Eerie 45

Luis Dominguez provides the Dax-themed cover for this issue of Eerie, dated February 1973. The frontis for this issue is "Eerie's Monster Gallery: Vlad the Impaler" by Auraleon (art) and Fred Ott (story).

First is "The Mound" by Tom Sutton (story & art). In this story a comet crashes into Earth, causing a mysterious mound to appear. At this time humanity is battling an onslaught of bugs that are threatening to destroy mankind. Fearing the mound contains the bugs' savior, mankind has it blown up. But it instead contained mankind's savior, a giant anteater, and by killing it mankind seals its own fate.

Second is "Ri, Master of Men" by Martin Salvador (art) and Hal Turner (story). In the future mankind creates a massive computer, Ri, which is made ruler of the world. Ri also starts taking over people's minds, turning them into zombies. A group of people head off into space to escape Ri, eventually landing on the moon. There they find an advanced group of people... and Ri, who is still in control.

Third is "When Wakes the Dreamer" by Jesus Suso Rego (art) and Don McGregor (story). Yet another nonscensical McGregor story, featuring a man dreaming about a world where cities and people are vanishing and a weird werewolf like monster appears. The dreamer wakes up, finding that the same thing is happening in the real world.

Fourth is "A Blade For the Teacher" by Luis Dominguez (art) and Bill Warren (story). A powerful warrior seeks to fight his old master in battle to prove himself even more than his current elevated status. He recalls the statues of powerful warriors his master taught from when he was a student. He eventually finds the master, who permits him to join the statues by turning him into one.

Fifth is "Maneater" by Rubio (art) and Steve Skeates (story). An artist murders a woman who is trying to blackmail him. When he leaves he finds himself driving in a landscape like one of his paintings. There he sees the woman he killed, who bites his head off. In reality he gets into a car crash and is killed, although the police find his head missing when they come to the crash site.

Last is Dax the Warrior in "The Witch". A witch captures Dax and his men, seeking to steal their hearts and restore her lost youth. She also turns Dax into a ape like creature. Dax in his ape form kills a snake and puts its fangs into the heart of a nearby warrior. When the witch takes the hearts she becomes young again and restores Dax to his normal self. The poison injected into the hearts by the fangs kill her seconds later however.

Eerie 42

Luis Dominguez provides the cover for this issue of Eerie, based on the reprinted story inside, 'Ogre's Castle'. This issue is dated October 1972.

First is "The Mummy Stalks!" by Reed Crandall (art) and Archie Goodwin & Roy Krenkel (story), featuring a mummy that turns into a werewolf while being stored in a museum. This story, originally published in Eerie #5, is a rather poor effort, despite being a Goodwin story.

Next is "The Blood Fruit" by Johnny Craig (art & story), from Eerie #11. A group of four students and a professor arrive on an island where the professor discovers 'The Blood Fruit', which when eaten causes whatever he wants to occur. He uses this to kill two of the students and summon a lizard like monster. But when one of his colleagues eats the fruit and wishes him dead, he finds the tables turned.

Third is "Dark Rider" by John Severin (art) and Archie Goodwin (story), from Eerie #8. A trio of horsemen in the snowy mountains are followed by a mysterious rider in the distance. They die one by one until only one remains. He shoots at the rider, which causes an avalanche that kills him. The rider reveals himself to be Death.

Fourth is "Life Species" by Bill Dubay (story & art), from Eerie #30. 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.

Fifth is "Ogre's Castle" by Angelo Torres (art) and Archie Goodwin (story), from Creepy #2. An extremely good art job from Torres here, arguably his best job for Warren. A knight heads to a castle that is rumored to be where his younger brother dissappeared. Inside he finds an ogre who has captured a beautiful young woman. He fights off the ogre's various minions, then saves the woman. On his way out the ogre confronts him, and the knight kills the ogre. The ogre's corpse transforms into his younger brother as soon as he is killed however. The woman, now revealed to be a sorceress, transforms the knight into an ogre, to be used to guard the castle like his brother had before.

Sixth is "Room With A View!", with art by Steve Ditko, and story by Archie Goodwin. This story was originally published in Eerie #3. A man arrives at an inn with no rooms available, except for a single one which the innkeeper warns him against staying in. The guest uses it anyway and sees a weird creature in the mirror. Each time he looks in the mirror he sees more creatures appearing until he is completely overtaken by them. Hearing his scream, the innkeeper comes up and finds the room empty, but sees the guest's corpse when he looks in the mirror.

Seventh is "Voodoo Drum!" by Neal Adams (art) and Archie Goodwin (story), from Eerie #10. The story, which is done in pencils only, is about a plantation owner who finds workers difficult to obtain, so a native brings him zombies in exchange for payment. The man kills him, seeking to use the zombies for free, but they come after him and turn his skin into a drum.

Eighth is "I Am Dead, Egypt, Dead" by Victor De La Fuente (art) and Doug Moench (story), from Eerie #35. The story is about three archaeologists, Jim, Diana and Ray who find a tomb filled with treasure. Jim and Diana conspire to kill Ray and take all the treasure for themself. They do it by inducing a heart attack when Jim dresses up as a mummy. Only when the two of them head into the tomb Ray ends up not being dead after all and dressing up himself as a mummy, kills Jim. Ray and Diana having been together laugh about their plot, but end up dying when they drink water that Jim had poisoned in their canteens.

Creepy 47

Ron Cobb provides the cover for this issue of Creepy, dated September 1972. The cover was originally to have been done by Sanjulian, featuring the interior story The Land of Bone (and that cover actually appears on the preview page), but it failed to meet the deadline and wouldn't be used until Eerie 123. The frontis for this issue is "Creepy's Loathsome Lore: Not Sherlock by a Long Shot" by Jose Bea (art) and Doug Moench (story).

First is "The Land of Bone" by Esteban Maroto (art) and Buddy Saunders (story). This story features a warrior Costan who finds himself in a world where every person he meets is a skeleton. He is joined by a skeleton wizard, Wikkander, who tells him that his lover Aruna has been captured by the Wizard Poxxalt. The two of them fight off various creatures and then defeat Poxxalt. Costan is shocked to find Aruna a skeleton herself, and gives Wikkander a ring on her finger. Once he gets the ring, the truth is revealed. Costan was a skeleton himself, and only thought that he was human and everyone else was a skeleton. Wikkander, a descendent of his brought him to life to free Aruna from Poxxalt.

Second is "Mark of the Phoenix" by Reed Crandall (art) and T. Casey Brennan (story). This story features a student drug dealer who finds that he is dying of cancer. In order to live forever, he makes a deal with a Phoenix which will enable him to live forever, unless his body is completely destroyed. The Phoenix tells him that he will have to be set ablaze and reborn every 10 years however, and this frightens him terribly. He gets so nervous of a pigeon following him that he ends up killing himself for good.

Third is "The Law and Disorder" by Luis Garcia (art, his final Creepy appearance) and Dennis P. Junot (story). This story features a man who is angry at the board of trustees of a college, thinking they are responsible for his father's death. He creates a disintegration ray which he lets into their hands, and they die of radiation once using it. The protagonist then dies suddenly at the end of the story, with little explanation.

Fourth is "The Eternity Curse" by Martin Salvador (art) and John Thraxis (story). This story features an enemy of the pharoah who is cursed to live forever. His corpse lies in the ground for thousands of years, getting out in present times, when he starts attacking some victims of a plane crash, absorbing their life force until he is restored to a normal appearance. A similar theme as to what takes place in the modern version of the Mummy movie.

Fifth is "Point of View" by Luis Dominguez (art) and Steve Skeates (story). This story features a number of stories all converging into one. A man is fearful of a powerful being that he suspects is after him. In another a woman leaves her boyfriend very frantically. In the third, an older man drives drunk despite his wife's warnings. All converge when the car is about to hit the woman, and our protagonist notices a caped woman distracting her, who is actually the person he is fearful of. A rather confusing summary? Probably cause this is a rather confusing story that ends rather abrubtly.

Sixth is "This Burden, This Responsibility" by Jerry Grandenetti (art, his final Creepy appearance) and Steve Skeates (story). Another odd story by Skeates, featuring a man in a future where computers run almost everything. He gets a bigger office for his good work, then gets in trouble when he comes in late, being killed by his computerized superiors.

Seventh is "Futurization Computation!" by Bill Dubay (story & art). This short three page story tells of a modernized computer device, which ends up robotic teachers for a school.

Last is "The Beginning!" by Tom Sutton (art) and Seve Skeates (story). In contrast to Skeates's two earlier odd stories, this one is quite good. It takes place in a future Earth where normal humans are fighting mutants who have mutated due to contaminated food. One of the human soldiers sees a beautiful woman whom he becomes obsessed with seeing. He finds her, then fights off a superior who calls her Queenie. She brings him through a wall where he finds out the truth, that she's a mutant and she's lured him to other ones who seize him.

Eerie 43

This issue's cover by Luis Dominguez features a number of corpses coming after a man in his house. The frontis for this issue is "Eerie's Monster Gallery: Quetzalcoatl Monster God" by Luis Garcia (art) and Doug Moench (story).

First story is "Someday" by Jerry Grandenetti (art) and Rich Margopoulos. The story features a bomb being placed on Earth in the far past from alien astronauts, who decide to not detonate it and leave the Earth in peace. Many years pass and the bomb is discovered, so it is launched into space with a single man who is responsible for detonating it at a safe distance. He lands on another planet and is able to detonate it after some trouble with the people there.

Next is "Musical Chairs" by Tom Sutton (art) and Steve Skeates (story). A man about to be executed suddenly finds himself transported to another dimension where he will be king. He succeeds in defeating a monster, but just as things are getting good, he is back in the real world and is executed. Story similar to Ambrose Bierce's 'An Occurence at Owl Creek'.

Third is "Bright Eyes" by Richard Corben (art) and Doug Moench (story). The story features a plantation owner who uses a lot of dead corpses, revived from the dead, to do work for him. One of the dead men's brothers arrives and wants to take him away from there. The plantation owner refuses and in a struggle with the brother is killed. But this results in all the corpses rotting away to nothing since their summoner is dead.

Fourth is "The Hunt" by Paul Nary (art) and Rich Margopoulos (story). The story features a man, whom is a slave on the run, being hunted by his masters. At the end it ends up that the masters are actually beast-like people.

Fifth is "Showdown!" by Jesus Suso Rego (art) and Steve Skeates about an expert gunman who is confronted by a mysterious man and killed by him. Suso wouldn't do much work for Warren but did a lot for Skywald, Warren's competitor.

Last is "Let the Evil One Sleep", our latest segment of Dax the Warrior, by Esteban Maroto. Dax, heading through the desert suddenly finds himself in a beautiful landscape and meets a beautiful woman, Lilith who keeps calling him Adam. She tells him of an evil one who sleeps nearby. Demons eventually arrive and attack her. Dax finds himself paralyzed but is eventually able to move and kills them all. Dax is convinced that he must kill the evil one and goes to it, only to find it is himself! He is suddenly in the desert again, making one wonder if it was all a hallucination.

The issue wraps up with another segment in Eerie's Monster Gallery: "The Mortsafes" by Tom Sutton (story & art)

Vampirella 20

This issue features a yellow bordered cover by Luis Dominguez featuring his interior story. The frontis for this issue is "Vampi's Feary Tales: The Matrimonial Murder" by Auraleon (art) and Doug Moench (story), about a con artist who kills men and takes their money, then vanishes.

First up is "When Wakes the Dead" by Jose Gonzalez (art) and T.Casey Brennan (story). Continuing from the previous issue (one of the few Vampi issues I don't have), Vampirella is in the past with the Van Helsing's ancestors, as is Dracula. Dracula is in love with a woman, Lucy, who they manage to bring back to life using Vampi's blood serum, but she dies when she sees Dracula attacking another woman. Vampi herself also has to reveal herself eventually, and the two are forced to return to the present.

Second is "Gender Bender" by Esteban Maroto (art & story), part of the Tomb of the Gods serial, featuring a husband and wife battling each other while shifting forms. One of the most surreal stories Warren would ever publish. One of the pages would be reprinted (with different text) in issue 22's "Orpheus".

Next is "Love is No Game" by Luis Garcia (art) and Steve Skeates (story). A girl pines over her handsome new neighbor but he keeps ignoring her. Eventually she follows him into a field and spots him writing her name on a tree... but it ends up she's joining just one of the many victims he has killed. Great art by Garcia, as always.

Next is "Eye Opener" by Auraleon (art) and Doug Moench. A salesman on the road encounters a young woman, Wendy, and her blind grandmother, who is blind, but keeps the eyes of her dead husband in a box. After he has sex with Wendy, the grandmother claims she's tainted her and he ends up getting in a car accident as he leaves. His eyes suddenly show up in her box as well.

Last is "Vengeance, Brother, Vengeance!" by Luis Dominguez (art) and Greg Potter (story). The story is about two brothers, one who becomes a powerful warrior and the other who is captured, mutated, and forced to become a mute sorceror. The warrior brother saves his woman from the evil ruler, but his brother ends up passing away in the ordeal.

Another one page feature finishes the issue, "Vampi's Feary Tales The Headless Hauntress of Shepton Prison" by Auraleon (art) and Doug Moench (story), about a headless ghost.

Eerie 44

This issue of Eerie is from the beginning of Bill Dubay's first run at editor of the Warren line. The cover is by Luis Dominguez, featuring various monsters watching a ship from the cliffs above. The frontis for this issue is "Eerie's Monster Gallery: Werewolf - Fact or Fantasy?" by Jerry Grandenetti (art) and Fred Ott (story).

First story is "Crazy Mazie" by Tom Sutton (art) and J.R. Cochran (story, his last for Warren) featuring an aged western movie star whose gone a little crazy in his old age. By the end of the story he's killed his wife, a fan, and even himself.

Next is "Everlasting Mortality" by Jerry Grandenetti (art) and Doug Moench (story). A man seeks to live forever, so he willingly lets a vampire drink his blood. After beign buried, he rises from his grave, only to die because his gravestone creates the shadow of a cross.

Third is "The Thrill of the Hunt" by Martin Salvador (art) and Doug Moench (story). The story is about a man being hunted through the woods after killing an agent from the electric company who wanted the trees trimmed near the electric lines. Although he kills many of his pursuers, the wilderness eventually wears on him and he ends up getting electrocuted when he jumps into an electric line from out of a tree.

"Hand of the Discarnate" is next, from Bill Dubay (art) and Doug Moench (story), about two brothers who go to see a medium who ends up summoning their father's spirit, who gets them to fight and kill each other.

Fifth is "Mervin's Dead Ringer!" a short story by Luis Dominguez (art) and Greg Potter (story) about a man who thinks his alarm clock, Alan, is alive, and goes crazy when he accidently breaks it.

Next is "Tiller of the Soul" with art by Rubio and story by Greg Potter. An old farmer who is a loner comes across a dead man buried in his farm that talks to him. The dead man befriends him, but when he digs him up, he discovers that the dead man is himself!

Last is this issue's entry for Dax the Warrior, "The Lake of Gold" by Esteban Maroto (story & art). A group of slave traders come across an island occupied by Dax and a number of beautiful women. Dax tells the slave traders of riches in the nearby lake. They head there, where Dax destroys the bottom of their ship and the women all turn into fish like demons that kill all the slave traders.

A so-so issue, with nothing particularly great, but most of the stories are okay ones.

Eerie 47

Here's another issue of Eerie featuring a Dracula cover, this time done by Luis Dominguez.

Up first is the second part of the Dracula series, "Enter the Dead Thing", continuing from Eerie #46. Art is once again by Tom Sutton and story by Bill Dubay. Having bitten the witch and her assistant, they are now vampires along with Dracula on the ship departing from San Francisco. A rotting corpse kept in a coffin on the ship ends up coming to life and wreacking havok, forcing Dracula and his underlings to turn into bats and escape, heading to Transylvania. There, a man with a shotgun fires upon Dracula, and this is where our story ends, to be continued in the next issue.

Second is "Lillith", which at 19 pages is one of the longest non-series stories to appear in Eerie's history. Art is by Jaime Brocal and story is by Nicola Cuti. The story features the tale of Lillith, Adam's first companion and her quest throughout history to find him and Eve so Satan will restore her lost beauty. As usual, Brocal's art is quite good.

Third is "Snake Man" by Martin Salvador (art) and Greg Potter (story). A man, Kari, dying in the desert is saved by Jerimiah, a man who has transformed into a snake man. They go on a quest to find a snake god, Slikandai and succesfully find him. Slikandai turns Jerimiah back to a real man, but Kari is forced to become a sacrifice for it to occur.

Fourth is "The Message is the Medium" by Paul Neary (art) and Doug Moench (story). Neary, who was originally from England is a pretty good artist with a unique look who'd do a number of stories for Warren. The story this time is hardly that good though, featuring a man who kills his wife, but later encounters her when he takes part in a seance with his lover.

Last is this issue's segment of Dax, "Gemma-5", with art and story by Esteban Maroto. Dax encounters a beautiful woman with sparkling skin who is a slave to a barbarian on the planet Gemma-5. Dax defeats the barbarian and saves her, and later encounters even more barbarians and fights them. The woman escapes by heading into a body of water where she goes into a spaceship and blasts off into space. It seems that like Dax, she too was an alien to the planet and decides to save it from colonization due to her encounters with Dax.

Overall, quite a good issue outside of Moench's story.