Creepy 42

Sanjulian's first ever Creepy cover starts off this issue, the first of three S.I. artists making their Creepy debut in this issue. The frontis, "Creepy's Loathsome Lore" is drawn by Ken Kelly (a rare non-cover appearance) and written by T. Casey Brennan.

First up is "The Quaking Horror" by Auraleon (art, his Creepy debut) and Gardner Fox (story). This HP Lovecraft-esque story features a house that has a dark horror underneath it, a bizarre tentacled monster that was summoned hundreds of years ago. The entire house eventually collapses, destroying the demon for good. Some very nice art by Auraleon here.

Next is "A Change of Identity!" by Dave Cockrum (art) and Don Glut (story). A hunchbacked man attepts to get revenge on the townfolk that haven't treated him well by rescuing a killed werewolf, who becomes a vampire. The vampire promises to turn the hunchback into a werewolf so he can get revenge, but decides instead to kill him and turn him into a zombie guard.

Third is "The Amazing Money-Making Wallet" by Joe Staton (art) and Steve Skeates (story). This story is about a wallet that generates money on its own, but if you ever get rid of it, you'll dissolve. A thief steals the wallet, causing his victim to dissolve, and eventually he dissolves as well when he gets rid of the wallet.

Fourth is "Spacial Delivery" by Larry Todd (art) and R. Michael Rosen (story). This story is about a shapeshifting alien that crashes to our planet. In order to repair his ship he needs a metallic substance called Argentium. Taking the appearance of a wolf, he is accused of being a werewolf and is shot with a silver bullet, which ends up being the Argentium he needed to repair his ship and leave.

Fifth is "A Chronicle!" by Jorge Galvez (art, his Warren debut) and Steve Skeates (story). This short story at only 4 pages tells of a man who pays little attention to his life, focusing instead on a research project that ends up being meaningless when someone else completes it. He then gets fired from his job and tries to rob a bank but is killed trying to escape. Not much of a point to this story, wasting Galvez's pretty good art.

Sixth is "Escape From Nowhere World" by Jerry Grandenetti (art) and T. Casey Brennan (story). This story is a sequel to Brennan's very poor story "On the Wings of a Bird" from issue 36. A woman, Janeen suddenly appears in the mysterious nowhere world where Ahzid and the statue are. She and Ahzid try to escape, dragging the statue with them. The statue collapses, and using its sword Janeen and Ahzid tear their way out of the world and escape, while the broken statue lies there alone.

Last is "Ice Wolf" by Gary Kaufman (story & art). This would be Kaufman's final Warren appearance. Unfortunate, as he was quite a unique artist and a pretty good writer too. A tribe of wolf hunters in a winter landscape completely run out of wolves to hunt, so they head through the mountains, still to no avail. One of the men on the night of the full moon gains special powers. Tribe members start dying, obviously due to him. Eventually a wolf finally does appear, and kills him.

Creepy 39

A whopping four artists' Warren debuts highlight this issue of Creepy. The art is by Basil Gogos. The frontis is "Creepy's Loathsome Lore: The Evil Eye!" by Clif Jackson (art) and Richard Grose (story).

First story is "Where Satan Dwells..." by Sal Trapani (art) and Al Hewetson (story). This story is a rarity, it actually stars Uncle Creepy himself! Uncle Creepy, getting bored of just telling stories seeks to find an adventure of his own. He comes across a bookstore where the bookkeeper gives him a book with the same title as this story. He reads the book and suddenly finds himself in a position where he has to save the bookkepper and his family from the evil spirit Groton. It ends up being a dream, and the bookkeeper ends up being Cousin Eerie!

Second is "C.O.D. - Collect on Death!" by Dave Cockrum (art, his debut) and Dave Wood (story). A man makes a deal with the devil to spurn death, but in exchange he must kill someone each day. If he misses even a single day, he will die himself. This eventually forces him to kill his own fiance when he loses track of time due to her. Her brother leads him to a desert to kill him. He does so, but is told that he's so far away from society there's no way he'll be able to kill someone else within a day, which results in his ultimate demise.

Third is "The Water World", featuring the debut of artist Pablo Marcos. The story is written by Buddy Saunders. A trio of astronauts crash on a water filled world and drift aimlessley on a raft over very clear water. Soon two are dead and the last remaining one fishes using the remains of one of the others. This catches a fish, but one so huge that it ends up eating him!

"Death by the Wizard" with art and story by Pat Boyette is next. Not as good a story as usual from the usually excellent Boyette. It features the Wizard Merlin who is facing his own demise due to a woman he was with. He is turned into a tree by her.

Fifth is "Harvest of Horror!" by Frank Brunner (art) and Phil Seuling (story). This story interestingly enough features three different endings, surrounding a man who is on the run, finding a scarecrow in a field. A rather interesting concept, surprised that Warren didn't use it more often.

Sixth is "The Dragon Prow!" with Richard Bassford (art, his debut) and Steve Skeates (story). The story features a serf who wishes for freedom so he tries to steal a horse and escape, but he is captured and put aboard a boat as a slave. A sea storm causes the ship to crash and he thinks he finally has his freedom only to realize that he died in the crash.

Last is the debut of Gary Kaufman, in "Mad Jack's Girl". The Jack of the title is a gang leader who does a lot of bad deeds. His girlfriend tries to steer him right but can't do it. Eventually she gathers up corpses of his victims then kills him and sets him up in a dinner setting with them.

Eerie 36

The cover for this issue is by Enrich, featuring... a hand! The frontis is "Eerie's Monster Gallery - Atoms" by Pablo Marcos (art) and T.Casey Brennan (story).

First is "Bad Moon on the Rise!" by Tom Sutton (art) and Doug Moench (story). This story surrounds a series of murders taking place by a werewolf. The werewolf is suspected as being the killer and is finally confronted on the night of the full moon. But an eclipse causes him to turn into a human and is killed, with the detectives thinking that the werewolf is still out there on the loose.

Next is "The Silence and the Sleep" by Rubio (art) and Steve Skeates (story). A jealous man kills the boyfriend of a woman he likes. She is so shocked that she becomes mute and is put in an institution. The killer, a piano player, hopes to keep the secret, but is eventually found out and arrested.

Third is "Prototype" by Bruce Jones (art) and Steve Skeates (story). Bruce Jones was quite a prolific writer for Warren during the late 70's, but did do a couple of art jobs for them around this time. This story, done completely in pencil, features Skeates's recurring character Targos, who is captured by odd looking sea creatures who create a robot clone of him to attack Atlantis. Fairly good story, although the ending, where the creatures abandon their attack was a tad confusing to me.

Fourth is "Look What They've Done!" by Esteban Maroto (art) and Steve Skeates (story). This unique story breaks the fourth wall, having the lead character argue with the writer and plead to the reader. A hippie, he refuses to go along with the plot, and ends up getting killed by an alien.

After that is "Crocodile", with art by Mascaro and story by Don Glut. Natives kill crocodiles for a scientist experimenting on the natives, trying to turn them into powerful crocodile men. He finally finds the solution, but his former assistant, one of the natives, turns on him and injects it into him. He turns into a crocodile and heads outside, only to be killed by other natives who seek to turn him over to the scientist!

Next is "The Trap" by L.M. Roca (art) and Greg Potter (story). A disgraced detective locks himself in a crypt with another man, telling him he'll only get the key if he kills him. He presses on the man until he finally kills him, only for that man to discover that there is no key, and hence no way out. The detective wanted to solve a crime and punish a criminal so much that he did it by getting himself killed!

Last is "Oh, Brother!" with art by Dave Cockrum and Steve Skeates yet again doing the story. Two monsters arrive in modern time and are promptly killed by the police. The story takes a step back to explain things, that these monsters were actually responsible for the creation of humanity when they tampered with time and screwed up their own history, erasing it and resulting in humans having control of the Earth.

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 39

Here's issue 39 of Eerie, from April 1972. The cover is by Ken Kelly. featuring the interior tale, 'The Disenfranchised'. The frontis for this issue is "Eerie's Monster Gallery: The Mysterious Men in Black!" by Richard Brassford (art) and Doug Moench (story).

Up first is a terrific story, "Head Shop" by Jose Bea (art) and Don Glut (story). A man passing a hat shop one day finds a head dummy that looks almost real. The man becomes obsessed with the head and passes it each day as it goes to work. After a while passes though he notices the head decomposing. The man tries to get himself to stop looking, but he can't control himself and the head gets worse and worse looking. Eventually he confronts the owner of the shop, who hadn't realized that the head was rotting and replaces it by chopping off our protagonist's head.

Up next is "Just Passing Through" by Auraleon (art) and Steve Skeates (story). The story features a gigantic man whose discovered in the hills one day. The giant slowly shrinks until he becomes the size of a normal person and joins society. While there he meets a woman and after having sex he leaves, telling her their child will leave her someday. The man dissappears into the mountains, still shrinking. Years later the son finds himself shrinking too.

Third is "The Disenfranchised" by Tom Sutton (art) and J.R. Cochran (story), who was Associate Editor at the time. The story features a boy whose permanently scarred after his father's butcher shop is closed down, his father dies, and he is evicted from his home. The boy wanders the streets with a huge grin on his face, carrying a cleaver with him that has replaced one of his hands.

The first of a 12 part series "Dax the Warrior" is fourth, a series I already talked about briefly with Eerie #46. This story features Dax meeting a woman, Freya, who is captured by a winged demon. Dax fights the demon and is able to rescue her, but her body becomes ravaged with leprosy. As usual for this series, a lot of terrific, exotic art here.

This issue's weakest effort is "Yesterday is the Day Before Tomorrow" by Dave Cockrum (art) and Doug Moench (story). A thief living in an advanced society steals a time machine and goes 30 years in the future so he can steal invention blueprints and pattent them in his own time. The only problem is the blueprints he steals end up being from his future self, whom he murders, not knowing the truth until he returns to his own time.

Last is "Ortaa!" by Jaime Brocal (art) and Kevin Pagan (story). An archaeologist studying the origin of the Aztecs keeps having horrific dreams about a sacrifical ritual and keeps talking about a being called 'Ortaa'. Heading into some ruins, he encounters Ortaa, a giant tentacled heart which he is able to kill. 'Ortaa' representing his own heart however, he passes away after defeating it.

Overall a very good issue, with "Head Shop" and "The Disenfranchised" being the best.