Creepy 124

An average to above average issue of Creepy. It features a pretty good cover by Jordi Penalva. Rudy Nebres takes care of another average at best one page feature of Uncle Creepy.

First up is "Malphisto's Illusion" by Alexis Romeo & Alex Toth (art) and Nicola cuti (story). During this period of time Toth did inking for a number of different artists, creating a rather interesting dynamic. This story features a man trying to discover how a magician, Malphisto, is able to decapitate women and bring them back to life in his act. As it turns out, he's actually decapitating a twin for real and showing her sister to the crowd!

The story's best issue is "Cult" by Martin Salvador (art) and Archie Goodwin (story). The story features four men going after a cult leader who has lured many young people into his cult, including the daughter of one of the men. They reach the cult's compound which results in a blood bath in which many of the cult members and two of the men were killed. It ends up that one of the men actually is the cult leader himself, and seeked this event in order to make his members martyrs. Having impregnated the man's daughter, he tries to get the last remaining man to kill her, but he instead kills the cult leader and lets her live.

"Paydirt" by Carmine Infantino & Alfredo Alcala (art) and Roger McKenzie (story) is about a gold prospector who kills his partner in a cave once they find gold. He returns years later to claim the gold only for his partner to be back from the dead, seeking revenge.

Fourth is "Mayhem Museum" by Adolpho Bullya (art) and carl Wessler (story). This was Bullya's sole Warren story. Its about a man who flees his country with a lot of stolen gold and finds a man who plans to hide him and his lover in a museum by freezing him. Only the museum owner has different plans and immediately thaws the woman and plans to take the gold himself. He is eventually found out by a visitor to the museum however, who unfreezes a lot of frozen criminals, who seek revenge.

"The Prometheus" by John Garcia & Rudy Nebres (art) and Rich Margopoulos (story) is fifth. A rather poor story about a spherical craft that heads to Earth, is almost destroyed, but ends up getting there to deliver various wildlife. Yawn.

Last is "A Slight Case of Madness" by Herb Arnold (art) and Bill Dubay (story, as Will Richardson), about an alien who is going crazy because he's the last one left on his world. As he's about to kill himself, other aliens arrive and save him just in time, and plan to take him away with them to visit other worlds.

Goodwin's, Wessler's and Cuti's stories are fairly good while Dubay and McKenzie's are so so. Margopoulos, who was never that great an author in my opinion was quite boring.

Vampirella 96

A fairly good cover for this issue by Enrich.

Up first is "The Hound of Hell" by Rudy Nebres (art) and Rich Margopoulos (story). Continuing on with the recent Vampi events, Pendragon seeks revenge on one of the leaders of the Apocalypse Inc. group by sending a hound from hell after him. Our heroes eventually find Pendragon and defeat the hell hound while the Apocalypse Inc guy faces his own troubles. This story actually isn't as bad as usual and thankfully marks the end of Nebres's tenure doing Vampirella. Nebres is not a bad artist, but he just never fit doing Vampi in my mind and couldn't compare with two much better artists in Jose Gonzalzes and Gonzalo Mayo who had done the majority of the stories before him.

"A Matter of Karma" is this issue's segment in the Cassandra St. Knight storyline. As usual, art is by Auraleon and story is by Rich Margopolous. This story shows the past of some of our characters and their role in Atlantis. An okay story, which compared to the stuff around it makes it the best of the issue.

"Night of the Cat Goddess" is next, another segment in the 'Pantha' serial. Art is by Jose Ortiz and story is by Rich Margopoulos. A woman seeking the riches of a tomb in Egypt captures Adam and tries to take the treasures. This being related to Pantha's ancestors, she heads there to stop her and of course rescue Adam. Conrad meanwhile confronts the enemy from the prior issue and is helped by a new character.

Last is "Armistice" by Masanabu Sato (art) and Jim Stenstrum (story), about a war between two races that have fought so long that no one remembers what the other looks like. One of them, a woman, crashes on a planet where she meets her enemy, a man, and they have sex. Not that great a way to end the issue.

Eerie 6

This issue of Eerie features a cover by Gray Morrow. Up first is the cover story, "Cave of the Druids", with story by Archie Goodwin and art by Reed Crandall. A gladiator comes across dead soldiers in the woods with their hearts cut out. He discovers that they were removed by a group of druids seeking to resurrect their dead king. By burning the staff possessed by a druid sorcerress, the gladiator is able to save himself and leave.

Next is "Deep Ruby" by Steve Ditko (art) and Archie Goodwin (story). The story features a bum with a ruby who traps a businessman inside the ruby. The businessman makes a deal to escape, but now must take the bum's place.

Third is "Running Scared" by Mark Ricton (art) and Archie Goodwin (story). The story features a man on the run from a pair of odd men. Eventually it is revealed that he is dead and they are the undertakers.

"The Curse of Kali" follows, with art by Angelo Torres (art) and Archie Goodwin (story). The story, taking place in the middle east features a man who stops a woman from being sacrificed to the god Kali, so he is cursed, which ends up turning him into a vampire.

"Trial By Fire!" is next, with art & story by Johnny Craig (credited as Jay Taycee). A politician's wife is practicing withcraft and causes multiple enemies of his to fall over dead. Eventually the town ties him up and burns him and he falls on top of her, burning them both.

Next is "Point of View" by Rocco Mastroserio (art) and Archie Goodwin (story). It features an insance asylum where one of the patients thinks he's Dr. Frankenstein. After the inmates take over the asylum, he transfers the director's brain into one of the other inmates.

Last is "The Changeling!" by Eugene Colan (art) and Archie Goodwin (story). The story features a woman who comes to a mansion to be governess, taking care of a young boy whose father is always busy with research. It ends up that the boy is a Changeling, a demon who replaced the true son and the father spends all his time researching a way to destroy him. A monster, the boy's mother appears, and kills the father, and the house burns to the ground.

Creepy 37

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vampirella 70

A fairly good issue of Vampirella, starting with a rare cover from Ken Kelly.

Up first is Vampi's story, "Ghostly Granny Gearloose" by Gonzalo Mayo (art) and Bill Dubay (story). This story, continued from the previous issue, features Vampirella captured by the Granny of the title. Pendragon, along with the Rook and his grandfather (who at the time were prominent characters in Eerie who I have yet to cover on this blog) come to the rescue.

Second is "Mask of Ugin", with art by Jose Ortiz and story by Nicola Cuti & Gerry Boudreau. The story features a murderous mask that kills a young woman. The store's owner discovers her mother in law is responsible for the murders and kills her, but her dead husband, having used the mask, arrives and kills her so they can be together in death.

Third is "Swamp Lovers" by Leo Duranona (art) and Bill Dubay (story). This interesting story features a tentacled monster that lives in the swamp that is able to convince an old man that it is a beautiful woman by changing its appearance. The monster is eventually killed by hunters however, leaving the old man all alone.

Fourth is "Reality Twice Removed" by Ramon Torrents (art) and Gerry Boudreau (story). A rather convoluted story with tons of dialogue, featuring a husband and wife arguing over vacation plans while political revolution and nuclear blasts occur on the news.

Last is "The Terrible Exorcism of Adriennes Pompereau!" by Auraleon (art) and Luis Vigi & Bill Dubay (story). This story, originally intended for the never published Warren magazine "Yesterday, Today... Tomorrow", is similar to the movie the Exorcism, where a young girl is taken over by a demon. The demon is expunged and revealed to actually be an alien, while the priests involved are also revealed as aliens, helping mankind.

Eerie 53

A very good all series issue of Eerie. The cover features the Mummy, by Sanjulian. The frontis for this issue is a two page feature, "Wart Monster of Tennessee" by Bill Dubay & Rich Buckler (art) and Doug Moench (story).

Up first is this issue's segment of The Mummy Walks, "Enter Mr. Hyde" by Jaime Brocal (art) and Steve Skeates (story). Jerome Curry, in the body of the mummy continues to pursue the woman who holds the amulet that can return him to his human form. During this story he encounters Mr. Hyde, a beast like man who has transformed from a normal human. The mummy defeats him and continues on his way.

Next is "To Save a Witch's Soul", part of the Curse of the Werewolf series, with art by Martin Salvador (art) and Al Milgrom (story). With his memories restored, Arthur Lemming realizes that he was at fault for his wife going astray and decides to save her from being burned at the stake. Although he's initially locked up, he breaks out and rescues her from execution, and the executioner, the supernatural expert from 2 segments earlier. He brings her to the woods, only to turn into the werewolf once more and kill her! This, Milgrom's last contribution to the series would have been a good ending, but alas the series would continue in a new direction for a while after this.

The second part of "Hunter" is third, by Paul Neary (art) and Rich Margopoulos (story). This story tells the origin of Hunter. In the year 2001 (ha! years back for us now, but over 25 years in the future at the time this issue was published) nuclear war resulted in mutating much of humanity into demons. One such demon, General Ophal raped a human woman, producing the offspring Demien, aka our hero Hunter. After her death from Pox he joins a group of human soldiers and is trained on fighting demons.

A new series starts up next, Schreck. The first segment is titled "First Night of Terror!" by Vicente Alcazar & Neal Adams (art) and Doug Moench (story). Schreck is influenced heavily on the Omega Man (recently redone as I Am Legend). In the future, nuclear testing by the Chinese on the moon has caused a chain reaction that causes most humans on Earth to become white-eyes zombies. This story surrounds the title character, Derek Schreck, who flashes back to how everything came to be while fighting off the zombies. By the end of the story his wife Paula has cut off his hand with a cleaver and become a zombie along with his friend Lee. A pretty good start, although this was the only story in the series that Adams contributed to.

Last is "Spawn of the Dead Thing". This story carries the series title "Fathom Haunt" although this ends up being a stand alone story. A rather surreal and incomprehensible story about the title character, who fights the 'Dread Thing' and its Spawn. Terrific art by Sutton in one of his last Eerie appearances.

Creepy 135

Another rather dull later issue of Creepy. The cover is by Richard Courtney.

First is "The Wedding Gift!" by Fred Carillo (art) and Budd Lewis (story), about a pair of newly weds who head to a large house only for the husband to leave due to an old woman requesting help. The wife finds ghosts there and she dies, being a sacrifice for the husband, which enables the old woman, his mother, to live longer.

"...For We Have Sinned" with art by Martin Salvador and story by Bill Dubay is second, featuring a christmas story about a policeman and a crazy murderer. This is a sequel to the story "Bless Us, Father..." from Creepy 59.

"Angel Hair Wine" by Jun Lofamia (art) and Gerry Boudreau (story) follows, about a man who finds a bar where the magical wine of the title is served. He is offered a case of the wine for his hand and initially refuses, but then goes along with it.

The cover story is "Strange in a Strange Land!" by Peter Hsu (art) and Rich Margopoulos (story). It features a giant robot that comes to Earth and wreaks havoc.

"Morbid Love Story" is next, by Auraleon (art) and Michael Fleisher (story). The story is about a woman having an affair and the lover murders her husband, but she breaks things off which causes him to kill himself. Aside from the weak ending, an okay story, the best of the issue.

Last is "Yonder Star" by Steve Gan (art) and Budd Lewis (story), which tells of the three wisemen who witnessed Jesus's birth and how a downed jet was really what led them there, not a star.

Can you tell by my very long summaries just how boring this issue was? Avoid at all costs unless you're a Warren completist.