabbed to death... or is he? We find as the story ends that it was actually a novelty knife, so I'm assuming he died of fright? Clowns were always scary to me as a kid, so they fit being used in a horror story such as this.

A werewolf... killing himself?

Fourth is The Heap in "When Dies a Lunatic... Dies a Heap" by Al Hewetson (story) and Xavier Villanova (art). The Heap continues to go on a rampage in the subway, as we had seen at the conclusion of the previous story including killing a little girl. The Heap wanders off but is shot with some serum-infused shotgun shells which cause him to weaken and he is captured and transported via airplane. The Heap is able to break free of his bonds and jumps from the plane, landing coincidentally enough in the farm of his parents! They bring him in and the story concludes with The Heap at a dinner table with the two of them. And that, believe it or not, is the conclusion of The Heap series. Quite the odd and unexpected ending, that is for sure. I've read that Al Hewetson hated The Heap and wanted to get rid of him, which I assume led to these final two stories which were drastically different than those stories that had come before. The Heap was a recurring character that started up before Hewetson had even joined Skywald and didn't really fit the style of the magazines by this point, so I can get him ending it, although I wish he had done so in a manner that fit better with the stories that made up most of the series. The Heap ended up being largely a mindless monster towards the end, which simply wasn't interesting on a long term basis.

Fifth is the two page "A Taste of Human Flesh..." by Ed Fedory (story) and Ferran Sostres (art). Three men are lost at sea and start getting extremely hungry. They soon arrive at an island, only to discover it is full of cannibals! Two of the men are promptly cooked, but the last manages to escape, killing a native on his canoe and paddling away. Soon the hunger returns. When the man is eventually found, he has become a cannibal himself!

Sixth is "The Horror Within and Without" by Rich Buckler/Chuck McNaughton (story) and Mike Kaluta (art). This story was originally intended for the sci-fi magazine that Skywald cancelled, explaining why we're seeing a few collaborators we haven't seen in a Skywald magazine in a while. A man named J-1001011 (I'll just call him J the rest of the way) awakens in space, ordered to take part in an upcoming attack. J communicates with his ship's computer, which is ordering him to attack a city on a nearby planet. J also questions if there's any news of his parents but doesn't receive any response. J takes part of the attack and is able to successfully destroy the city as ordered, killing its inhabitants. When J returns he is told that his parents were killed in his attack! As the story ends his memory is wiped and he returns to sleep. A rather depressing tale, and I kinda knew from early on what the big twist would be.

The conclusion to "The Heap"

Seventh is the two page feature "The Raven" by Al Hewetson (story, credited to Jessica Vogel) and Manuel (art). Even Richard Arndt's Horror Comics in Black and White book doesn't fully identify who "Manuel" is and if that's his first name or last name. This brief story features a man who comes across a raven on a tree branch who can speak! The raven asks him to kiss him and that it is a beautiful woman, transformed by a witch. Once he does so, she actually transforms into a beautiful woman, but he reveals he is a vampire and bites her! She has one last twist though, she has rabies, causing him to die from being unable to breathe. Yet another story in this issue that hammers home twist after twist, this was a pretty good, short feature.

Eighth is "The Taste of Carrion" by Ed Fedory (story) and Pablo Marcos (art). At a funeral, a man bemoans the death of his daughter, Greta, and blames some nearby demons for her death, and the death of other children. When another body is found, a mob gathers, convinced that they will find the monster responsible if they check the local mausoleum and castle. Upon going inside the mausoleum they find millions of flies, which are revealed to be the monster. The townsfolk are soon all killed by them. This story didn't make the most sense to me (It is really hard to follow at times) and also drags on a bit too much towards the end.

We wrap up with "Scream Screen Scene: The Mummy" by Al Hewetson (story) and Maelo Cintron (art). This is the start of a recurring feature in Skywald where they show a brief scene from a famous horror movie, but due to copyright don't exactly adapt the scene but rather use a similar one. In this case its the Mummy and features some archaeologists excavating a mummy, which immediately comes alive and attacks them.

Nightmare #13

Today I am covering Nightmare issue 13, cover dated June 1973. The cover is by Vicente Segrelles, and was also used as the cover for Richard Arndt's Horror Comics in Black and White book.

We first have the one page frontispiece "The Corpse Feast!" by Ed Fedory (story) and Juez Xirinius (art). It features a military sergeant who goes into the graveyard to feast on a corpse.

First story is "At Mind's Edge" by Ed Fedory (story) and Jesus Duran (art). A man returns to his apartment to find a hooded figure there. The hooded figure says he is a messenger of peace and upon massaging his forehead our protagonist descends into a dream like world, including one where he is thrown off a cliff, and into a weird portal. The hooded figure reveals himself to actually be the Lord of Insanity and our protagonist is eventually found dead in a sewer drainage pipe. Duran's art looks a bit like Adolfo Abellan's here (and I recall Abellan having a Warren story with a similar looking hooded man). The actual plot is a massively confusing mess.

Next is "Curse of the Werewolf", a one page feature from Ed Fedory (story) and Xavier Villanova (art). Three panels tell about three different werewolf attacks.

Jesus Duran's art here reminds me of Adolfo Abellan

Second story is "...Die Little Spider!" by Al Hewetson (story) and Fernando Rubio (art). A housewife kills some spiders with a knife, and when her husband comes home he reveals he's going to kill her! He bounds and gags her, and puts her in a giant translucent jar, then dumps a number of spiders on her. The spiders consumer her body and he eventually moves the jar to the basement. After fully consuming her, the spiders go hungry and make themselves out of the jar, killing the husband too.After consuming his body they bring his remaining bones to be put in the same jar as his wife.

Next is "The Mad Nightmare World of H.P. Lovecraft", a two page feature from Al Hewetson (story) and Felipe Dela Rosa (art). Actually just one giant panel, this shows Lovecraft sleeping and lots of bizarre visions from his dreams.

Third full length story is "...Only the Wretched Die Young..." by Al Hewetson (story, uncredited) and Ricardo Villamonte (art). Many centuries ago, Charles seeks to take his brother Doug's wife Brenda and kill him and his son, Jamie. When Doug and Jamie go to an island to fish and hunt, a monster attacks and kills Doug, and then enters into Jamie. Jamie eventually returns to get revenge, but oddly enough the story has moved into the present time. Charles tries to throw him off a skyscraper, but the monster's tentacles save him, then presumably kill Charles and Brenda. Villamonte's art is at times good, at times bad, while again the script is considerably confusing.

"Only the Wretched Die Young"

Next up is "The Corpse" by Al Hewetson (story, credited to Howie Anderson) and Francisco Cueto (art). Siegfried is a young man in East Germany and after his lover Anna dies, he works in a graveyard and saves money, seeking to escape, by using cheap material for graves and also killing people to bring in more business. He is eventually found out for his theft of castle material, tries to escape from prison but is killed, then his corpse rises from the dead. He returns to the graveyard where Anna is buried, and the corpses of those he killed also rise. They can't kill him as he's already dead, so they get the corpse of Victor Frankenstein, causing him to become a living corpse! Cueto's art is rather mediocre, but I do like how ridiculous the story gets towards the end.

Following that is "Frankenstein 1973" by Al Hewetson (story, credited as Earle Leroy) and Xavier Villanova (art). This story is a continuation of the long since paused Frankenstein Book II series. Where we last left things off, Frankenstein's Monster and the young woman Lilith got transported far away after an experiment gone bad. They find themselves in the year 1973 and meet a group of rotting corpses that were Nazis when they were alive. The Nazi corpses plan to conquer the world and desire Frankenstein to joint them, but he refuses and destroys all but the leader of them. The leader then gets in a plane and fires at them, killing Lilith before crashing. Frankenstein's head starts spinning and he finds himself transported yet again as the story ends. After this brief return, this series goes on yet another hiatus.

Pretty good splash page for the Gargoyles story

Our issue concludes with the latest story in the Gargoyles series, "Only the Strong Shall Survive" by Al Hewetson (story) and Maelo Cintron (art). The gargoyles, Edward and Mina, with their child Andrew make their way to America as illegal immigrants and get off in Manhattan. At first they steal food to survive, but come across a dwarf who brings them to a place he called The Village where they can stay. Yet when they arrive they find it is the Satanists cult once again, who seize them and Edward fights and kills a giant monster. They are taken and brought before a judge, but rather than deport them, he permits them to stay as long as they prove to be a contribution to society. This series is already starting to get old to me as the Satanists cult shows up as the villains for the third straight story. Hopefully we go in another direction next time.

Psycho #12

Today I'm covering issue 12 of Psycho, featuring a cover by Jeff Jones. This issue is cover dated May 1973.

First is "The Mad Doll Man" by Al Hewetson (story) and Jose Gual (art). Himmer is an old German doll maker, who is visited by men Maas and Spiegel. They had seen some of Himmer's child-like dolls outside and are plotting to escape from East Germany to the west by storing them aboard a train. When they make their way there, Spiegel is revealed a traitor, loyal to the German state. However Himmer's dolls are revealed to actually be child vampires, and they kill him. With the sunlight however, they all perish, and Maas realizes that Himmer is a doll himself, made of wood! A total nonsense out of nowhere ending for this story, but Gual provides some fairly strong artwork, including making the "dolls" scary looking.

Second is "Lunatic Picnic" by Al Hewetson (story) and Zesar Lopez (art). A family goes out for a picnic and the parents decide to go off on their own for a while, leaving the children to play by themselves. While chasing a lost ball, one of the boys falls down into a small chasm. His brothers and sisters come to help him out, but suddenly an earthquake rages. A giant snake comes out of the ground and consumes all the children, to their parent's horror. There's not much plot-wise to this story, but Zesar's art is strong as usual.

"The Mad Doll Man"

Third is "Studies in Horror" by Al Hewetson (story) and Felipe Dela Rosa (art). This two page story features Rodman Sterling, a man who has painting featuring events from many past Skywald stories such as The Slither Slime Man, The Asylum of Frozen Hell, Beware It... Fear It... It Screams! and The Skull Forest of Old Earth. While quite self-referential, I liked it and wouldn't mind if we see a similar feature in the future.

Fourth is "The Weird Way it Was" by Al Hewetson (story) and Pablo Marcos (art). A man has bizarre images of giant ants, but soon realizes he is an ant himself, sent to plot the takeover of humans, by temporarily taking on their form. He returns to being an ant and travels back to his colony, where we find he has been gone 9 years! He tells his fellow ants of how now is a prime time to take over as humanity is constantly fighting with one another. The ants head to the surface, only to find out it is too late, man has wiped himself out. Then suddenly things go completely out of left field as a giant thumb tears half the page off and the ants realize they are only characters in a story. Then on the final two pages we find this was all the dream of a girl named Alice. I appreciate Hewetson's willingness to go totally bonkers with his ending as we just saw in Nightmare #12 with "I Am Dead: I Am Buried" and this story is much in the same vein.

"Lunatic Picnic"

Fifth is "The Swordsman of Sarn" by Gardner Fox (story) and Jack Katz/Vince Colletta (art). This story was originally intended for a sci-fi magazine Skywald was considering putting out and was an inventory held onto for a while when that didn't come to pass. Alas, I never particularly care for these swordsman/barbarian type stories and this story is much of that. It features an astronaut named Steve Grimm who arrives on another planet and is quickly attacked by a large barbarian with a club. From there he meets the beautiful Suanna, they are captured, he releases another alien captured in a crystal and slays his last enemy only for Suanna to disappear. The ending of this story makes it seem like this will be a multi-part story, but I hope this is the last we see of this.

The Heap on the rampage!

Sixth is The Heap in "And the World Shall Shudder" by Al Hewetson (story) and Xavier Villanova (art). Yet again we have changed the artist for The Heap, but Villanova does a fairly strong job here, albeit a style less cartoonish than that we saw for the series previously. It seems like we've somewhat started anew, the Heap is described as changed, the human side of him is considerably subdued while the monstrous side of him is on the rampage. He attacks a cow, then climbs in a train where he kills some people. Upon making it to New York City he is grabbed by a clamp with a police helicopter, only to be dropped through the Empire State Building, all the way down to the subway where he stops a subway car then attacks a child. It is interesting to see the style of the Heap drastically change, but I'm not sure how long this style of storytelling will be effective.

The issue concludes with "Welcome to My Asylum" by Al Hewetson (story) and Xavier Villanova (art). Villanova uses a bit of a different style here, I actually thought that this story was drawn by Fernando Rubio when I first read it. We meet an old man who shows us through his asylum, meeting a witch, a room with a madman laughing, a skeleton chained to a wall, and a basketball game played by corpses! The perspective of the story is such that at the end, you the reader are dragged into the game! Not much of a plot, but this is a fun way to end the issue.

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 1973 Winter Special

Today I cover the Nightmare 1973 Winter Special, which has a cover date of March 1973 and a cover by Ken Kelly.

First is "Die Mummy!" by Al Hewetson (story) and Jesus Duran (art). 74 year old Vanessa is an aged movie actress with no roles for her until her manager finds a man named Scott Henders who is doing cheap horror movies who will take her. Vanessa is cast to be a mummy and as the movie films she is fake stabbed then wrapped up in bandages for real. Vanessa suddenly feels young and strong again and starts going on a rampage, killing many of her costars until they are finally able to take her down. Upon removing the bandages from her face they find just a mummified corpse within! I gotta say, I'm not a fan of mummy stories, but this story was considerably better than I expected going in.

Second is "I Left My Heart in the Burial Pit, I Had No Choice" by Al Hewetson (story) and Jose Gual (art). Mobster Romeo Puccino wants to go straight due to his girlfriend Juliet, but instead his mobster colleagues grab a hold of both of them and stab Romeo. Left alone with him, the distraught Julet then stabs herself. From here the story gets considerably confusing as we see both Romeo and Juliet rise on their own multiple times and cut their own heart out, I'm not sure if they were supposed to be literally alive or this was just supposed to be their ghosts. As the story ends their heartless spirits depart. This story is obviously influenced by William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, with a more modern twist, and Gual's art is good, but the second half of the story is considerably confusing.

Vanessa goes on a rampage in "Die Mummy!"

Third is "Beyond the Walls!" a one page feature from Ed Fedory (story) and Xavier Villanova (art). It tells how in the city of Bruges an ancient stone house was purchased and it had an unnameable stench. Upon breaking down one of the walls, inside was found the skeleton of a winged humanoid creature.

Fourth is "Mephisto's Brand" another one pager from Ed Fedory (story) and Jesus Suso Rego (art). The Mephisto Brand is a mark found on an accused witch to prove she is doing the devil's work. It could appear in various forms, such as a hand, bat or spider.  We then are shown how those without any such mark are declared to have invisible marks, so they can be killed anyway.

Fifth is "The Horror Tub" by Al Hewetson (story) and Fernando Rubio (art). Harlan Huck is an obsessed collector of the macabre and seeks to purchase a painting from a man named Anders. Anders refuses to sell at any price, so Huck resorts to some ruffians who set Anders' home on fire, steal the painting and then kill him before Huck. Huck awakens that night to find his own home in flames and is confronted by the rotted corpse of Anders. The next day people find a hole where the home used to be. We are shown that in another place Huck and Anders battle each other in a room showing Huck's collection.

Sixth is "The Event in the Night?" by Al Hewetson (story) and Pablo Marcos (art). A man named Henry White is in a car accident on a curving cliff road. A man comes out to attend to him and brings him to his nearby home to stay with him, meeting there his beautiful and far younger wife Mary. When Henry later arrives at the convention he was going to, he is told he was gone an entire year! Believing it to be connected to the house he stayed at, he goes there, finding only ashes in its place. He then starts remembering what happened, in particular Mary attacking him, being brought before Satanists in the basement where Mary is about to sacrifice him, then being able to shove her into a fire and escape. Henry suddenly wakes up, and it being revealed to all be a dream. He then again gets in the car accident and things start anew. I never care for the "it was all a dream" ending, which seems to me to just be the writer running out of ideas. Marcos' art in this story reminds me a lot of that of Jose Gonzalez.

"Beware It... Fear It... It Screams!"

Seventh is "Beware It... Fear It... It Screams!" by Al Hewetson (story) and Antonio Borrell (art). Anton Werner is a European immigrant living in a town named Amsterdam ranch. He keeps a mysterious pit on his property and angers the locals when Annabel Lee, the most beautiful woman there falls in love with and marries him. Annabel finds Anton to not be a good husband, he has tremendous self pity and starts accusing her of having relationships with the ranch hands. When she falls off her horse and is saved from a snake by one of the ranch hands, Anton thinks she is having an affair, shoots the man in the face and then ties her up and throws her in the pit. He pours honey over her and the horrific creatures in the pit consume her. Annabel still loves Anton however and rises from the pit to return to him, only a skeleton. The next day the ranch hands find the shredded corpse of Anton handing from the rafters with Annabel nowhere to be seen and the pit is filled in. Some pretty good art here from Borrell and a great story title. The panel when Annabel returns to Anton, now just a skeleton is quite effective. At the same time, Anton is an incredibly unlikable protagonist and it is quite absurd that he killed his wife over his own delusions.

Eight is "The Night of the Mutant-Eaters" by Al Hewetson (story) and Dennis Fujitake (art). A group of astronauts land on a planet in order to repair their ship. While the planet is occupied by humans, they are savages and the planet is incredibly overpopulated. One of the astronauts, Lt. Niw becomes enraptured with a young woman named Ula and the two make love to each other. When the ship is repaired and takes off, he takes Ula with him, who is pregnant. He reveals this to the others which makes them incredibly upset. When Ula gives birth, it is to 43 babies and kills her. The crew desire to kill the children in order to survive, but the children rapidly grow, suck up all the oxygen and then eat the crew, eventually dying themselves of starvation. It was good to see another story from Fujitake, who I presume is yet another artist pushed out by the Selecionnes Illustrada artists.

Perry just can't win. From "Whether Man or Scarecrow"

Ninth is another one page feature, "The Last Witch!" by Ed Fedory (story) and Antonio Borrell (art). This brief story tells of how in the Mexican town of Qjinaga, a woman is accused as a witch and is burned at the stake.

Tenth is "Whether Man or Scarecrow" by Al Hewetson (story) and Felipa Dela Rosa (art). The protagonist of this story is a scarecrow named Perry. One day an old man appears before him, saying he is his fairy godmother and can grant him 3 wishes. His first wish enables Perry to speak. He tells him he can have two wishes, but should make them soon as he is an old man and can die at any minute. Perry uses his second wish to become human. Unfortunately things soon go south for him. He stumbles into an apple cart, meets up with Judy, the daughter of the local farmer who he is in love with, but when her father sees them together he shoots him and accidentally kills Judy as well. Perry is then stomped on by a cow, hit by a car and repeatedly shot while riding a tractor and trying to escape. Perry tries to make his last wish, that this all never happened, but it is too late, the old man already died. As does Perry, whose tractor crashes and he is impaled on some wooden fencing. This story is hilariously over the top with how unlucky Perry gets once becoming human, and is quite entertaining as a result.

Psycho #10

Pablo Marcos and Fernando Fernandez provide the cover for this issue of Psycho, cover dated January 1973. A rather odd approach, with one cover (Fernandez's) within another cover (Marcos's). Warren would do something similar with the cover for Vampirella #9 (although the outer cover was just pen and ink rather than a painting).

Pablo Marcos provides artwork on the two page table of contents.

First story is "The Suicide Werewolf" by Al Hewetson (story) and Pablo Marcos (art). A bearded man in a room is repeatedly told to confess, but refuses. He falls into a pit where a snake attacks him, then is put on a stretch rack, repeatedly told to confess to being a werewolf. He is able to get off the stretch rack only to find a mannequin/skeleton was the one holding him. He escapes to the streets of New York and upon questioning a girl realizes she is not real either. Nonetheless, he is quickly chased by the authorities to the subway where he runs into a subway car and is killed. As the story ends we find out that he was a experimental robot. A mate was created for him, but when she was dismantled he run amok! Only a so-so kick off to the issue for me, with a rather confusing plot although it did at least have an interesting resolution at the end.

Second is "The Legend of the Man-Macabre" by Al Hewetson (story) and Xavier Villanova (art). In New York's Old Greenwich Village, a man named Morris Manning is a fan of Edgar Allen Poe and has created a torture chamber in his basement based on the pendulum from Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum". He stalks the streets trying to find someone to put in it, but is unsuccessful. He later heads to a party where he meets a woman named Melinda who he convinces to come with him to see a "monument" he has built. Upon bringing her to his home Melinda realizes what he's about to do to her and fakes passing out. She then is able to knock him out and put him in the pendulum. She decides to let him out just in time, revealing she has the same types of interests as him. In the final panel we see editor/writer Hewetson discovering the chamber. This one was a rather unique love story and it was good to see the Poe influence.

Peter Piper meets a mysterious creature

Third is "...Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Corpses..." by Al Hewetson (story) and Maelo Cintron (art). Peter Piper is a mortician in a small town. One night while feeding some of his pets he discovers a tiny humanoid creature that comes out of his floorboards and tries to communicate him in another language. the creature eventually is able to show Peter that he wants him to embalm his dead companion. Peter does so and we see a light shoot off into the stars, presumably the creature leaving the Earth. Peter dies that same night. Skywald has a tendency to occasionally get really over the top with its titles and this is an example of one. The story itself is pretty heartwarming.

The Heap battles dinosaur skeletons!

Fourth is The Heap in "Even A Heap Can Die!" by Al Hewetson (story) and Pablo Marcos (art). After a brief absence the Heap returns to Psycho. The story begins with the Heap taking on the skeleton of a pterodactyl! In fact the first five or so pages are the Heap taking on a variety of living dinosaur skeletons, a pretty cool sight to see. The day comes and the Heap returns into his human form, Jim Roberts. He encounters an old man named Johann who claims he created the dinosaur skeletons; they are creations from when he made them as part of his work in movies. Johann knocks Jim out and later they get into a confrontation in a cave and Johann shoots him in the chest! Jim doesn't die though and when he becomes the Heap again that night, attacks Johann, injuring him by breaking his arm. Johann realizes only Jim can get him to medical attention and is able to remove the bullet from him, but ends up dying in the attempt. As the story ends Jim finds himself alive, but stranded in the middle of nowhere. A pretty strong return for the Heap, and I liked both halves of the story, the first with the dinosaur battling and the second, more character themed portion

Fifth is "The Transplant!!" by Ed Fedory (story) and Fernando Rubio (art). Rubio makes his Skywald debut with this story; he had also done a few stories for Warren. The bitter, old Gloria Melbourne, former silent film movie star seeks above all else to be young and beautiful again. She seeks out a Doctor Benson who tells her he can perform a transplant on her once they find a donor. Eventually a beautiful young woman who had commit suicide is found and Benson is able to move Gloria's brain from her old body to her new one. Gloria questions why such a lovely girl killed herself, but accepts her new body and leaves. When she doesn't show up for her check in, Benson seeks her out; Gloria has refused to leave her home and has identified why the girl killed herself, she had leprosy! A strong performance here from both Fedory and Rubio.

Rubio's Skywald debut with "The Transplant!"

Sixth is "Tightrope to Nowhere" by Al Hewetson (story) and Juez Xirinius (art). Lawrence is an old man who has worked at a movie theater as a projectionist for decades, yet the owner has passed away and his son decides to have it destroyed and turned into a parking lot. Lawrence refuses to leave then kills the son with an ax. The next morning when the construction workers arrive he tosses the son's body in front of them then tries to flee, being shot and killed by the police. That isn't enough to stop Lawrence however, he rises from his grave and returns to the theater, now condemned, and watches old monster movies, finishing with a Dracula movie. As the light slays Dracula, it does the same to Lawrence and the story ends. This story is a bit over the top and I'm not the biggest fan of Xirinius's artwork, but I did like the fact that it progressively got more and more ridiculous as the story approached its end.

Seventh is "Re-Write: Frankenstein" by Al Hewetson (story) and Maelo Cintron (art). This is a two page comedic story and not related to the previous Frankenstein serial. Frankenstein's monster walks down the city street asking himself why the villagers always hound him, just because he's different. As we turn the page we find out that he lives in a town filled with babies! A fun way to wrap up the issue.