Creepy 44

Vicente Segrelles provides the cover for this issue of Creepy, from March 1972, one of only two Warren covers.

First story is "With Silver Bells, Cockle Shells And..." by Irv Docktor (art) and F. Paul Wilson (story). A former convict encounters a scientist at a bar that he thinks has money, but he only has seeds. The convict kills the man, then buries his seeds in the ground. He finds out the seeds will make him rich, but they also reveal him as the killer when they look like the very man he killed. Some very interesting art from Docktor in his sole Warren appearance.

Second is the cover story, "Something to Remember Me By!" by Tom Sutton (story & art). A man's wife and her lover get him to die by scaring him to death with a fake grave. They bury him without a locket of his, and believing in a curse that he'll come back to take it, they dig up his grave to put in in his coffin, but his grave ends up falling on them, crushing them.

Third is "A Certain Innocence" by Nebot (art) and Steve Skeates (story). Normally a very dependable writer, Skeates turns out quite an odd one here, this story I'd expect more from a T. Casey Brennan or Don McGregor than him. Its about some hippie girls who enjoy some records, but find some weird words on them, which when they speak turn men into giant monsters.

Fourth is "The Last Days of Hans Bruder" by Frank Bolle (art) and T. Casey Brennan (story). This story features a nazi concentration camp doctor's sad history as he tries to end people's misery as soon as possible, including killing his former lover knowing what the other nazis are going to do to her. In the present time he takes an experimental drug rather than testing it on other people, and it kills him.

Fifth is "Like A Phone Booth, Long and Narrow" by Jose Bea (art) and Jan Strnad (story). This was Strnad's Warren debut. A man's phone obsessed wife convinces him to bury her with a phone in the event she dies, as her family has a history of being buried alive due to an illness. It happens to her, but when she calls him, he's too drunk to pick up the phone.

Sixth is "The Ultimate High!" by Martin Salvador (art) and Steve Skeates (story). This was Salvador's Warren debut. A man is about to settle down with his girlfriend, but before decides to go on one last big adventure to experience the ultimate high from a drug used by Tibetan monks. He uses the drug but the high is so intense that his entire life passes him by and he's an old man by the time he feels normal again.

Seventh is "Dorian Gray: 2001" by William Barry (art) and Al Hewetson (story). In this story Gray retains his looks not because of a deal with the devil, but because he's a vampire! Eventually he's found out however, and ends up falling into a vat of chemicals, which completely destroys his body. Another Dorian Gray themed story appeared in Vampirella around the same time as this story.

Last is "Sleep" by Mike Ploog (art) and Kevin Pagan (story). A pair of thieves are able to steal from people by cutting the hands off a corpse and lighting a finger on fire when they enter someone's house, which causes everyone to fall asleep. Eventually one of the thieves kills the other and heads into his final house, but lighting the fingers don't work as the house is filled with vampires!

This issue would mark the last Creepy appearance by Ploog and the last Warren appearances overall by Bolle and Barry, as the spanish artists quickly became the dominant artists of Warren.

Vampirella 7

A classic Frank Frazetta cover starts off this issue of Vampirella.

The first three stories of this issue are a Witch trilogy, all written by Nicola Cuti. Vampi has a one page intro and one page conclusion surrounding the stories. Despite being called a trilogy, all three stories are self contained.

First is "The White Witch!", with art by Tom Sutton. The White Witch is a singer who cannot go into the sunlight as it will harm her. Her elderly brother asks a painter to paint a portrait of her, and he stays at their house. He soon finds out the truth, that she isn't human, but rather was found in a haunted tower by the brother in a cocoon. The next day the painter opens the curtains, thinking its midnight, but it is actually noon and she dies due to the sunlight.

Second is "The Mind Witch" with art by Ernie Colon. The Mind Witch is a woman who steals the soul from men, leaving them mindless husks. A pair of men plan to investigate it. One of them arrives at her home finding she already knows their plan, as the other one has become her latest victim. She reveals that she is an alien and has the power to do what she does because of that. Yet the man is actually from outer space as well and has come to punish her for her actions.

The third and final witch story is "The Black Witch" with art by Billy Graham. The Black Witch kills the man she loves who is going to marry another woman, then goes to the woman and turns her into a praying mantis. The man ends up surviving the attack and comes after her, killing many witches over the years. When she finally comes for him, she turns into a spider in order to avoid him shooting at her, but the praying mantis arrives and eats her.

Fourth is "Plague of the Wolf" by Frank Bolle (art) and Doug Moench (story). A werewolf is plauging the city. A man warns his girlfriend to stay away from him, because he has a pentagram on his arm, showing that he'll be the next victim and he doesn't want her there when the werewolf arrives. But she arrives anyway, as she is the werewolf!

Fifth is "Terror Test!" by Tony Williamsune (art) and R. Michael Rosen (story). This story features astronauts arriving on a strange planet where they kill a strange creature. One of the astronauts becomes a vampire and is killed by another one, but he finds the other astronaut to be a monster as well. The man awakens, it all was a dream, but that doesn't stop him from going crazy and killing those that put him under the test with an axe.

Sixth is "The Survivor" by Ernie Colon (art) and Buddy Saunders (story). This story is about an entity that has occupied a planet for many years by occupying the bodies of the people there. When a group of astronauts arrive, the entity plans to take one of them over. He waits until one of the men is alone then hits him in the back to knock him out. He kills his current body in order to take over the new one, but the man is paralyzed from the blow!

Last is "The Collection Creation" by Jerry Grandenetti (art, miscredited to Tony Williamsune) and R. Michael Rosen (story). A woman with eternal life who needs to steal the youth from others finds a painter whom she hopes to make her next victim. She shows him her great painting collection of old men. It ends up that they were her victims, and she takes his youth, making him the model for the next painting.

Eerie 16

An issue of Eerie from Warren's dark age. The cover is by Barry Rockwell. The frontis, "Eerie's Monster Gallery", about the Number 13, was originally intended for an earlier issue based on the letter pages. It is by an uncredited Tony Williamsune and Bill Parente.

We start off with "Dracula's Guest" by Frank Bolle (art) and E. Nelson Bridwell (story). This story is originally from a Christopher Lee book of comic stories. It is an adaption of the events that occur in the novel Dracula prior to the start of the well known story in Transalvania.

"Big Time Operator" by Ric Estrada (art) and E. Nelson Bridwell (story) is a story featuring a mad scientist who uses victims of a plane crash to turn into various mythological creatures like the Medusa, Minotaur and others. He uses the creatures to form his own freak show, but they eventually turn on him and turn him into a freak like them.

Third is "Sara's Forest" by Tony Williamsune (art) and Roger Brand (story). It features a girl who lives in the forest on her own. A pair of nomads come and meet her. The man falls in love with Sara and murders his wife. He grows bored of Sara quickly however and tries to leave for the city. She kills him and buries him with an acorn so he'll turn into a tree, apparently what happened to prior visitors of the forest.

"Evil Spirits" is fourth, by Johnny Craig (art) and Archie Goodwin (story). This story was done back during Warren's golden age, but for some reason was never published until now. The story features a woman who is in a haunted castle and is confronted by bad dreams and perhaps even ghosts. Her husband is cheating on her and the lover shows up, and they both kill each other. The husband, now with yet another lover, comes to the castle, where their ghosts remain waiting for revenge.

Next is "The Monument" by Alex Toth (art) and Goodwin (story), originally from Eerie 3. This story, which appears to be an unauthorized adaption of Ray Bradbury's "The Coffin" is about a design firm owner who convinces an aged architect build a house for him, by telling him that it will be his house. He kills him when it nears completion. Upon laying in his bed for the first time, he is killed by machinery in the house, which the architect had intended to be his tomb upon completion.

Last is "Ahead of the Game!" from Eerie 2. The art is by Joe Orlando and Jerry Grandenetti (credited only to Orlando) and the story is by Archie Goodwin. It features a hunter who kills a white gorilla whose headless ghost continues to haunt him afterwards. Eventually he shows up for real and the hunter's head is cut off and put on a plaque!

Eerie 32

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

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

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

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

Fourth is "Bookworm" with art by Richard Corben and story by Gerald Conway. A man goes to work as an apprentice to an elderly man with a large book collection. The elderly man tells him how he's studying the black arts. One night our hero discovers the old man dragging a corpse with him and follows him. The elderly man is in a crazed state and attacks him, but is killed by the apprentice. Suddenly a giant worm appears, who the elderly man had been finding food for, and forces the apprentice to start supplying him with food from now on.

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

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

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

Eerie 31

This issue of Eerie features Richard Corben's first cover for Warren, featuring a trio of monsters over a dead body.

Up first is "Point of View" by Tom Sutton (art) and Buddy Saunders (story). It takes place from two points of view, monsters inhabiting Earth, and the last few humans left. Both view each other as aliens and fight until only one remains.

Next is "The Drop" by Tony Williamsune (art) and Chris Fellner (story). A basketball player quits drugs but gets one more hit from his dealer. He and is girlfriend take it while in a haunted house. The guy grows to a large size while she shrinks, and he ends up stepping on her!

"The Devil's Hand!" by Bill Dubay (story & art) is third. It features a society that cut off the hand of Satan and keeps it in a cage. It passes down over the years to an old man who wants to bargain with it to gain wealth power and eternal life. He brings in another man to help who is greedy and kills the old man. However Satan's hand kills him when he opens the cage it is in and escapes.

Fourth is "The Alien Plague!" by Billy Graham (art & story). This story, featuring a pair of teams investigating an aliens has as a mysterious monster... staples! Pretty good art and not bad a story.

The Oasis is Fifth, by Carlos Garzon (art) and Buddy Saunders (story) about a battle between men and spiders over an oasis in the desert, which ends up having a monster that destroys the victors.

"The Lady in the Ice" is sixth, by Frank Bolle (art) and Nicola Cuti (story). This is the second and last October Weir story, featuring the psychic detective visiting an old friend whose wife dissappeared. She was actually murdered by the friend and his lover and comes back from the dead to take revenge.

Another Carlos Garzon drawn story ends the issue, "The Killer Slime", writen by Steve Skeates. Garzon's artwork channels Angelo Torres's throughout the story. The story features a slime that can actually think and communicate which plots to take over the world.

Eerie 30

A funny cover for this issue, by Basil Gogos, featuring a stalking mummy being pulled apart by a boy behind him! This issue's frontis is "Eerie's Monster Gallery: BEM!" by Dan Adkins. The art for this story is an obvious swipe from Adkin's mentor, Wally Wood, from the cover of the EC comic Weird Fantasy #27.

First up is "The Entail" by Pat Boyette (story & art). A young man is invited to a town run by a Baron, who offers him eternal life if he becomes a king, working under his influence. The young man refuses since the drink the Baron gave him already gave him eternal life and he has no reason to be loyal to him. The Baron has his minions eat him, and he is turned into a scarecrow! Pat Boyette was a consistently good artist and writer, and this story is no exception to that trend.

Next is "Mirror, Mirror" by Frank Bolle (art) and Nicola Cuti (story). This story stars 'October Weir', a recurring character that appeared in this issue and the next one. It features him solving a case regarding a man who was killed by a demon. His travels bring him and his wife into a mirror to a seperate world where things are backwards. An okay story, but not great.

Third is "Life Species" by Bill Dubay (story & art). This is a very short story about astronauts arriving at a destroyed planet and piecing together a habitant of the planet. It ends up the planet is Earth, but the interesting twist is that put together a car and think it was the dominant species of the planet! Very short, but good story by Dubay.

Next is "I, Werewolf" by Ken Barr (story & art). The story features a man picked up by gypsies who was turned into a werewolf by a vampire. He battles the vampire while he's a werewolf and manages to defeat him. A segment of this story seems highly influenced by Frank Frazetta's cover to issue 7 of Creepy.

"In Close Pursuit" by Jerry Grandenetti (art) and Gordon Matthews (story) is about a man who made a lot of money using cheap material to build a skyscraper and got it blamed on his partner, resulting in him getting off scott free. However he ends up being pursued by someone after getting off a bus and falls to his death while running from him. Only it ends up that the man meant no harm in the first place.

The cover story is "The Return of Amen-Tut!" by Jack Sparling (art) and Don Glut (story). A mummy is excavated and brought into a museum. He comes back to life and seeks to commit murder, but the boy of one of his prospective victims pulls the wrappings off of him, reducing him to dust! Hilarious ending to this story.

Last is "The Creation" by Carlos Garzon (art) and Doug Moench (story). Yet another one of Warren's countless Frankenstein-influenced stories, this one isn't any more original then the others. A doctor seeks to create life, has a hunchbacked minion kill a former assistant, only for the assistant's brain to end up in his creation and kill him. Nothing special here, although the art is nice.

Vampirella 6

Another early issue of Vampirella, with no actual Vampirella story. The cover is by Ken Kelly, his first for Warren, featuring a young woman walking down a dark alley were a ugly creature lurks with a club. The frontis for this issue is "Vampi's Feary Tales: The Centaur" by Dan Adkins.

Up first is "The Curse of Circe" by Jerry Grandenetti (art) and Gardner Fox (story). A man is lost at sea and ends up landing on an island, populated by beautiful women, the most beautiful of which is named Circe. After a night of passion, he wakes up, to find that he's been turned into a pig! With the help of another woman he is able to return to his human form and the two escape, only to end up dying while at sea.

Up next is "The Brothers Death" by Jack Sparling (art) and Nicola Cuti (story). A girl obsessed with death is transported to a medieval type world where the Brothers Death battle the evil Gurn. The girl is captured by Gurn, then rescued by the brothers. A rare Warren tale with a happy ending, this is not all that good of a story, probably the worst of the issue.

"Darkworth" by Mike Royer (art) and Nicola Cuti (story) features a stripper who becomes the assistant to a Magician, Darkworth. Darkworth becomes famous through his magic, but seeking more, plans to escape from being buried alive. Upon finding out that she's cheating on him, Darkworth's assistant Togo clubs the stripper to death and while he's digging from underground, Darkworth finds her corpse. This story seems like it just ends right in the middle, without much of an ending.

"A New Girl in Town" by Dan Adkins (art) and Gardner Fox (story) is about a girl who goes to visit her parents in a weird town. The address her parents gave her ends up being a graveyard, as she's dead and doesn't know about it. A very short story, at just 4 pages in length.

"Victim of the Vampire" by Frank Bolle (art) and Vern Bennett (story) is next. A rich man's wife is being pursued by a vampire. With the help of a priest they're able to rescue her by hiding in a coffin. An okay story, but not that great.

Sixth is "One Way Trip!" by Tony Williamsune (art) and Larry Herndon (story). A man overdosing on drugs encounters a horrific monster in his dreams. After getting treatment he thinks he's okay, only to find out that the monster is real.

Last is "The Wolf-Man", once again by Frank Bolle (art) and Buddy Saunders (story). A woman plots with her lover to kill her husband, Roger. Finding him with another woman in the woods, they follow, and end up killing a wolf whom his lover claims is Roger. The lover is killed soon afterwards, but upon finding a tape recording, it is revealed that Roger switched minds with a wolf, and his human body, occupied with the wolf's mind kills both his wife and her lover. Not a bad story, one of the issue's better ones.

Overall this issue is average at best. It'd be another year or so before Vampirella as a magazine really started turning out high qualify stuff consistently.

Eerie 26

I figured for my first issue of Eerie to cover on this blog, I'd do the first issue of the magazine I ever read, Eerie #26. This issue, cover dated March 1970, came out just as Warren was getting back into the groove of things, and is actually the first issue of Eerie to feature all new stories since Warren's first golden age came to an end in 1967.

The cover of the issue, featuring a rather ugly looking alien is by Vaughn Bode (again!) and Basil Gogos, who was a common cover artist for Warren's Famous Monsters magazine. The cover is based on the first story in the issue, "I Wouldn't Want to Live There!" by Jack Sparling (art) and Bill Parente (story), who was also the editor at this time. The story features a trio of very ugly looking aliens who arrive on a strange planet only to get killed off due to the harsh weather there. In a plot twist that would be used many times throughout Warren's history in their sci-fi stories, the planet ends up being Earth. Ancient man sees the alien's ship, which looks like a wheel, and that is how that useful device first got introduced to our civilization.

Before I move on to the rest of the stories I want to step back a second to mention the frontis (the feature included in the front inside cover of Warren's mags) for this issue, "Eerie's Monster Gallery: The Body Snatchers" which was drawn and written by Tom Sutton. A frontis generally appeared in each of Warren's mags until around 1977 or so. Their content varied from extremely short one page stories, to horror themed true stories (which included this issue's feature) and portraits of Warren's three horror hosts.

The second story of the issue is "Southern Exposure Part II", from Tom Sutton (art) and Bill Parente (story) which is the continuation of a vampire story started in the previous issue. It's rather hard to cover without the first part of the story here, so I'll take a stab at the overall thing once I cover Eerie #25.

Next is "In the Neck of Time" by Tony Williamsune (art) and Al Hewetson (story). Tony Williamsune was actually the alias for a two artist team, Tony Tallarico and Bill Fraccio. Heweston would later become editor at Warren's biggest rival during the early 1970's, Skywald. The story's about a scientist who goes back in time and quickly becomes rich by stealing with his advanced technology. He eventually gets caught and hung. Nothing all that great here.

The story's best issue is "Spiders Are Revolting" which is drawn and written by Tom Sutton. The story features a couple buying a house at auction only to find it completely infested with spiders. They try to get away from the spiders, who are trying to take over the world by possessing human bodies, but have little luck. The story ends with the protagonist in a mental institution where the spiders are finally able to get to him by infesting the doctors tending to him.

"The Scarecrow" by Frank Bolle (art) and Nicola Cuti (story) is about a crazy girl who returns from a sanitarium years after her step mother's death and meets a boy at a carnival after being brought there by her father. When the boy is killed, the father, thinking the scarecrow is the killer, destroys it. But it ends up that ghost infested crows where the true killer after all, and with the scarecrow no longer around to scare them off...

"Tuned In" by Dick Piscopo (art) and Ken Dixon (story) is up next. The story features an actor playing a serial killer in a movie who goes crazy and starts killing people every time he hears a certain song from the movie. Rather poor story and even more poor artwork.

The issue wraps up with "Cyked-Out" by Jack Sparling (art) and Ken Dixon (story), which features a motorcycle gang of vampires going against a motorcycle gang of werewolves. A rather poor story to wrap up the issue in my opinion.

Not that great of an issue, but then few from this era of Warren's history were. At least there were no reprinted stories!