Eerie 81

Frank Frazetta provides the famous cover for this issue of Eerie, featuring a giant naked woman on the top of the Empire State Building, holding a gorilla in her hands (an obvious parody of King Kong). This cover was originally produced six years earlier when Warren was planning on publishing an adult magazine called "POW!". That magazine never came to be, so Warren held onto the cover for years, eventually using it here in February 1977. All of the stories in this issue are based on this cover.

First is "Goodbye, Bambi Boone" by Carmine Infantino & Dick Giordano (art) and Cary Bates (story). Bambi Boone is a giant sized actress who grew to a great size after an experiment to increase the size of her breasts went horribly wrong. Bambi is upset at people not taking her seriously in her roles, and when she takes part in a movie similar to King Kong she asks her manager to assist her in feeling actual pain when she is fired upon by planes during the shooting. The manager loads the planes with real bullets however and she is killed during the shooting. The manager knew that she was dying due to her great size, so he set up this up to have her killed.

Second is "Taking of Queen Bovine" by Ramon Torrents (art) and Gerry Boudreau (story). Queen Bovine of the title is a secret agent who takes responsibility for helping Gnik Gnok, a member of a chimp race that is planning on invading Earth. Thinking they are going to be wiped out, he defects to the human race to prevent the invasion from taking place. Bovine assists him and in order to protect him climbs a skyscraper where she is killed by the chimp invaders.

Third is "The Bride of Congo: The Untold Story" by Carmine Infantino & Gonzalo Mayo (story) and Bill Dubay (story). This story takes place after the original King Kong story. Amy, the woman captured by him is still obsessed with Kong, even after her death and even after getting married to a human man. She eventually finds out that King Kong didn't actually die, but is wounded and needs a blood transfusion. She volunteers but it ends up turning her into a giant size as well. She leaves and grabs onto her husband, who is dressed in an ape suit, heading to the Empire State Building. King Kong comes after her and the two leave to his home, to be happily ever after.

Fourth is "You're A Big Girl Now" by Richard Corben (art) and Bruce Jones (story). Except for the first and last pages, this story is in color. This story features Rachel, a girl who is born at a huge size and continues to grow larger and larger as she gets older. Lowery, a newspaper reporter befriends her when she is still a child. When she grows up she gets upset when she finds out he doesn't love her like she loves him. Fearful of her continuously growing size the military tries to destroy her and she goes on a rampage in New York city, looking for the Statue of Liberty, which she believes to be her mother. Many years later aliens find her body and realize that she grew so large that she ended up destroying the Earth.

Fifth is "Starchild" by Jose Ortiz (art) and Louise Jones & David Micheline (story). The 'Starchild' of the title is an artificially created giant woman who is sent to another planet with her normal sized brother to build a city. There she meets some apes that live nearby and befriends them. Her brother is ordered to either retrieve her or destroy her. Not wanting to harm her, he leaves her there, deciding to lie about her being destroyed.

Sixth is "The Giant Ape Suit" by Luis Bermejo (art) and Roger McKenzie (story). In this story it is revealed that King Kong was actually a giant robot. The brother of the man who controlled the robot seeks to build another one years later by finding the lab where it was built. He is betrayed by a pair of criminals that he was going to work with, and they head to the lab, where they find a robot of a giant naked woman. One of the criminals betrays the other and takes control of the robot, heading through the city and climbing a building before being knocked off and destroyed.

Last is "Golden Girl" by Leopold Sanchez (art) and Nicola Cuti (story). A company inspector arrives on a planet but quickly forgets her mission when she hears that there is a city of gold nearby. The men there bring her there, where the city is revealed to be a miniature version of New York City. When she heads into the city she is attacked by the miniature locals, sprayed with gold, and turned into their own version of the Statue of Liberty.

Eerie 99

The Rook is cover featured for the first time in quite a while in this issue, a cover by Jordi Penalva.

First is the Rook in "Hickey and the Pirates" by Jose Ortiz (art) and Bill Dubay (story). Bishop Dane is shocked to find out that the Rook has to pay income taxes when he meets the Rook's accountant. Longing for adventure, Dane heads to the past where pirates reigned, and he encounters the accountant's ancestor. Like the last story, a tad long and overcomplicated, although Ortiz fills in nicely with the art.

Second is "The Horizon Seekers", a new series from Leo Duranona (art) and Duranona & Cary Bates (story). This long series was a pretty good one, although this is a weak first story. It takes place in the desert where a woman, Allison, takes a man, Jessie, prisoner. They are then captured themselves and brought to a city which they eventually escape from.

Third is the second and final story in the "The Shining Sea" by Alfredo Alcala (art) and Nicola Cuti (story). Humans arrive from Earth, but they are quite cruel, murdering many of the fish-people in order to take their gold. Our hero is able to fight them off, but at the cost of our hero's lover. Later more friendly humans arrive as well. Some very odd concepts with this series, but it ended up being an okay series.

Fourth is the second and final part of "Harrow House" by Jose Ortiz (art) and Bruce Jones (story). Our protagonist discovers that Gretchen is alive after all. Gretchen tells him her aunt has been drugging him and others who have come to the house, and taking their blood because she is a vampire. The aunt arrives and Gretchen runs off outside. The aunt reveals that Gretchen is the actual vampire, and that she has been gathering blood for her. Having made it outside in the sunlight however, Gretchen is killed. A very good conclusion, the strongest story here.

Last is "A Crack in Time" by Pablo Marcos (art) and Louise Jones (story). A couple goes back in time in order to study Cro-Magnon man. There they are confronted by Neanderthals who capture them, and eventually escape. Their time machine is destroyed, stranding them there, making them realize that they themselves are the Cro-Magnons who were the ancestors of modern humanity.

Eerie 94

Don Maitz paints another terrific cover featuring the series Honor & Blood.

First is "The Coming of the Annihilator" by Luis Bermejo (art) and Bill Dubay (story). Despite being part of the Rook series, this story actually more heavily features Vampirella and Pantha, in a guest starring role. This story takes place just after their return from Drakulon (which should have taken place between issues 66 and 67 of Vampirella). They encounter a monster known as the Annihilator which absorbs energy, so they hope to go back in time with the Rook's help to prevent it from ever being brought to Earth.

Second is the second story in the "Honor & Blood" series with art by Leo Duranona and story by Nicola Cuti. This story continues with the daughter from the prior story, Sybil, now all grown up. She takes part in a pagan ceremony attempting to give birth to the anti-christ by having sex with a man with an elk mask. She gives birth to a son, Ian, and the doctor, seeing that he will be a vampire himself, tries to stop it by putting dirt from a vampire's grave on him. Sybil interferes, but the sun ends up killing her. Ian grows up to become a well known lawyer, but he is murdered when he tries to help a man who is framed. He comes back to life as a vampire, and while he desires only revenge against the man who killed him, he can't help but take other victims as well. He is eventually killed for good by his step-father the doctor, who is revealed to be his real father. The story ends with his son appearing to display homicidal tendencies as well. This series continues to be extremely good, head and shoulders above anything else in this magazine.

Third is "Dead Man's Ship" by Isidro Mones (art) and Nicola Cuti (story). A ship heading to China comes across a ship filled with corpses, dead of the plague. The captain, thinking that he sees himself as one of the corpses, orders the ship destroyed. They arrive in China, where they are told that a ship with the same name was there mere months before. The ship departs, and soon the crew start coming down with an illness. Scared of their fate, the captain orders an approaching ship fired upon, thinking it is their ship. But is actually a completed different one, that fires back, killing them all.

Fourth is "Divine Wind" by Esteban Maroto (art) and Louise Jones & Budd Lewis (story). This is a rather poor story, featuring the Mongoloid invasion of Japan hundreds of years ago and the weather which helps the Japanese fight htem off.

Fifth is "Don't Drink the Water" by Martin Salvador (art) and Gerry Boudreau (story). A group of boys come across a canteen containing an antidote for a sick alien. The antidote has horrific effect on humans however, and a boy who drinks it goes on a murderous rage, killing one of his friends. His brother later kills their mother when he drinks it. The whole town's water supply ends up getting contaminated with the stuff.

Last is "Bruce Bloodletter of the IRS" by Fernando Fernandez (art) and Fernando Fernandez & Bill Dubay (story). This story was originally created by Fernandez in Europe as an educational story and was rewritten by Dubay in its reprinting here. Bloodletter of the title is an IRS agent, coming to a planet of lunatics where he is coming after the tax cheat Silas Mendicant. Despite Fernandez's good art, this is a very lame story and ends right in the middle of things. Bloodletter would return for his final Warren appearance a few years later in Eerie 117.

Creepy 101

Richard Corben provides the cover for this issue, a 'Jaws of Death' special issue. This cover appears to have been originally intended for issue 83 from 2 years earlier, but didn't make its first and only appearance until this issue. A very strong first story (which is a reprint), but other than that this isn't all that great an issue.

Up first is "In Deep" by Richard Corben (art) and Bruce Jones (story), a reprint of the classic story from Creepy 83. Given that this cover was originally intended for this story, they reprinted it here, and made a sequel story which follows this story. This story tells of a husband and wife whose yacht sinks. The two of them are stranded in the water with just an inner tube to keep them afloat. Over the night the wife drowns, leaving the husband on his own. To his horror seagulls and soon sharks arriving trying to eat her corpse. He fights them off as best he can, but can't stop them all. When he's finally rescued all thats left is her heart, which he grasps tightly in his hands. An extremely good story, one of Creepy's best ever, although this particular version isn't in color, which definately helped it out tremendously in its original printing.

Next is "In Deep II" by Leo Duranona (art) and Bruce Jones (story). The man from the prior story is feeling better, and has dedicated his life to killing sharks. A woman from a museum who is looking for a body of a great white enlists his help. He agrees only because she reminds him of his dead wife. They encounter similar situation when their ship sinks, leaving them in shark infested waters, but this time they both make it out okay.

Third is "A Boy and His Thing" by Alex Nino (art) and Bill Dubay (story). A young boy visits a ship captain who is a friend of his. The captain tells him of a giant tentacled creature they fought and killed at sea. He brought back the baby of the creature, which he gives to the boy.

Fourth is "Waterbabies", this issue's color story, by Pablo Marcos (art) and Louise Jones (story). A group of people go after a group of humanoid sea creatures who were bred to be servents, but escaped. They try to capture the creatures but all end up being killed except for one, which is taken captive by them.

Fifth is "The Seven Sisters of the Sea" by Alfredo Alcala (art) and Gerry Boudreau (story). A pirate ship attacks another ship including a man on the ship who curses them. They later find seven sisters on a boat who they let aboard until they have their way with them, then send them out. The ship is later destroyed, but the surviving member finds a ship, the very ship they attacked earlier which is filled with ghosts that get their revenge. In modern times a ship ran by a drug maker heads to the same region and disappears.

Last is "Alternate Paths" by Pepe Moreno Casares (art) and Chris Adames (story). In a futuristic society a man invents a time machine, but the council in charge of things refuses to let him use it to avoid him screwing up time. He goes against their wishes and uses it anyway, and while back in time he kills a large manta ray. This results in effecting the future, resulting in the destruction of his society, Atlantis.