Vampirella 9

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Creepy 40

A terrific cover for this issue, by Larry Todd & Vaughn Bode. The frontis for this issue is "Creepy's Loathsome Lore: The Loch Ness Monster" by Clif Jackson (art) and Al Hewetson (story).

First up is the cover story, "The Fade-Away Walk" by Tom Sutton (art) and Don McGregor (story, his Warren debut). Taking place after a nuclear holocost, the story features two mutated men fighting around Mt. Rushmore. One of the men falls to his death after what else, but one of McGregor's typical pseudo-political ramblings between the two.

Second is "The Impersonation" by Pablo Marcos (art) and Steve Skeates (story). A secret agent who poses as other people tries to get out of the line of work since the real person always shows up. His boss convinces him to go on another mission because the guy he's impersonating is dead, so what happens? The guy comes back from the dead to reveal the truth yet again! They are both put into a trap they must escape from and the dead guy vanishes, trapping the agent in there for good.

"Swamp Demon" by Dave Cockrum (story & art) features a swamp monster that can appear as anything to someone who sees it. The natives sacrifice maidens to it, so one warrior heads into rescue his girl when it ends up being her. He thinks he kills the swamp demon and rescues her, but it ends up that the swamp demon survived and took her place.

"Disintegrator" is fourth, by Ken Barr (art) and Nicola Cuti (story). The story features a man who creates a disintegrator gun to gain back his life after his business partner swindled him. The business partner steals the gun from him, but it ends up that the disintegrator power was within him all along, not within the gun.

Next is "Lost and Found" by George Roussos (art) and Steve Skeates (story). A wizard loses his ability to walk through solid things, which is transferred to a man in the present. The man tries to steal from a bank vault with the power but the wizard gets it back just as he's going through the vault. The last panel is rather confusing, saying he dies because the vault passes through him, shouldn't it be the other way around?

Last is "Dual Dragon" by Gary Kaufman (story & art). Kaufman was a fairly good artist & writer who did about a half a dozen or so stories around this time for Warren. The story features a man who tries to defeat a dragon to impress a girl. A blind old man living in a cave gives him a necklace which enables him to find the dragon, but it results in him killing the girl instead! Afterwards, with the necklace on his neck he looks for her but can't find her, even though her decapitated head is right in front of him.

Eerie 27

A terrific cover for this issue, by Jeff Jones and Vaughn Bode. Unfortunately the contents itself aren't as good. The frontis is "Eerie's Monster Gallery: The Golem!" by Tom Sutton.

"Journey Into Wonder" with art by Kenn Barr and story by Bill Parente is about a imp like man that asks the king to let him be a knight. The king sends him to defeat a sorceress, who ends up being an innocent woman. he defeats a monster, and then after some questioning upon returning to the castle, wins a fight and transforms into a normal man.

"Amazonia" by Miguel Fernandez (art) and Gardner Fox (story) is yet another in a long line of barbarian/warrior stories set in a medieval setting. Amazonia would get another story, which I've already covered, from an early Vampirella.

"The Machine God's Slave" is this issue's best story, by Ernie Colon (art) and Buddy Saunders (story). An astronaut finds a planet with an ancient civilization which he angers by killing a priest. They chain him to a machine which drags him along throughout the planet, and eventually to his death when it goes into a body of water.

"Swallowed in Space" by Tom Sutton (art) and Bill Parente (story) features a spaceship of people who keep vanishing until only one man is left, who finds the secret of the universe.

"Enter Dr. Laenru!" by Disck Piscopo (art) and R. Michael Rosen (story) features a man who is able to deflect magic. A princess's younger sister turns her into a werewolf, and after he finds her out, he gets her turned into a pig, who is prompstly eaten by some hungry people! Funny ending to a not that great story.

"All Sewed Up!" by Mike Royer (art) and Buddy Saunders (story) is about a taxidermist who turns into a werewolf. His assistant desires his fiance and steals from him, and eventually kills him while he's in his wolf form. He sews him up for display in his store, only for him to turn back human, revealing the truth to everyone.

Last is "Face It!" by Jack Sparling (art) and Nicola Cuti (story) about a hooded man who joins a circus with a robot woman. He hides his face, but a curious girl in the circus keep trying to see it and its eventually revealed that he has a shrunken face and his wife has a shrunked body, hidden inside the robot.

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.

Creepy 34

Our next issue is Creepy #34, featuring a cover by Ken Barr, of his interior story "Lifeboat!". The frontis for this issue is "Creepy's Loathsome Lore" by Dan Adkins.

First up is "X-Tra X" by Jack Sparling (art) and Robert (Michael) Rosen (story). A man who is a werewolf approaches a professor whose been studying genes and believes that an extra chromosome is responsible for criminal behavior. The man volunteers to be experimented on by the professor to cure him from being a werewolf. He ends up dying from the procedure, which ends up being okay with the professor as he's a werewolf too.

Next is "Lifeboat!" by Ken Barr (art) and Bill Parente (story). Astronauts come across a planet with a died out race, except for one man, Aceles, a man of large stature and great strength. He goes back on the ship with them peacefully, but it soon becomes clear that the entire race on that planet are contained within him and he is seeking to revive the species by transforming the astronauts into those of his species. The astronauts respond by throwing him out of the ship to his death. Pretty good story.

Next is "The Cool Jazz Ghoul" by Ken Kelly (art) and Al Hewetson (story). This story's unique by being Ken Kelly's sole interior story, outside of this and a single frontis, he did exclusively covers for Warren. His art's okay here, but not great. Covers clearly suited him better. The story surrounds a jazz musician who ponders making a deal with the devil, but instead embalms his body and sells it for lot of money.

Fourth is "Minanker's Demons" by John G. Fantuccio (art) and Buddy Saunders (story). This rather poor story is about a wizard who captures a princess and the knight that tries to rescue her. When the knight reaches his castle, the wizard summons a demon, who kills him because of a crack in his pentagram that prevents him from being protected.

"The Forgotten Prisoner of Castlemare" by Tony Williamsune (art) and Robert (Michael) Rosen (story) is about dueling barons who try to get rid of each other. One ends up getting locked up in a jail cell and the other is killed by a trap. This story is based on the Castlemare prisoner ad in the Captain Company section of the Warren mags.

Next up is "The Swamp in Hell!" by Don Vaughn (art) and Al Hewetson (story). A swamp beast rises out of the swamp and heads to a nearby town. All are frightened except a blind old man who befriends the monster. The monster ends up vanishing because of the kindness of the old man.

Last is "Ando!" by Syd Shores (art) and Robert (Michael) Rosen (story). This story is about a baron and his powerful henchman, Ando, who bullies the local populace into paying the baron high taxes. The baron's quest to create a super race of people continuosly fails. He realizes that he must find a strong person to experiment on, so he uses Ando. Only it makes Ando too strong, he refuses to obedient to the baron anymore and kills him.

Eerie 33

Our odd looking cover for this issue is for the interior story Starvisions, both done by Larry Todd. The frontis for this issue is "Eerie's Monster Gallery: The Minotaur" by Clif Jackson.

First up is "A Trip in Time!" by Jack Sparling (art) and Steve Skeates (story). A man creates a time machine, thinking that his appearance in the past will have no impact. And it doesn't, because as he arrives in the past, he and his time machine quickly vanish entirely!

Second is "243 Blank Pages" by George Roussos (art) and Steve Skeates (story). A man finds a book which will cause anyone whose name is written in it then consequently burned to vanish. He does so to an enemy of his, but then becomes paranoid that the police are after him and destroys the book in a fire, having forgotten that he wrote his own name in it!

Next is "Whom the Gods Would Destroy" by Ken Barr (art) and Marvin Wolfman (story). A well written story about a battle consuming all who remain on Earth. It is eventually revealed that our heroes are battling only a hospital with self-defense forces, and soon only two are let, who die as well.

Fourth is "Escape Into Chaos" by Ernie Colon (art) and Steve Skeates (story). Probably the issue's worst story, it is about a man who keeps being plagued by bugs and other monsters, yet forgets about it and encounters the same fate over and over.

The cover story, "Starvisions" by Larry Todd (story & art) is our next one, a bizarre story about a large funnel like creature that appears to be made up of many stones that encounters a few stranded astronauts which it believes are just a figment of its imagination.

"The Pest" is next, by Richard Corben (art) and Al Hewetson (story). A bug killing device is created that uses toxic gas, and causes problems for ill adults or children. Its creator is getting rich off of it and could care less until he turns into a bug himself, well at least thinks he does, and dies of a heart attack.

Last is "The Painting in the Tower" by Pat Boyette (art) and Gardner Fox (story). An evil baron takes an artist's daughter and has his hands cut off when he refuses payment. The girl hangs herself soon after. The baron sees her corpse come back to life and lead him to a part of his castle where the father's chopped off hands paint a picture of him being tortured, and he slowly vanishes as the painting is completed.

Vampirella 8

An important issue for Vampirella, featuring the first story of her true storyline. The cover is by Ken Kelly and the frontis, entitled "Vampi's Feary Tales: Love!", written and drawn by Tom Sutton.

"Who Serves the Cause of Chaos?" by Tom Sutton (art) and Archie Goodwin (story) is up first. This is Vampi's first serious story (her previous two appearances were not serious stories). It introduces many things that would become commonplace in the Vampirella storyline including the characters Adam & Conrad Van Helsing, the serum Vampi takes to avoid having to drink human blood, and 'Chaos', a long time villain. This story surround Vampirella being brought to a retreat where a doctor nurses her back to health and creates a serum that prevents her from having to drink human blood. Eventually she realizes he is part of a cult worshipping Chaos. The cult plans to sacrifice Vampi, but he ends up saving her and they all end up dying. In a parallel storyline we're introduced to the Van Helsing, who are searching for the vampire that killed a relative of theirs. By the end of the story Conrad determines that Vampirella is the one responsible. A pretty good start for Vampirella!

Second is "The Demon in the Crypt!" by Billy Graham (art) and Gardner Fox (story). The story is about a queen, Amazonia, who fights a lizard like creature with many eyes that can transform into a woman. Amazonia beat her. Not a very interesting story.

Third is "Out of the Fog" by Ken Barr (art) and Steve Skeates (story). A man in England meets a woman at a bar and brings her to his place, where he ends up being a werewolf! Short story, but fairly good art by Barr here.

Fourth is "Snake Eyes" by Jack Sparling (art) and Nicola Cuti (story). It's about a girl who has very snake like features, and she looks more and more like one as she gets older. She gets angry with her boyfriend and kills him when he sells a pendant of hers. It ends up that she is the decendent of royalty. She gets it back and uses it to get to a secret chamber, where she is confronted by a Mongoose man who was responsible for wiping her family out.

"Signs of Sorcery" is next, with art by George Roussos and story by Don Glut. The story is about a magician who captures many people and brings to life creatures representing zodiac symbols. Eventually they all arrive and turn on him. Not too good.

Last is "The Gulfer" by Tony Williamsune (art) and Nicola Cuti (story). The story is about a monster called 'The Gulfer' that can only enter a house if invited. It takes the form of a little girl's cat and transforms once being let in, but the collar around its neck ends up strangling it.

Eerie 37

This issue of Eerie's from early 1972. The cover is by Enrich, for the story Dethslayer, although the cover and story have nothing in common with each other. Enrich would do a similar cover for Vampirella 41 a few years later. The frontis for this issue is "Eerie's Monster Gallery: Air Serpent" by Bill Dubay (story & art).

First up is "The Other Side of Atlantis" by Jaime Brocal (art) and Steve Skeates (story). The story is about Targo, the prince of Atlantis, who ends up going to a dangerous part of the ocean while his mind's on other subjects. His girlfriend looks for him on the surface to no avail. Targo turns into something, although it's not revealed what as the story ends. A sequel to this story would be done in issue 40.

Second is "Horror at Hamilton House" by Ken Barr (art) and Lynn Marron (story), about a man who marries a woman in order to bump her off and take her money. She tells him that they can't leave the castle they are in because her family has been cursed. He eventually does kill her, but her son kills him, having turned into a werewolf due to the family curse.

Third is "The Ones Who Stole it From You" by Auraleon (art) and Don McGregor (story), about a crook who steals money from a client then makes him appear to have commit suicide. The victim's son tries to find out the truth about what happened to his father. Meanwhile, a cannibal also has a part to play in the story, having eaten the victim's corpse. Aside from McGregor's usual nonscensical political ramblings, a pretty good story.

"A Rush of Wings" is fourth, by Jaime Brocal (art) and Larry Herndon (story). This one's about a entomologist who finds a new species of butterly in Burma by the ruins of a large city. He murders his assistant, wanting all the credit to himself, then heads to the city against a native's warning where a giant butterfly monster kills him.

Last is "Dethslayer" by Ernie Colon (art) and Doug Moench (story), about a man who seeks to kill a sorceror using his sword, 'Dethslayer'. He succeeds, then kills the king, but is killed when he puts the crown on and an angry mob, thinking he's the king, kills him.

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.