Eerie 1

Today will be covering the first ever issue of Eerie. I'll start off by saying I don't actually own this issue. I do own all the content in it in some form or another though. This is the rarest Warren magazine of all time, only approximately 200 issues or so actually existed. The story goes that back in September 1965 Warren was planning on creating a companion magazine for Creepy called Eerie, but heard that a rival publisher was planning on using the same title. By rushing this issue to publication with a reprinted cover and all reprinted stories, Warren was able to copyright the name. What was supposed to be the first issue of Eerie became the second issue of Eerie.

The cover for this issue is by Jack Davis, and is a reprint of a subscription ad from the second issue of Creepy.

First story is "Image of Bluebeard" by Joe Orlando (art) and Bill Pearson (story), from Creepy 7. A mysterious assassin plagues the countryside. Meanwhile a young woman marries an older man who cares for her, but forces her to stay on his estate in the woods. He has a cabin near their house that he refuses her to see. After finding out that he's married three times before and discovering a book about bluebeard in his library, she becomes convinced that he's the killer and stabs him just as he is about to bring her into the cabin. But it ends up that the killer had already been captured and the cabin was just filled with animals he had gathered to keep her company.

Second is "Death Plane" by George Evans (art) and Larry Ivie (story), from Creepy 8. Evans was a terrific artist at EC but unfortunately did very few Warren stories, just this and a few for Blazing Combat. This story features a mysterious plane that is taking out both American and German planes during the war. One of the American officers is killed and realizes that the ghost of each person killed appears in the plane until they can kill someone else.

Last is "The Invitation" with art by Manny Stallman and story by Russ Jones, Larry Englehart and Maurice Whitman, from Creepy 8. A Baron gets in a car accident and comes across a mansion where vampires live. He convinces them to let him live as long as he brings them victims. He does, but eventually they turn him into a vampire as well. Whitman would very lamely repeat this exact same story in Creepy 17 in the story "A Night Lodging".

Creepy 6

Frank Frazetta provides a terrific, very dark cover for this issue of Creepy. Roy Krenkel draws the frontis, "Creepy's Loathsome Lore", which features the Mummy's Curse.

First is "The Thing in the Pit!" by Gray Morrow (art) and Larry Ivie (story). An excellent story, this features a man whose car crashes in the woods. He is helped by a pair of blind freaks who bring him to their house and warn him of 'The Thing in the Pit'. Curious, he finds 'The Thing' to be a beautiful, normal looking woman. The freaks throw him in the pit but when he tries to get out using some rope, he realizes its actually the tentacles of the Thing, which strangles him.

Second is "Thumbs Down!" by Al Williamson (art) and Anne T. Murphy (story). Murphy was Archie Goodwin's wife. This is her sole story though for Warren. The story features a crooked arena games master who has his top gladiator killed only for him to come back from the dead to take revenge. This story would probably be reprinted by Warren over the years more than any other story.

Third is "Adam Link in Business!" by Joe Orlando (art) and Otto Binder (story). Adam is about to be executed for the murder of Dr. Link, but at the last second his friend Jack Hall gets him saved because of a witness changing her story. Adam goes into business as a scientific consultant, making lots of money. He takes on a secretary, Kay, who is Jack's girlfriend. Jack wants to marry her but she refuses, as she's in love with Adam! Adam flees from society to avoid her.

Fourth is "The Cask of Amontillado!" by Reed Crandall (art) and Archie Goodwin (story), an adaption of the classic Poe story. The story features a man who encloses a colleague of his in a brick tomb. Goodwin adds a new ending to the story, where the protagonist, now an old man, returns to the scene of the crime and is killed when the chamber floods and the corpse of his colleague pulls him under water.

Fifth is "The Stalkers" by Alex Toth (art) and Archie Goodwin (story). A man goes to a psychologist, telling him of these bad dreams he is having where he is confronted by aliens that look like prune faced people. The psychologist reveals that he's an alien himself, and that our protagonist is one as well, who had been on Earth in human form so long that he forgot who he was.

Sixth is "Abominable Snowman!" by John Severin (art) and Bill Pearson (story). A group of four explorers search for adominable snowmen in the himalyas. Soon two of the men are dead. The other two set explosions, which go off as some of the creatures come. One of the men in their tent thinks he's safe, only to find that one is in the tent with him!

Last is "Gargoyle" by Angelo Torres (art) and Archie Goodwin & Roy Krenkel (story). A man seeks to find the power to turn stone into gold. He meets a mysterious dwarf who is the responsible for the deaths of multiple powerful men. He gets the dwarf drunk, who reveals how to make gold out of stone, so he pours it on a stone gargoyle. Only the dwarf actually told him how to turn the stone into life, and the gargoyle kills him!

Creepy 7

This issue of Creepy features a classic cover by Frank Frazetta of a werewolf fighting a vampire. A very strong issue, not a single bad story from an art or story standpoint here.

First is "The Duel of the Monsters!" by Angelo Torres (art) and Archie Goodwin (story). A vampire finds that he has competition in the town he's in, a werewolf. The werewolf knows of him and plants a crucifix in his coffin. The vampire plots to get rid of the werewolf, thinking he knows who he is. He waits at the werewolf's house and kills him, only to find that the werewolf was actually someone else. The man he was suspecting was the werewolf appears, revealing it was a trap to get the two of them to eliminate each other, as he is a ghoul and wants no competition either.

Second is "Image of Bluebeard" by Joe Orlando (art) and Bill Pearson (story). A mysterious assassin plaugues the countryside. Meanwhile a young woman marries an older man who cares for her, but forces her to stay on his estate in the woods. He has a cabin near their house that he refuses her to go into. After finding out that he's married three times before and discovering a book about bluebeard in his library, she becomes convinced that he's the killer and stabs him just as he is about to bring her into the cabin. But it ends up that the killer had already been captured and the cabin was just filled with animals he had gathered to keep her company.

Third is the one page "Creepy's Loathsome Lore" by Frank Frazetta (art), his final interior artwork for Warren.

Fourth is "Rude Awakening!" by Alex Toth (art) and Archie Goodwin (story). This story is about a man who keeps having dreams of a glasses wearing man attacking him with a knife. He's so freaked out by them that he falls out a window and is brought to the hospital, where he faces none other than the glassed man!

Fifth is "Drink Deep!" by John Severin (art) and Otto Binder (story, as Eando Binder). A wealthy ship owner brings people on tours of the sea, telling them of his ancestor who was a pirate. He is very cruel to his crew, causing them all to quit. He soon is able to gain a new crew, but it ends up that they are actually dead, killed by his ancestor, and they cause his ship to sink, leaving him at the bottom of the ocean with his ancestor's victims.

Sixth is "The Body-Snatcher!" by Reed Crandall (art) and Archie Goodwin (story), an adaption of the story by Robert Louis Stevenson. A young doctor joins another doctor who is responsible for teaching students about autopsies. He soon finds from that they are forced to revert to digging up corpses to get bodies, or buying them from other grave robbers. One such grave robber becomes quite a nuisance and is eventually killed by the older doctor and used as one of their patients. But when they dig up a new corpse to use from the cemetary, it ends up being him, and he comes back to life to get revenge.

Seventh is "Blood of Krylon!" by Gray Morrow (art) and Archie Goodwin (story). A vampire, who is finding it harder to find victims in a futuristic society decides to head to the colony planet of Krylon, where he thinks that it will be much easier to find victims. On the way there he kills all his fellow ship travelers, using them to feed himself. When he arrives at Krylon however, he soon dies when he finds out that the night is a lot shorter there.

Last is "Hot Spell!" by Reed Crandall (art) and Archie Goodwin (story). A devil worshipper is captured by the townfolk and set on fire at the stake. Before he dies however, he curses them. Years pass and his descendants all pass away. The town however has multiple people who die due to fire. The townfolk think that an artist from out of town is a descendent of him, so they set his house on fire, killing his wife, then kill him too. But the ghost of the devil worshipper appears, saying that they'be become as evil as he, and sets them aflame.

Creepy 94

A special issue of Creepy featuring 'Weird Children' as advertised on the cover, done by Don Maitz. This is quite a good issue across the board, not a bad story here, although there is some negative aspects to the final story which I'll reveal when I get there.

First story is "Etran to Fulsing" by Dick Giordano (art) in a rare solo job, and Nicola Cuti (story). This seems like the typical medieval story of a prince savings a princess from a sorceror. The interesting twist this time is that the entire medieval setting is actually a delusion, and the reality is that everyone's in a war torn post apocalypic world.

Second is "Bad Tommy" by Martin Salvador (art) and Roger McKenzie & Nicola Cuti (story). The story tells of a young boy, Tommy, who creates an imaginary friend that kills both his parents. The boy goes to see a psychiatrist to tell her about it and it is revealed that Bad tommy is real, who promptly appears and stabs her. Not only that, but Bad Tommy is the real person, and the 'good' version of him is actually a robot created by him. Luckily the psychiatrist is able to kill him.

Third is "Ada" by Alfredo Alcala (art) and Bill Pearson (story). The Ada of the title is a girl who was born as an old woman then reverts in age as she gets older. The story surrounds a man who meets her and ends up staying with her til she turns into a baby then passes away.

Fourth is "Bessie" by Leo Duranona (art) and Gerry Boudreau (story). A woman comes to a detective to help her look for her daughter Bessie while he's working on a murder case. To make a long story short, it ends up that the woman is Bessie herself, as she had gone insane after a miscarriage and became convinced that she had a daughter as well who was actually just a second personality of her's.

Fifth is "Sacrifice" by Luis Bermejo (art) and Roger McKenzie (story). Four boys sacrifice a cat which gives them eternal life. Every 100 years they have to sacrifice another person to retain their eternal life or they'll immediately die. One of them decides to start using the others as his sacrifice. He heads after the last one only to find that he's committed suicide, which will result in his death.

Last is "Backwater and Timing Circles" by Alex Nino (art) and Budd Lewis (story). A boy takes a trip to the past to go fishing in the prehistoric era through the company Timing Circles. His guide warns him that they can't take anything back with them and must not kill anything, but when the guide gets in trouble, the boy stabs the dinosaur attacking him. This changes the present such that everyone becomes bizarre looking monsters. This story is blatant plagarism of Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder". Luckily for Warren, they never got in trouble with this as they did with Harlan Ellison's A Boy and His Dog.

Creepy 1

Creepy's very first issue from 1964. The cover is by Jack Davis, his sole cover for Warren (unless you count the first issue of Eerie, which was actually taken from an ad he drew that was originally printed inside a Creepy magazine).

First is "Voodoo" by Joe Orlando (art) and Russ Jones & Bill Pearson (story). The story is about a man who throws out his voodoo practicing wife. He later finds her in the woods and a struggle ensues in which her head is chopped off. Before long however her headless corpse, with a shrunked head attacked chases after him!

Second is "H20 World". The art is by Al Williamson & Roy Krenkel and the story is by Larry Ivie. It is about a pair of divers who come across an underground civilization. There they meet the mutated people who live there, who force them to forget that they ever encountered them. Very beautiful artwork here, particularly Krenkel's backgrounds.

Third is "Vampires Fly At Dusk" by Reed Crandall (art) and Archie Goodwin (story). The story takes place in a town plagues by murders, suspected to be by a vampire. A man is suspected to be a vampire, particularly by his wife who finds that he'll only let her do things at night. One night she finds him missing from his study and she pulls back a curtain, revealing the sunlight which she hopes to destroy him with. Only it ends up that she was the vampire; while he was killing the people in the town, he was feeding the blood to her in her food. Due to the sunlight she dies.

Fourth is "Werewolf" by Frank Frazetta (art) and Larry Ivie (story). This is Frazetta's sole full story for Warren and infact is his last full comics story for anyone. It features a big game hunter heading after a werewolf like creature that oddly enough hasn't killed anyone. He finds it and shoots it, but this causes the werewolf to turn back into a human. The man thanks him for breaking the curse, saying he's been looking for someone to do this for years. By dying he passes on the curse to the hunter, who now becomes a werewolf himself.

Next is "Bewitched" by Gray Morrow (art) and Larry Ivie (story). A man buys some material which when burned is rumored to kill a witch. He soon finds himself pursued by a dinosaur and other bizarre events keep happening. He wakes up, finding it to be a dream, but then finds his daughter with a voodoo doll of him!

Sixth is "The Success Story" by Al Williamson (art) and Archie Goodwin (story). This story features a comic strip creator, Baldo Smudge who is actually ripping off three seperate people. He hires a penciller, whom he tells he is doing the inking and writing for. He also hires a writer whom he tells he is doing the pencilling and inking. And so on for the inker. All the while he takes the credit for the strip as a whole. This charade goes on for a long time, but the three of them finally catch on, so Baldo kills them. They come back as rotting corpses however and take revenge. This story is based on a true story (except the corpses part). Williamson drew Smudge based on himself and used Angelo Torres, Archie Goodwin and Al McWilliams as the likenesses for the three employees he was ripping off.

Last is "Pursuit of the Vampire" by Angelo Torres (art) and Archie Goodwin (story). The story features a group of townspeople being joined by a stranger who tells them two murder victims are actually going to turn into vampires since a vampire was their killer. He leads them to a house where they are and kill them. The town leader ends up being the vampire that killed them, but the stranger, who is a werewolf kills him to eliminate competition for victims.

Eerie 10

This issue of Eerie features the grim reaper, done by Gray Morrow. The background is completely white though, making it look a little odd.

First story is "Warrior of Death", by Steve Ditko (art) and Archie Goodwin (story). A warrior, Zahran finds himself dying after a long battle and is encountered by Death. Zahran deals with Death to become invulnerable so he can kill many more on the battlefield. As he gets more and more powerful, Zahran becomes drunk with power. He encounters a young boy, Valric on the battlefield but ends up being killed by him, as it ends up that Valric made the same deal with Death that Zahran had. Good story that Ditko's art fits perfectly.

Next is "The Slugs!" by Joe Orlando (art) and Bill Pearson (story). The story, taking place in a swamp is about monsters and their victims, which turn into creatures as well.

Third is "It!" by Dan Adkins (art) and Archie Goodwin (story). Astronauts in space find a hibernating dinosaur like creature which they bring aboard and wakes up. They eventually defeat it, but it leaves babies aboard the ship.

Fourth is "Voodoo Drum!" by Neal Adams (art) and Archie Goodwin (story). 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.

Fifth is "House of Fiends" by Jerry Grandenetti (art) and Archie Goodwin (story). A new doctor visits a young woman who is chained up by her aunt and uncle, accused as being crazy. She tells the doctor that they are a werewolf and vampire, and that their servant is a ghoul, and he has been brought here for them to kill. The doctor witnesses all three becoming the creatures she stated they were and manages to kill them all. Only it ends up that she is a witch and had tricked him into thinking they were these horrific creatures. Grandenetti's art style was quite different than most of the artists that worked for Warren but I've always enjoyed his work a lot.

Last is "For the Birds!" by Eugene Colan (art) and Archie Goodwin (story). An out of work actor finds an old man always in the park feeding the birds. He befriends the old man, with the intention of taking his money at some later point. Eventually he kills him, puts on makeup so he'll look like him, and heads out with the man's money in a paper bag where he usually stores the bird feed, but the birds end up eating him!