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.

Vampirella 63

Enrich provides the cover for this issue of Vampirella, one somewhat similar in vein to his cover for issue 29. Although usual practice had been for the annual Vampirella reprint issue to contain a new Vampirella story, that practice stopped starting with this issue. This issue is dated September 1977.

First is "Vampirella and the Sultana's Revenge!" by Jose Gonzalez (art) and Mike Butterworth (story, as Flaxman Loew), from Vampirella 33. Vampirella and Pendragon are invited by a Sultana to perform. It ends up the Sultana is Droga, Kruger's girlfriend from issue 34's story. She is cheating on her husband, but he has agreed to never harm her no matter what she does. She plans to have Vampirella thrown to the beast that lives in their castle, but Vampirella ends up killing it. The Sultana is caught cheating, so her husband punishes her by force feeding her until she becomes grotesquely fat. Some amazing, sexy artwork on this story.

Second is "Jenifer" by Berni Wrightson (art) and Bruce Jones (story), from Creepy 63. A man hunting in the woods one day rescues a girl from being killed. The girl, called Jenifer has the ugliest face imaginable, but he becomes obsessed with her, and adopts her. His family hates her and eventually leave him after she scares them off. He then does what he can to get rid of her, such as having a freak show owner come to take her, but Jenifer simply kills the man and shoves his corpse in the fridge. Eventually he brings her out into the woods to kill her, only to be killed by someone wandering by, much like what happened at the start of the story.

Third is "Ground Round" by Auraleon (art) and Roger McKenzie (story), from Vampirella 50, A butcher kills his wife and puts her body in the freezer, grounding up her body and selling it at the store. As a cover he says she's sick and that they'll be movign to Florida. When her nosy friend arrives, he has to kill her too and heads to the freezer, but gets locked in, with the remains of his wife, who takes revenge on him.

Fourth is "As Ye Sow..." by Luis Bermejo (art) and Bruce Jones (story), from Creepy 79. This story takes place in a post apocalyptic society featuring a family of cannibals. The daughter of the family finds a man hiding in the woods. They fall in love with each other and she hides him from the others. When her family finds him and tries to eat him, she tries to scare them off with a cross but they shoot her in the face. They force her to have babies with the man, which they then proceed to eat.

Fifth is "The Parable of the Hermits of Glastonbury Tor" by Ramon Torrents (art) and Gerry Boudreau (story), from Vampirella 45. Bertrand, a scholar, comes to the town of Glastonbury. He heads to the Hermit's abbey where he meets a beautiful woman to whom he makes love. The woman tells him she is life, and introduces him to the seven hermits of Glastonbury Tor. She tells him that he can have eternal life, that others who have come eventually chose death, but he can avoid that by choosing to marry her and always remaining faithful to her. He gladly does so, and the hermits also give him a gift of whatever he wants, so he tells them that no matter what they can never inflict death upon him. The years go by. He is happy for a while, but eventually becomes bored and leaves the abbey to sleep with women from the outside world. While his wife cannot kill him due to the deal with the hermits, she does cause him to fade from existence entirely.

Sixth is "The Professional" by Zesar Lopez (art) and Bruce Jones (story), from Vampirella 53. This story features a man who moves into a new town and seduces a number of housewives by playing up a story about how they resemble his dead wife. He secretly takes pictures of their affairs then blackmails him. Eventually he is undone by the one women he failed to seduce, who gangs up on him along with the others and kills him. In the end it ends up that she is doing the same thing with the various men of the town.

Seventh is "Wings of Vengeance" by Esteban Maroto (art) and Maroto & Bill Dubay (story), from Creepy 81. This story is about a prince whose father comes back from the war with a beautiful young woman who is to be his bride. The prince embraces her however and is caught by the King, who has her whipped to death, and has him beaten so bad that his eyes, nose and mouth are all destroyed. The king meets his end soon after however when birds that the maimed prince conversed with peck him to death.

Creepy 132

This issue is an all Richard Corben special, including the cover, which is reprinted from Eerie 90. This issue is dated October 1981.

The first story is "A Tangible Hatred" by Richard Corben (art) and Don McGregor (story), from Creepy 43. A very incomprehensible poor story from McGregor which has some very nice Corben artwork. It features a rotting corpse hitchhiker who is created due to people's hatred. The story features, Detective Turner, a recurring character in many McGregor stories. As is often seen from him, absolute crap from McGregor with a lot of political/hippie nonsense.

Second is "Bright Eyes" by Richard Corben (art) and Doug Moench (story), from Eerie 43. 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.

Third is the story, "A Woman Scorned" by Richard Corben (art) and Bruce Jones (story), from Eerie 90. This story features a girl and the talking blue lizard she travels with in a desolate world, who keeps trying to get her to remember things, which appears as soon as she does. This includes a car, a house, trees, etc... We head to the past where we learn about the girl's childhood and her ability to cause anything she want to happen. She is soon able to get everything back to normal, including turning the lizard back into her boyfriend, but when she remembers him cheating on her, she resets everything to nothingness once again.

Fourth is "Bowser" by Richard Corben (art) and Jan Strand (story). This story is from Vampirella 54. The story is about a boy who owns a unique pet, Bowser, a tentacled monster. The monster eats dogs, humans, etc... causing the boy's parents to want to get rid of it. He lets the creature go free but it ends up the problems were due to Bowser being pregnant, and it has babies, many more little tentacled monsters.

"The Pest" is next, by Richard Corben (art) and Al Hewetson (story), from Eerie 33. 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.

Sixth is "The Mummy's Victory" by Richard Corben (art) and Roger McKenzie (story), from Creepy 84. A mummy in a museum comes back to life and takes the place of an injured player in a football game, winning the game for them! Funny art by Corben on the mummy.

Seventh is the first part of a two part series, titled 'The Butcher'. This story's called "Forgive Us Our Tresspasses", with art by Richard Corben and story by Bill Dubay. This story is from Eerie 62. This gangland melodrama features a crime lord who is killed on his deathbed by assassins hired by one of his sons, hoping to frame a rival crime family. During the murder the priest who was tending the crime lord is mutilated and apparantely killed. After hiding out the assassins are all killed... by the priest, who survived the attack and now swears revenge as 'The Butcher'.

Last is the second and final part of the Butcher, titled "Bye Bye Miss American Dream" by Richard Corben (art) and Bill Dubay (story), from Eerie 64. The mob war continues, with the youngest Gambino brother wiping out the leaders of both mobs and taking all the power for himself... only for the Butcher to arrive and kill him seconds later. Realizing he enjoys killing however, the Butcher retires.

Vampirella 91

This issue of Vampirella, from October 1980 is an all reprint issue featuring various Vampirella stories. The cover is a montage of various past Warren covers (featuring artist Enrich and Sanjulian, from Creepy 51, 58 and 60, Eerie 41, and Vampirella 40 and 57) with new artwork from Enrich.

First is "The Carnival of Death" by Jose Gonzalez (art) and Mike Butterworth (story, as Flaxman Loew), from Vampirella 34. Traveling in Venice, Vampirella and Pendragon meet the Zymer, a cruel man who Vampirella gets upset at after he forces participation in a russian roulette type game. Meanwhile a rich couple invites many old friends to a ball they are having, and an invitation ends up going to Zymer too. A large group heads to the ball, where they find that the other guests are actually corpses! Vampirella finally snaps, killing Zymer by draining his blood. They depart, leaving the rich couple with their dead friends.

Second is "The Human Marketplace" by Jose Gonzalez (art) and Gerry Boudreau (story), from Vampirella 53. Vampi is caught with her forged passport on the US border and agrees to work undercover in order to get off the hook. She is used to go undercover to thwart Algernon Silver, a man who plans to sell women to various world leaders and use them to kill them all at once. As usual, Vampi is able to save the day while Silver's own men also end up 'screwing' up his plans. Pretty good story with gorgeous art by Gonzalez.

Third is "City of Ghosts" by Jose Gonzalez (art) and Roger McKenzie (story), from Vampirella 57. Vampirella is stranded in the desert and comes across a deserted town where she meets her husband from Drakulon, Tristan. Adam arrives but is shot by him. Eventually it ends up that it was all an illusion and Vampi is reunited with Pendragon and Adam.

Fourth is "The Headless Horseman of All-Hallow's Eve!" by Jose Gonzalez (art) and Bill Dubay (story) from Vampirella 56. Some extremely good art by Gonzalez here, one of his best Vampirella stories ever. Vampirella and Adam try to solve the mystery of a headless horsemen who is kidnapping young woman. Using Vampi as bait they find the truth, it is actually some men who are trying to sell the women into slavery. Vampi and Adam are able to stop their operations.
Fifth is "Pendragon's Last Bow" by Jose Gonzalez (art) and Bill Dubay (story) from Vampirella 59. Vampi and Pendragon come to a new town where some murders have been taking place. Pendragon meets a beautiful woman Rosie, the owner of an antique shop directly above the place where the corpses have been found. The Van Helsings arrive and find that Rosie is a succubus, who along with her brother is responsible for the murders. Rosie and her brother are killed, but she saves Adam, who had been attacked by her brother before she dies.

Vampirella 50

Sanjulian provides the cover for this issue of Vampirella, dated April 1976. This special issue, Bill Dubay's last in his original run as editor includes the first feature length Vampirella story, told here across five Vampi stories. Jose Gonzalez provides a one page intro from Vampirella.

First is "Call Me Panther!" by Jose Gonzalez (art) and Bill Dubay (story). Vampirella, traveling through the graveyard, finds a dead body hanging from the tree, as well as a woman who transforms into a panther when she puts a stone necklace on. Vampirella manages to take the necklace off the woman, whom ends up getting kiled when she is struck by a train while running from Vampi.

Next is "The High-Gloss Egyptian Junk Peddler" by Esteban Maroto (art) and Bill Dubay (story). Conrad has visions of a demon like creature killing another woman in the graveyard. For now though our heroes ignore that and try to find the origin of the necklace, which is called the Khafra Stone. They visit an Egyptian expert, Nubia El Amarna, who tells them of the stone's origin. It belonged to Khafra, who appeared in Egypt during the reign of Khufu when a ship he was on crashed nearby. Khafra worked for the pharoah, then became pharoah himself after his death. Khafra had the ability to turn into a panther himself. That night Nubia transforms into a panther herself when she steals the necklace, but is stopped by Adam when he pulls the necklace off of her.

Third is "Granny Goose and the Baby Dealers" by Ramon Torrents (art) and Bill Dubay (story). Conrad and Pendragon investigate the events in the graveyard while Adam and Vampi head to New York to find Fleur, who they think can help them solve the mystery of the Khafra stone. Fleur also gets involved with Granny Goose, who is in charge of a group that deals with black market sales of kidnapped babies. Fleur reveals that Khafra was an alien and that there have been many panther people throughout time. She then shows them Khafra's last living descendent, who just happens to be Pantha!

Fourth is "The Final Star of Morning" by Bill Dubay & Jeff Jones (art) and Bill Dubay (story). Adam and Vampirella head to Egypt where Pantha has been kept in a cell by Russians who captured her after Pantha's previous appearance in issue 44. The Russians hope to copy the Khafra Stone and have a whole army of panthers to take over the world. However, Vampi wears the Khafra stone and Pantha turns into her Panther self, killing the Russians who have captured them. Pantha decides to head to her home planet and agrees to bring Vampirella to Drakulon along the way (this was before Panther realized that she too was from Drakulon), but Vampirella decides to stay on Earth with Adam.

Fifth is "The Thing in Denny Colt's Grave" by Jose Ortiz (art) and Bill Dubay (story). Pendragon and Conrad head to the graveyard, where they find a woman captured whom they save. While Conrad tends to her, Pendragon heads after the killer, who is nothing supernatural, but just a crazy guy named Elmiro Dungfoot. By causing an illusion of the Spirit, Pendragon captures him. The Spirit makes a cameo appearance in one of the last few panels.

Last is "Ground Round" by Auraleon (art) and Roger McKenzie (story), the sole non-Vampirella story of this issue. A butcher kills his wife and puts her body in the freezer, groundind up her body and selling it at the store. As a cover he says she's sick and that they'll be moving to Florida. When her nosy friend arrives, he has to kill her too and heads to the freezer, but gets locked in, with the remains of his wife, who takes revenge on him.

Creepy 92

Frank Frazetta's cover from Eerie 23 is used for this issue of Creepy. One of his best, if not his best cover for Warren, although its annoying to see it reprinted here instead of having a new one. This issue is cover dated October 1977. Aside from the fact that the cover's a reprint, this is an extremely good issue.

First is "A Toast to No Man's Memory" by John Severin (art) and Len Wein (story). A group of pilots, including a young newbie, Babbit agree to save a bottle of wine for the last one of them that lives. The pilots slowly start dying in battle, much due in part to Babbit's cowardice. Eventually the last one of them is shot by Babbit himself when he threatens getting him court martialed. Babbit drinks the wine, but it ends up that the last of the pilots poisoned it, so it kills him.

Second is "Mrs. Sludge and the Pickled Octopus Raid" by Luis Bermejo (art) and Bill Dubay (story). A young man comes across a cabin in the dead of winter, away from civilization. The people inside tell him of Octopus-like aliens whom they found and killed, which they found to taste quite good. The young man runs off to tell someone about the discovery of alien life. It ends up that the people in the cabin are actually the aliens though, and are anxious to find more humans to eat.

Third is "Instinct" by Richard Corben (art) and Nicola Cuti (story). A king marries a beautiful young woman from an odd country of people. He desires to have a son greatly, but she bears him only daughters. Years go by and she is pregnant yet again, but starts acting strangely, biting their kids. Her attendant tells the King that in their country, mothers kills their children. When the King tries to stop her, he dies of a heart attack. She is banished from the kingdom as soon as the son is born, who ends up being born as a rat! This story was eventually done back in 1970 and for some unknown reason was held back for seven years.

Fourth is "Towards High Places" by Ramon Torrents (art) and Bruce Jones (story). This story tells of twin princesses during the Egyptian empire, Euthesus and Tanakus. As the older of the two, Euthesus is set to become queen upon their father's death. Tanakus falls in love with a slave, which Euthesus kills. Euthesus wants her body to be undisturbed forever, and Tanakus helps her set up a chamber in her pyramid to do so using the knowledge taught to her by her former lover. When Euthesus tries to trap her within the pyramid however, Tanakus tricks her and rules Egypt in her place while her sister is buried alive. Some very nice art and a good story that ties in to the reprint cover.

Fifth is "The Executioner" by Russ Heath (art) and Heath & Cary Bates (story). This story features a hitman, Tony Desoto who kills a big time mobster, and quickly rises through the ranks because of it. Eventually he decides to retire and is hired by his boss to do one last hit. It was a set up, but he is still able to get out alive. He goes to a prosecutor to try to get immunity, but that prosecutor is also working for the mob, and kills him.

Sixth is "Goddess in a Kingdom of Trolls" by Esteban Maroto (art) and Gerry Boudreau (story). This story tells of a human woman who was brought up by trolls. Seeking a human lover, she wanders away from their kingdom one day and meets a hunter in the woods. Hymie, a troll wizard puts on a magic hat that makes him look like a handsome prince. He casts a spell on the hunter then finds the woman, trying to get her to fall in love with him. Hymie later meets a mysterious beautiful woman in the woods wearing a hat. When the truth is revealed, he helps our heroine find the hunter and discovers that the other woman he met is a fellow troll who was using the same type of spell as he. A very good story and some extremely good art from Maroto.

Seventh is "Everybody and His Sister" by Leopold Sanchez (art) and Jim Stenstrum (story). This issue's weakest story, it features a man who finds many people suddenly showing up where ever he goes. This includes at work, in a restaurant and even at his apartment. When they all run in an elevator with him it crashes, but when he awakens in the hospital he is told he was the only one there. When he is about to be operated on though, all the pople suddenly show up again.
Last is "The Generations of Noah" by Leo Duranona (art) and Roger McKenzie (story). An ark-like spaceship starts traveling from planet to planet, saving a male and female from each planet. Its leader is a frog like alien similar to Noah who makes himself appears like an old man. When the ark comes to Earth though and picks up a young couple, everything goes wrong. First 'Noah' is killed by the father of the female human, then the ark is blown up by missiles just as it is about to leave Earth.

Creepy 81

Ken Kelly provides the airborne cover to this issue of Creepy, from July 1976. Only a so-so issue at best, somewhat of a dissappointment for this era of Creepy.

First is "Brannigan's Gremlins" by Luis Bermejo (art) and Bill Dubay (story). This story is about an old man reminicing about his time in World War I where he was part of a plane squadron. Gremlins appear on the man's plane and also accompany his co-pilot, Brannigan. The Gremlins are actually good luck for them, and the two survive the war, the only ones in their squadron to do so.

Second is "Wings of Vengeance" by Esteban Maroto (art) and Maroto & Bill Dubay (story). This story is about a prince whose father comes back from the war with a beautiful young woman who is to be his bride. The prince embraces her however and is caught by the King, who has her whipped to death, and has him beaten so bad that his eyes, nose and mouth are all destroyed. The king meets his end soon after however when birds that the maimed prince conversed with peck him to death.

Third is "The War!" by Paul Neary (art) and Roger McKenzie (story). This story features a man in armor battling vampires in a devastated landsape. He eventually comes across a large group of them and is taken out not by them, but a woman fighter who was also there, as it ends up this 'war' is between males and females.

Fourth is "Close Shave" by Martin Salvador (art) and Roger McKenzie (story). This story features a barber who kills the husband of his lover. After he kills her however a homeless bum arrives, preventing him from being able to hide the corpse easily. He ends up going crazy, cutting off all the skin on the corpse.

Fifth is "Battle Rot" by John Severin (art) and Bill Dubay (story). A soldier tells another soldier of corpses rising back to life. His fellow soldier doesn't believe him, but when he crashes his plane into a hospital, he comes across just that! The second story in this issue featuring planes during World War I. Yawn.

Sixth is "Billicar and the Momblywambles of Glass" by Isidro Mones (art) and Steve Clement (story). This story is about a boy, Billy Car, who falls through a mirror into another world where he meets a talking sloth who warns him about the Momblywambles, T-Rex like creatures. When his teacher locks him in a closet with the mirror again, he once again falls into that world, but fights the Momblywambles off with a magic wand. This time he leaves the world forever.

Vampirella 58

A holiday themed issue of Vampirella, featuring a very good cover by Enrich. Seven stories here, a rarity for an issue from this era of Warren.

First is Vampirella in "Lenore" by Jose Gonzalez (art) and Roger McKenzie (story). Vampirella, Pendragon and Adam arrive at a castle where a crazy old man is storing the corpse of his dead wife Lenore in a tank. The old man had gone crazy after Lenore passed away many years ago. Since then he has performed experiments, allowing him to remain alive, and also enabling his ape pet, Rocco to talk. Rocco ends up freeing Vampirella and Pendragon, but the old man transfers Adam's youth to himself. When Vampi arrives they get into a struggle and the man ends up dying after he falls into the tank with his dead wife. When he dies, his youth returns back to Adam. Rocco bids farewell to Vampi and co, choosing to go down with the castle when it collapses.

Next is this issue's first Christmas themed story, "A Matchstick Angel" by Ramon Torrents (art) and Budd Lewis (story). This story features a sick rich little boy whose set to die right around Christmas time. His only friend is a poor girl, Taddie Openshoes. When Death comes to claim him on Christmas Eve, Taddie convinces him to take her instead, and he recovers.

My number one Warren story of all time is third, "Yellow Heat" by Russ Heath (art) and Bruce Jones (story). Heath's art is some of the best to ever appear in a Warren story. This story takes place in Africa before World War I and surrounds Uthu, a young warrior in an African tribe. When a beautiful woman from an opposing tribe is captured, Uthu desires her for himself and challenges the chief when he claims her. In order to obtain her, the chief orders Uthu to accomplish a warrior's quest where he singlehandedly must kill a full grown lion with only a spear within 3 days. A near impossible task, things get even tougher for Uthu when a lion ambushes him unprepared. He gets very lucky however when a large snake attacks the lion, killing it. Uthu kills the snake and drags the lion back to his tribe, victorious. He enters the hut where the captured woman is waiting for him... and thats as far as I'm going to go. This story is memorable largely for having one of the biggest shock endings in Warren history and I'm not going to spoil it for my readers. Let me just say that the final panel is extremely horrific and startling, but ultimately makes sense within the confines of the story once you read it again. Just a fantastic, fantastic story that on its own makes this issue worth having.

Another Christmas themed story is next, "The Christmas Flower" by Jose Ortiz (art) and Budd Lewis (story). This story takes place in a poor black neighborhood where a young boy finds a flower growing out of the pavement. He views this as a miracle, but some gang members step on it soon afterwards. With the help of some women passing by, he is able to prop it up, and keep it alive. A huge crowd soon gathers around it. Later, the gang member who stepped on it swerves away from it while on a motorcycle and ends up killing himself when he hits a car.

Fifth is "The Wambaugh" by Auraleon (art) and Bruce Jones (story). A Hollywood star who just got his big break meets in the wintery Canadian wilderness with a producer friend and his wife. While there they read a story about the Wambaugh, a beast that appears in Canada taking the form of corpses that searches for a mate. The producer's wife convinces the star to kill her husband since he is finished in Hollywood. The star is too nervous to do so, so she does it herself away from him. She soon starts freaking out about seeing the Wambaugh however and when they see the corpse of her husband, the star has a heart attack and dies. It ends up all being a trick to kill him so the producer can get his role instead. But in actuality the Wambaugh has taken the producer's form and claims the wife for himself. Not a bad story, but some odd narrative lapses at time that make it seem as if captions on certain panels were left off completely.

Sixth is "Little Monster" by Carmine Infantino & Dick Giordano (art) and Roger McKenzie (story). This story features an old bus driver, Leroy, who views children as monsters. He remembers a teacher he had when he was a child who shared this opinion, who died when the 'little monsters' called her to fall out of a window. Eventually he ends up getting into an accident when his bus hits a moving train. All the kids live, but he dies.

Last is "The Sleeping Beauty" by Esteban Maroto (art) and Maroto & Bill Dubay (story). Some extremely good, exotic art by Maroto here, which appears sideways. As told in the captions, years before a prince married a beautiful peasent girl, Aurora. After their marriage she revealed to him that she had made a deal with a demon in order to be able to marry him, where she gave up both her soul and their first born son. When the son is born, the father fights off the demon. The demon instead curses the prince, taking his castle and wife, making him a peasant. The artwork shows the present day, as the son, now all grown up heads through the demon possessed castle, encountering a winged maiden, dragons and finally the demon itself, which appears as a nine headed serpent. Successfully making it past them, he comes across his mother, who remains as youthful and beautiful as she was when he was born. But upon kissing her it is revealed that she too has become a demon and kills him. A similar narrative style here to stories that Dubay wrote in 1984/1994, where the captions tell a story which isn't really seen in the artwork at all.

Creepy 95

This issue is an apes special issue. It is cover dated February 1978. All stories within feature apes in some manner. Doing themed issues like this based on the cover was a very common Warren theme throughout the years. Two stories that were clearly intended to appear in this issue also appeared in Creepy 99 and Eerie 92. Don Maitz provides the cover.

First is "The Star Saga of Sirius Sam" by John Severin (art) and Nicola Cuti (story). Two men come to meet Sam of the title to head to an alien planet and steal a gem which they hope to use to keep alive a woman who is the wife of one of them and the sister of the other. They head to the planet, which is ruled by chimps. They find the gem, but discover it is only made of glass, as the real one was taken long ago. The glass substitute is destroyed while they are there. They are able to escape safely by using the glass eye of one of the men to replace the destroyed substitute however.

Second is "The Laughing Man" by Berni Wrightson (art) and Bruce Jones (story). The best story of the issue, it features a man found by a doctor in the African jungles laughing maniacally. With some drugs the man calms down and tells how he and his business partner headed to the African jungles in an attempt to find intelligent chimps. They catch one dead, and our protagonist's business partner skins the creature and uses it as a costume to attract another one. He vanishes after a while and turns up later, but it ends up he is actually an ape, wearing the dead partner's skin as a costume! A terrific story, unfortunately it would be Wrightson's last Warren story.

Third is this issue's color story, "Murder on the Vine" by Esteban Maroto (art) and Cary Bates (story). In this story a young woman and a boy kill Tarzan in order to steal his treasure. Meanwhile the animals of the jungle, aware of whats going on, take steps to arm themselves and fight back, led by a chimp friend of Tarzan. The murderers are caught and dumped into a tar pit. Some so-so color on this story, nowhere as good as it has been in previous issues.

Fourth is "The Empire of Chim-Pan-Zee" by Luis Bermejo (art) and Nicola Cuti (story). The empire fights neanderthals, but is hopelessly outnumbered and is losing ground fast. A few of the chimps find modern humans nearby who have gone back in time and have powerful rockets and other devices. They hope to use them by taking the button that activates them, but find it useless on its own and are wiped out by the neanderthals.

Fifth is "The Oasis Inn" by Jose Ortiz (art) and Bob Toomey (story). This issue's weakest story by far, it features ape soldiers, one of whom is after a woman whose going out with a gorilla officer. They go through various escapades and all end up friends at the end.

Last is "The Old Ways" by Leo Duranona (art) and Roger McKenzie (story). This story takes place in a post apocalyptic world where talking apes reign supreme. The sole remaining living human fights them off, shooting at them. Eventually one of them finds a gun and confronts him, killing him.

Creepy 89

This issue of Creepy is an all war special issue. Alas, the stories here aren't at the quality of the Blazing Combat days, which would have made this quite the issue. The cover is a reprint of Frank Frazetta's cover for Blazing Combat 1.

First is "Blood Brothers" by Jose Ortiz (art) and Bruce Jones (story). The issue's best story, it is about a soldier who meets another soldier, Voper among the dead of a destroyed fort. Voper travels with him, but constantly dissappears and appears fine after being shot by our protagonist. At the end of the story it is revealed that Voper was dead the entire time and was actually being eaten by our protagonist.

Second is "The Windmill" by Leo Duranona (art) and Lou Rossin (story). This short story, at only 5 pages, features a hunchback in the days before World War II who fights to save his country of Liechenstein from the Nazis.

Third is "Angel of Jaipur" by John Severin (art) and Bill Dubay (story). This story features a young pilot flying a plane who goes back in time and manages to save his father from a military assault. Despite there being some sceptics, the gun marks on his plane are proof enough that it really happened.

Fourth is "The Hungry Dragon" by Carmine Infantino & Alex Nino (art) and Nicola Cuti (story). A soldier comes across a village in Vietnam where he finds some young children which he attempts to care for. He heads out and kills some enemy soldiers to find food for them, but upon returning finds them eating the remains of some dead soldiers, causing them to kill them... in his mind. In actuality, he only harmed one of them, who ended up becoming his wife years later, but in his mind he is convinced he killed them all.

Fifth is "The Door-Gunner" by Leopold Sanchez (art) and Larry Hama & Cary Bates (story). This story is drawn in pencil only. It features a veteran back from Vietnam who is convinced that he is still there at the war, resulting in murderous rages from him. In the end it ends up that he's in a mental hospital.

Last is "Coggin's Army" by Martin Salvador (art) and Roger McKenzie (story). Similar to the last story, this story takes place in an institution, where an old general, his wheelchair bound friend and others are convinced they are still at war.

Creepy 129

Jeff Easely provides the cover for this issue of Creepy. Rudy Nebres draws a one page intro from Uncle Creepy. Like most issues from this period, a boring issue with nothing much here to impress the reader.

First is "The Terrible Truth About Danny" by Martin Salvador (art) and Bill Dubay (story). This story tells of a young boy with pyschokenetic powers who can cause objects to do whatever he wants to get revenge on anyone whose done him wrong. A beautiful girl moves in next door but unlike other boys doesn't like her. One night he decides to force himself on her to be like everyone else but instead decides to kill himself by blowing his own head up.

Second is "The Saga of Popeye Jackson!" by Paul Neary (art) and Gerry Boudreau (story). This story tells of a revolution from a robot man who used to be human. Some pretty good art from Neary, but a poor, rather dull story.

Third is "Working Class Hero" by Carmine Infantino & Alfredo Alcala (art) and Roger McKenzie (story). This story features an accountant in his forties who looks much older than that who is bored with life, but is suddenly transported to thousands of years in the past where he helps a woman who escaped from her slave master. They go meet with a wizard, the man who brought him back in time by accident and they defeat the slave master. The wizard tries to transport him back to the present, but he ends up in the revolutionary war period instead. Some good art, but a poor, pointless story.

Fourth is "The Last Voyage of Sinbad" by Fred Carillo (art) and Budd Lewis (story). The Sinbad of legend is actually a dim-witted man who desires more than anything else to have friends and have the rain stop. Some treasurer hunters recruit him to join them and when they find how dumb he is they instead plan to have him be the fall guy when they discover a genie that will kill whoever summons him. The genie instead grants Sinbad's wishes to have friends and stop the rain.

Fifth is "He Who Lives!" by Danny Bulandi (art) and Budd Lewis (story). A confusing story about a man on a spaceship who goes down to a planet, sees weird visions, and encounters a vampire who he kills, making him a vampire himself.

Last is "Strategic Retreat" by Herb Arnold (art) and John Ellis Sech (story). This story features a humanoid dinosaur who hires soldiers to kill his old men and help him escape. While escaping however the soldiers sign a new contract with his enemy, giving him only two weeks to live.

Vampirella 59

Enrich provides a rather comedic cover to this issue of Vampirella.

First is "Pendragon's Last Bow" by Jose Gonzalez (art) and Bill Dubay (story). Vampi and Pendragon come to a new town where some murders have been taking place. Pendragon meets a beautiful woman Rosie, the owner of an antique shop directly above the place where the corpses have been found. The Van Helsings arrive and find that Rosie is a succubus, who along with her brother is responsible for the murders. Rosie and her brother are killed, but she saves Adam, who had been attacked by her brother before she dies.

Second is "Changes" by Leo Duranona (art) and Roger McKenzie (story). This story features a man released from a mental institution who wonders around where he used to live, but everything has changed. A rather weak story

Third is "Funeral Day" by Jose Ortiz (art) and Roger McKenzie (story). This story surrounds a funeral director in a post apocalyptic society where people eat the corpse. Another so-so story at best.

Fourth is "Force Feed" by Leopold Sanchez (art) and Cary Bates (story). A killer who is on the run from the police finds a scientist who is able to transport him to someone else's body in another time. He proves it by letting him tempoorarily be in Jack the Ripper. But when they go ahead with transporting him to someone else's body, the scientist, knowing the killer is a vegitarian, has him turned into a Tyranosaurus Rex. The best story of this issue.

Fifth is "The Plot's the Thing" by Martin Salvador (art) and Roger McKenzie (story). A comic book story writer who is an expert at horrific stories decides to inspire himself by killing people. Eventually he kills his wife, then kills his neighbor when he discovers him trying to escape with the body. He drags the bodies to throw over a bridge where he is killed by another man, who just happens to be killing him to inspire himself for his first comic book story.

Last is "The Beast is Yet to Come" by Carmine Infantino & Alex Nino (art) and Nicola Cuti (story). This story features a man on the planet Rego living there with his son. The aliens there tell him of a creature, the "Wilwulf" which he doesn't believe in. After fighting some other aliens on the planet however, he returns home to find that his son is the Wilwulf.

Eerie 102

Sanjulian provides an odd cover for this issue. Most of it is okay, but there is no background whatsoever, just white space. A different style for this issue only, featuring mostly stand alone stories.

First is the Rook in "Terror of the Spaceways" by Lee Elias (art) and Bill Dubay (story). This story was Elias's Warren debut and its quite impressive, a large improvement over the art in prior Rook stories. Elias would for a while do the Rook's stories once the character got its own magazine. This story, which is continued in the next issue, was originally part of a large story that had been split in two after Jim Warren (thankfully) demanded that Dubay reduce the size of the Rook stories. In this story the Rook, upset over the government cutting funding for NASA heads into the future to find something to impress the government. A battle is occuring however, and at the end of the story he comes across a partially destroyed ship, looking for survivors. Ironically enough Joe Brancatelli's 'The Comic Books 'column discusses this very story (clearly before the decision to publish it had occured), with Bill Dubay talking about how he does not want to split the story in two parts for publication.

Second is "Siege", the latest "Horizon Seekers" story. Art is by Leo Duranona and story is by Duranona & Cary Bates. In this story Allison and Jesse are pursued by the giant throughout the castle. It eventually gets its hand stuck in a tower within the castle. Unfortunately for them, an even larger menace, a huge army of creatures seems to be coming from the horizon.

Third is "The Earthquake Stick" by Jose Ortiz (art) and Budd Lewis (story). This story tells of a young boy in an orphanage who is abused by the head of the place as well as his fellow orphans. He has a secret friend however, an alien creature that he is able to summon with a small device he has. Eventually he finds that he can use his fellow orphans as food for the creature.

Fourth is "Ophiophobia" by Martin Salvador (art) and Bill Dubay (story). This story features a man who is deathly afraid of snakes. The story flashes back to his childhood and how his fear in snakes got started. Eventually he gets sent to war in Vietnam, where is he is captured by the enemy and thrown into a pit filled with snakes.

Fifth is "Tracks" by Pepe Moreno Casares (art) and Roger McKenzie (story). This story takes place around a winter cabin where a man's wife dies and her corpse is eaten by some unknown menace. He goes outside trying to hunt it and eventually passes out in the snow.

Last is "Neatness Counts" by Joe Vaultz (art) and Jean Michel Martin (story). This short story with no dialogue features aliens coming to the moon, finding what the astronauts left there, and cleaning it all up, thinking it is trash.

Creepy 87

This issue is a special issue dedicated to the planet Mars. Nicola Cuti is credited as an editor (below Louise Jones and Bill Dubay) for this issue only. The cover is by Berni Wrightson; it is not an original cover but rather colored reprinted panels from art he did within the magazine. Wrightson was reportedly rather upset when he found Warren had done this; its a practice they used occasionally throughout the years, although mostly on reprint issues such as Creepy 82 and Eerie 78. An excellent issue, with only one poor story.

First is a one page feature titled "Four Classic Martians", drawn by Berni Wrightson. It features four panels of various martians. Two of these panels would be used on the cover.

Next is "A Warped Tale" by Gray Morrow (art) and Al Sirois (story). This was Morrow's first Warren appearance since the cover of Eerie 10 in 1967, and his first interior story since Creepy 10 in 1966. Unfortunately it would also be his final Warren appearance. The story features two astronauts who end up going through a timewarp, and find themselves on Mars, thousands of years ago. Mars at this time is a beautiful planet, very similar to Earth. From two of its inhabitants who they meet, they find that Mars is battling a planet that exists between Mars and Jupiter. The aliens from that planet can't breathe on Mars, and vice versa. Eventually these aliens attack, pumping their atmosphere into Mars. When our heroes retaliate, its sets the entire planet on fire. The enemy's planet is destroyed, creating, the asteroid belt that exists today. A very interesting and well drawn story to start the issue.

Third is "A Martian Saga" by Berni Wrightson (art) and Nicola Cuti (story). Rather than an actual story, this is a 6 page poem, told with three panels per page. It features a man coming to Mars who meets a tribe there, confronts a monster, and meets a beautiful woman. Alas, its not a happy ending for him as he suffocated when he takes off his oxygen mask while with the woman.

Fourth is "Those 'Orrible Passions of '78" by Carmine Infantino & Dick Giordano (art) and Bill Dubay (story). This issue's best story, it features a retiring detective being interviewed about the most mysterious case of his career. It involved multiple events occuring within a short period of time where parents murdered their children, then died themselves shortly after. At the same time an old man off in the wilderness just lied down in his yard during a snowstorm and died. Throughout the story we are shown similar events occuring on Mars involving a martian and its dead children. The detective wonders if the death of an alien race somewhere in the universe occuring at the same time as these murders influenced them in some way. As an epilogue we are shown the mysterious face on Mars. A very interesting story.

Fifth is "The Last" by John Severin (art) and Roger McKenzie (story). This story features a humanoid Martin who lives on Mars all alone with a robot. The martian is very depressed over the fact that the humans that used to be there are now all dead. The robot starts playing a movie for him, but the martian, trying to get him to stop, electrocutes himself. Ironically, the movie reveals that he wasn't a martian at all, but a mutated human, effected by radiation from the war on Earth that forced humanity to flee to Mars. All alone, the robot kills himself.

Sixth is "They Come Out at Night" by Martin Salvador (art) and Bruce Jones (story). Some astronauts arrive at Mars and find a prior expedition wiped out, with just corpses there. The story then flashes back to the past where one of the astronauts arrives at Mars, finding that his wife is sleeping with another man. When learning of her infidelity he tries to leave her, but it ends up that she is actually possessed by roach like creatures who infect the other crew members when she kisses them. He kills her, but her corpse still comes after him as its still possessed by the roaches. In the present time, our protagonists are confronted by her corpse, which is still possessed by them!

Last is "Warmonger of Mars" by Ralph Reese (art) and Wally Wood (story). This story was reportedly created a long time before this issue, but not printed until now. The issue's sole poor story, it is a comedic effort featuring a man and creature on Mars. Yawn. Reese's art appears heavily inspired by Wood here.

Creepy 90

Enrich provides the cover for this issue of Creepy, one of his few Creepy covers.

First is "Warrior on the Edge of Forever" by Jose Ortiz (art) and Bill Dubay (story). This story was originally intended for the war special of the prior issue. Its about a man who has dreams of prior lives as a soldier in important wars and conflicts. This story features photos of Warren production assistant Bill Mohalley as a dictator.

Second is "The Wash Out" by Leo Duranona (art) and Bruce Jones (story). A man and an android head out to a planet to find a woman. The man has a lot of disrespect for the android, although they do end up having sex with each other. Eventually they find the woman, who ends up being an android trying to pose as a human, and she's killed by them. Our protagonist ends up being an android after all, the android companion was actually a human all along, and he ends up shorting out his circuits when he drinks some coffee.

Third is "The Search" by Carmine Infantino & Gonzalo Mayo (art) and Roger McKenzie (story). This story is about a town's search for a vampire that has been killing many of its occupants. The story is told from a person who lost his lover to a vampire. It ends up that our narrator is the vampire, and he ends up getting killed by his own father.

Fourth is "Please... Save the Children" by Martin Salvador (art) and Bill Dubay (story). This story tells of a child killer whose daughter ended up dying after she ran away after being spanked. This causes him to go out and start killing children of parents who he perceives as treating them badly. Even though his father is the President of the US, this doesn't stop the prison from executing him.

Fifth is "The Sacrifice" by Auraleon (art) and Jose Toutain (story). This story tells of a tribe which feels the need to sacrifice its most beautiful virgin each year to its God. Even though the sacrifice this time is the chief's daughter, they go ahead with it anyway. The God they worship ends up being a giant computer. A short story at only four pages long.

Last is "Dollie" by Leopold Sanchez (art) and Roger McKenzie (story). This story was originally intended for the previous Christmas special. It features children being given horrific gifts by Santa Claus that cause havoc, such as a rifle that a boy uses to shoot his parents, not knowing it was real and a chemistry set that blows up the entire house. Another girl is given a doll that acts like a vampire. When the mother tears off its head, her daughter's head falls off. It ends up that it isn't Santa, but rather Satan that is giving out these gifts.

Eerie 96

Jordi Penalva provides the cover for this issue, which features Mac Tavish. This issue is a rarity in that there is no Rook story, most likely due to the fact that the next Rook story was over 30 pages long and took a while to put together.

Up first is "Fallen Angels", three stories by Leo Duranona (art) and Guillermo Saccomano & Cary Bates (story). Given Saccomano's credit here (he was not a regular Warren writer), and the fact that the artwork is dated 1976, one would think that this story was originally printed elsewhere and reprinted here. These stories feature four humanoid characters, Hot Chocolate, Knuckle, Marlene and Toc Toc who were cast out of Heaven and forced to do penance on Earth. They each take the appearance of street dwellers. In the first story, "Revenge", they go after a pimp who has been mistreating his whores. The second story, "The Cutman" features an old assassin who is hired to perform a hit, but he screws up and kills the wrong person, forcing the person who hired him, his own son, to kill him. The final story, "Explosive Issue" is about a pair of crooks who arrange to blow up a building for the insurance money. The Fallen Angels get involved and turn to violence, resulting in criticism from their superior. They work to get the head of the whole scam to end up getting himself killed by running into an exploding building. All three stories are fairly good, with some very good art, as usual from Duranona. Unfortunate that no further stories would ever appear.

Next is "Hero of Zodiac V" by Pepe Moreno Casares (art) and Jim Stenstrum (story, as Alabaster Redzone). This story coninues immediately after the last story. Mac Tavish meets with Ida Lizer, a robot lover, then goes to see Spider Andromeda who reveals that Lazard works with Gorgo the Man, a leading candidate for governor on Rara Avis. It is also revealed that they are after Rara Avis due to a raw material there that permits people to live forever. Mac Tavish and Spider lead an attack on a planet breaker factory.

Next is "The Ark" by Carmine Infantino & Walt Simonson (art) and Roger McKenzie (story). In this story an old man builds an ark, causing the rest of the townfolk to ridicule him. He ends up being right though, as rain soon comes. He and his wife hide in the ark and the rest of the town get angry at him for not letting them in. He is killed by the townsfolk when he comes out and they storm in to the ark, where they are trapped, and the rain stops soon after.

Last is "The Shining Sea" by Alfredo Alcala (art) and Nicola Cuti (story). This odd story features a man living in a water filled world where the other people are humanoid except for their dolphin (or other sea creature) faces. He goes searching for his origin, which appears to be from a spaceship that crashed on this world. Another story in this series appeared a few issues later.

Eerie 92

This issue has a sports themed cover by Kim McQuaite, featuring the opening story.

First is "Cold Sweat" by Jose Ortiz (art) and Bill Dubay (story). A pair of hockey players traveling in space are brought to a iceberg shaped asteroid where they are forced to play hockey with a number of robots. It ends up that the robots are controlled by an alien whose planet they were to play in their next match. By shooting a puck at his hidden lair, they are able to destroy him and escape.

Second is the Rook in "Strangers in the Strangest Places!" by Abel Laxamana (art) and Bill Dubay (story). An alien, Organ Lo who is a big fan of the Rook desires to be in the old west with him, so he transfers himself back in time to that very location. There he is helped by an old woman, Granny Fincher who demand so much money from him that he has to resort to becoming a crook to pay her back. This is the first part of a two part story concluded in the next issue.

Third is "Lets Hear it For Homo Sapiens" by Auraleon (art) and Gerry Boudreau (story). This story was originally intended for Creepy 95's apes special. This story tells of a revolution of evolved animals and a young girl that befriends one of the intelligent chimps during their battle.

Fourth is the second Moonshadow story, "Suzanna, Don't You Cry" by Jose Ortiz (art) and Bob Toomey (story). In this story Moonshadow wanders through the desert, finding 'The City of the Changer', which is actually a secret underground lair. There he finds Suzanna, a lover and mentor from his childhood when he became an assassin. Suzanna looks exactly as she did back then. Through flashbacks we find that Moonshadow ended up killing her when she was ordered to kill him. Suzanna takes off her clothes for him, then completely rots away, causing him to become comatose.

Fifth is a new series, Abelmar Jones with "Bad Day 'Cross 100th Street" by Alex Nino (art) and Bill Dubay (story). this story tells of two inner city youth who go to work for a wizard, resulting in the typical number of bizarre looking monsters showing up. Not very good, but this series would continue on for a while.

Gaffer's long awaited conclusion ends the issue in "Final Wish" by Leo Duranona (art) and Roger McKenzie (story). A rather unexpected, but still good conclusion for this series. Infact this might be the most depressing ending a series in Eerie ever had. Gaffer dies of old age and leaves his third and final wish to Jaime. Many years pass, Jaime is now an old man himself, living in a mostly abandoned New York in the midst of a devastating winter. Even worse, news of a war soon comes. Jaime rushes to the old slip of paper where Gaffer left him his wish only to be shot by looters. Jaime wishes for peace on earth just as a nuclear weapon strikes New York, causing a blinding white light that engulfs Jaime and everyone else. The true conclusion to this series appears left to the reader's interpretation. Did Jaime's wish for peace on Earth occur due to everyone being wiped out? Or was the light signalling the end of the devastating winter? Alas, this was it for this series so we'll never know. A minor blooper by the production department in this story, with the "End" logo appearing on the second to last page.

Eerie 90

This issue of Eerie is a special issue based on the cover painting by Richard Corben, featuring a beautiful woman sitting on top of a large blue lizard. All of the non-Rook stories in this issue are based on this cover. Another story originally intended for this issue appeared in Creepy 96, which came out a month after this issue. This is a very consistent, fun to read issue, continuing a pretty strong run from Eerie at this stage in its existence.

First is "Carrion" by Gonzalo Mayo (art) and Gerry Boudreau (story). A beautiful girl travels across the wilderness with a large monster who was transformed into that form by a wizard. The wizard sends various monsters after them, all which fail to stop them. The two of them search for another wizard that can turn him back to human, but find that he has died already. Hungry, in a wintery setting, the monster sacrifices himself and lets the girl eat him to stay alive.

Second is "The Show Must Go On!" by Leo Duranona (art) and Roger McKenzie (story). This story is about a girl who departs the circus that she's in with Tolk, a large monster. She heads to a bar and agrees to sleep with a man to earn some money, but Tolk goes crazy and kills him. It ends up he had a price on his head, so they make some money out of it, and become sheriff of the town.

Third is this issue's color story, "A Woman Scorned" by Richard Corben (art) and Bruce Jones (story). Corben's color in this story isn't as good as usual. This story features a girl and the talking blue lizard she travels with in a desolate world, who keeps trying to get her to remember things, which appears as soon as she does. This includes a car, a house, trees, etc... We head to the past where we learn about the girl's childhood and her ability to cause anything she want to happen. She is soon able to get everything back to normal, including turning the lizard back into her boyfriend, but when she remembers him cheating on her, she resets everything to nothingness once again.

Fourth is "The Fianchetto Affair or: A Matter of Great Delicacy" by Jose Ortiz (art) and Bob Toomey (story). This story takes place sometime in the future, where dinosaur like aliens have come to Earth with humans viewed as food! This story focuses on one of those aliens, who takes a liking to one of the humans, a girl named Fianchetto. She escapes with Fianchetto after resigning from her job and they head to the ruins of New Jersey where she rescues Fianchetto from some human savages, but they are captured and she eats Fianchetto soon afterwards, having learned the errors of her ways.

Last is this issue's Rook story, "What is the Color of Nothingness?". For the first time, someone other than Bermejo draws the Rook, here Alex Nino. Story is by Bill Dubay, as usual. The Rook decides to head to the beginning of time. When he gets there however, he finds many aliens there as well, so many that some start fighting. The Rook meets some friendly aliens who try to stop the fighting and reveal that they harness a great amount of energy from the expanding universe. Another universe nearly expands into ours, but stops just before they come together, avoiding disaster. The Rook returns to the present, where Bishop Dane has been hard at work trying to create robot companions for Manners. Some very good art by Nino and a better than average story by the Rook, which has been very good for three straight issues now.

Eerie 87

This issue of Eerie features a reprint of Frank Frazetta's cover for Vampirella 7.

First is the latest segment of the Rook, "Prisoner in a Chinese Fortune Cookie or Bad Bad Granny Gadget!" by Luis Bermejo (art) and Bill Dubay (story). The Rook is absent entirely from this story, as he had vanished entirely in the prior story. Rather, this story stars Bishop Dane and Manners, who battle the Granny of the title, who is related to a competitor of the Rook that could never compete at the same level as the Rook and killed himself. They manage to defeat her and by the end of the story receive a message from the Rook, still alive, who says he's in a chinese fortune cookie!

Second is the third Scallywag story, "The Black Demon's Sword" by Jose Ortiz (art) and Budd Lewis (story). Sullivan befriends Hickey Lubus, a man whom he plays poker with. Lubus has a cane which is revealed to be both a key and a special sword that is related to a black demon. As usual, Sullivan is encountered by a group of samurais and ninjas whom he fights and is able to defeat.

Third is "Years & Mind Forever", the conclusion to the Within You Without You trilogy. Art is by Richard Corben and story is by Bruce Jones. In this story it is revealed that Lydecker has been setting up everyone, and that many of the trips into the past have actually been staged by him and an actress pretending to be Karen. Meanwhile he himself has actually made it to the past where he has found the ancestor of humanity. The scientists send another telepath after him and he finds Lydecker in a lab with the ancient man. During a struggle with 'Karen' however the ancestor is shot by him, wiping out humanity. A terrific end to a terrific trilogy, which would be ranked as one of the top 10 Warren series in the Warren companion.

Fourth is "Second Wish", the third story in the Gaffer series. Art is by Leo Duranona and story is by Roger McKenzie. A young woman being abused by the sheriff and people of a small town encounters an alien creature who takes the form of a human being. They have sex, making her pregnant with an alien baby. Gaffer and Jamie help her escape from a mob and she gives birth to the alien baby, but is killed by the sheriff soon after. The aliens arrive, and believing the baby to be their messiah, depart with it.

Fifth is "The Incredible Illusions of Ira Israel" by Leopold Sanchez (art) and Roger McKenzie (story). The Ira of the title is a magician at a carnival who creates the illusion of turning his wife into a werewolf by applying makeup to her while the lights are out. When a full moon arrives, a werewolf actually attacks, and she is accused of being it. But the truth is that Ira is actually the werewolf and while he escapes from the people coming after his wife, she ends up dying due to him.

Sixth is Hunter 3, in "What Price Oblivion" by Alex Nino (art) and Jim Stenstrum (story). This is Nino's solo story debut for Warren. Unlike the other two Hunter series, this is a parody, told in a single story. A young boy, Max Halibut dons the Hunter Helmet and with his "Exterminator Dingo" goes on a quest to defeat the frog people. Along the way he meets a young girl, Twyla Smyla who joins him on his quest. While battling the frog people he encounters his mother, who is a frog woman leader. Twyla is revealed to be his father! Quite a bizarre but funny story.

Eerie 85

The third Rook cover in four issues on this cover, by Ken Kelly, featuring Bishop Dane and Manners.

First is the Rook in "Lost to the Land of Nowhen" by Luis Bermejo (art) and Bill Dubay (story). The Rook returns to the past once again to investigate the robot and lab he found in the prior story. He accidently causes an explosion which not only destroys the robot he found there but also loses his chance to return to the past in time and vanishes. Bishop Dane and Manners head back to the past just as the Rook vanishes. While Manners works on repairing the robot, Dane changes the past by buying the property where the lab is and sending a letter to Jan and Kate in the present.

Second is the finale for Hard John's Nuclear Hit Parade, "Gonna Nuke Mankind right Outa My Hair" by Jose Ortiz (art) and Jim Stenstrum (story). The Catlicks, Protsnts and Red Threats are all heading towards John's nuclear weapons site to get their hands on the nukes. John and Tarara visit a church then prepare for Zinger's arrival. John outsmarts everyone by launching all his nuclear weapons into the ocean except for one, which he aims right at his base just as everyone is arriving, a blast powerful enough to destroy all the armies left in the world. A pretty good finale to this serial, even though John and Tarara are clearly going to perish when the bomb hits.

Third is the next Gaffer story, "First Wish" by Leo Duranona (art) and Roger McKenzie (story). Gaffer and Jaime go to see Wildcat, an old friend of Gaffer. Wildcat is a former boxer who is blind due to an altercation with some organized criminals after he refused to throw a fight for them. Now all he has left is his daughter Amy, who is dying of an illness. Using his first wish Gaffer enables Wildcat to see his daughter one last time and die in her place when the Grim Reaper arrives.

Fourth is "Blackstar and the Night Huntress" by Esteban Maroto (art) and Gerry Boudreau (story). This story starts off interesting, telling of an intersteller war caused due to a device that measure's peoples potential achievements in life and wipes them out if they're not going to be successful. Alas, thats only the first of 8 pages, the rest of the story has to do with Blackstar, a pilot who crashes onto a planet and meets Rowena, a huntress. They flee various enemies and encounter a "high counsel" that turns them into a reincarnation of Adam and Eve. This story would have a sequel many years later in Eerie 128.

Last is the finale of The Pea Green Boat series, "Dutchman" by Leopold Sanchez (art) and Budd Lewis (story). A rather abrupt and poor finale to what ended up being a rather poor and pointless serial. Al and Eric come across a ghost ship that they're able to get supplies from, later they battle scavengers on it and encounter a ghost.