Nightmare 1972 Annual

This time I'll be covering the Nightmare 1972 Special, cover dated November 1972 with a cover by Fernando Fernandez, one of my favorite Warren artists. He never does any interior work for Skywald, but will do more covers.

The frontispiece for this issue is "Behind the Myth of the Bridge of Dracula" by Al Hewetson (story) and Juez Xirinius (art). It tells of Countess Elizabeth Bathory, who lived in Hungary in the 16th Century and would murder and bathe in the blood of women she had killed.

First story is "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" by Al Hewetson (story) and Juez Xirinius (art). This story is an adaption of the famous novel by Robert Lewis Stevenson. The monstrous Mr. Hyde stalks the streets of London, including beating to death a little girl. Meanwhile Dr. Jekyll shocks his colleague by wanting to leave everything in his will to Mr. Hyde. As we soon find out, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are the same person, created via a formula that Jekyll has created to bring out his alter ego. Chaos ensues with Dr. Jekyll eventually killing himself and Hyde by jumping out a window. I have not actually read the original novel so I don't know how faithful an adaption this is, but am at least familiar with the concept. I was a bit surprised that they got through it all so quickly.

Second is "A Macabre Fact of Life: The Indian Rope Trick" by Al Hewetson (story) and Ricardo Villamonte (art). This two page feature is the Skywald premiere of Ricardo Villamonte, who would go on to become Skywald's most prolific artist. This feature tells of the Indian Rope Trick whereby a rope can raise on its own into the air and someone can climb up it. Yet this has a horrific turn as the boy climbing it goes into a cloud and his dismembered body parts start falling out. The boy is soon revealed to be unharmed though, it being just a hypnotic effect the magician was having on the audience.

Carillo provides some strong art in "Beauty is Only Skin Deep"

Next is "Beauty is Only Skin Deep" by Doug Moench (story) and Fred Carrillo (art). Taking place in the time of the French revolution, a woman named Countessa believes that she can restore her fading youth and beauty by slaying beautiful young women and bathing in their blood. Her servant Morde does the act of killing for her. The viewpoint then shifts to one of the young woman, who awakens, finding herself captured and in the Countessa's castle. We follow her as she makes her way through the castle, eventually coming across some of the slain victims. Morde takes a hold of her and brings her to the Countessa. The Countessa has found that her blood baths have not worked, and believes that the beauty escapes once her victims' blood leaves their bodies. She believes by having this girl killed without marking her skin, it will work. Morde soon brings the Countessa the woman's slain, unmarked body and drinks her blood, only to discover that Morde poisoned her and dies herself! This was a pretty good story with some Gothic art by Carrillo. A Filipino artist, he would do a fair amount of work for Warren, but not until near the end of Warren's life in the early 1980s. The Countessa seems directly inspired by Elizabeth Bathory, who had appeared in the frontispiece for this issue.

Fourth is "Limb From Limb From Death" by Al Hewetson (story) Pablo Marcos (art). Three men are trapped in the Sahara desert after their jeep runs out of gas. As days go by they start getting desperate and one of them, a doctor, says that they have to start eating each other or else they will starve to death. The doctor convinces the other two to have an arm sawed off before him, claiming that if they are saved he too will have an arm taken off. He proceeds to saw an arm off both his comrades which they eat, but they are then saved by a traveling plane. Now back in civilization, the doctor is afraid of the fact that he'll have to have his arm sawed off and decides to fake things, sending his fellow survivors the severed arm from a dead body. Yet pain starts growing in his arm, and he soon finds it rotting away and falling off. As the story ends we find that his arm didn't really fall off, but he's gone crazy and is being brought to the loony bin. Skywald continues to rely a bit too heavily on the last minute twist of things not being real (in fact this story is very reminiscent to Sand Castles from Psycho #6, both with its plot and ending, and both stories were drawn by Marcos), but the story does deserve some points for how over the top gruesome it is.

Marcos' "Limb from Limb from Death"

We next get another segment in the Nightmare World series, "A Grave Beneath the Sea!" by Al Hewetson (story) and Bill Payne (art). This story is based on the nightmare of a reader named Joseph Elliot. Joseph imagines himself on a boat in Scotland where the Loch Ness monster appears and he is pulled underwater, near the monster's offspring. But Joseph is able to ride the monster away, soon realizing however that he is sitting on an octopus! Eventually the monster brings him to the beach where he gets off of him. Like the previous Nightmare World story you need to know going in that based on a dream, the story is going to be a bit nonsensical and that is the case here.

Next is "Alone" by Bruce Jones (story and art). This story features a woman named Karin who walks home from work in New York City only to start receiving phone calls about how she is going to die. The calls continue and the caller eventually reveals that he was a hypnotist at a part she had recently gone to named the Great Konar. He has hypnotized her such that she will commit suicide by jumping off a building, much like his brother did due to her dumping him. Eventually the time comes for her to jump, but it is revealed that Karin had moved to the first floor and is perfectly okay. Bruce Jones is quite good at his twist endings and we have a good one here. His art continues to be really strong, making me feel a bit sad that he eventually turns to being just a writer.

After that is "And If A Fiend Should Come A Callin'" by Al Hewetson (story) and L.M. Roca (art). Roca was actually the first S.I. artist to appear in a Warren magazine and makes a rare appearance here for Skywald. The story features a student getting handed a piece of candy called a Green Gargoyle by an older man. Upon consuming it the boy finds himself pursued by monsters and makes his way to a cave where an actual gargoyle is waiting for him. He tells the gargoyle about the man and how he is providing samples to various other kids for free, and then they can get more by paying for it. The boy confronts the man saying he has some friends that also want the candy, but really brings him to a the gargoyle, who appears as a fluorescent fiend in the woods, and kills him. The candy in this story is quite obvious drugs. The gargoyle featured appears to have no relation to the gargoyles in the several prior Skywald stories.

Bruce Jones with "Alone"

The issue concludes with the cover story "The Day the Earth Will Die!" by Al Hewetson (story) and Ferran Sostres (art). We see a film being made where the star is in a fantasy world with skeleton-like robots attacking him while riding flying horses. When the skeletons start running amok though they realize that they are actually real! Chaos ensues and even the military has to get involved! As the story hits its conclusion, we find that even the "reality" of this story was actually a film being made, by a race of ant-like aliens! Quite the bizarre finish to this story, and the issue.

Eerie 36

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vampirella 17

This issue's cover is by Enrich. The frontis for this issue, "Vampi's Feary Tales: The Story of Arachne" is by Auraleon (art) and Jan Strnad (story), featuring the origin of the spider.

This issue's Vampi story is "...Beware, Dreamers!" by Jose Gonzalez (art) and T. Casey Brennan (story). Vampi, Pendragon and Adam come across a masked man chained to the ground. Taking off his mask, they are drawn into a dream world. Meanwhile a man, Ernie Johnson, summons a demon serving Chaos and is ordered to kill our three heroes. Our heroes meet Norto in the dream world, the man they found on the ground. They are confronted by a pterodactyl then Johnson, now known as 'Deathslayer'. He kills Norto, which upsets the demon, killing him, and freeing our heroes from the dreamworld.

Next up is "Horus", drawn and written by Esteban Maroto. This story is the first of the series "Tomb of the Gods", which was originally printed in Spain a few years before its appearance here. Although part of a series, all of the Tomb of the Gods stories were self-contained and can be read in any order. The stories generally were quite surreal, and hence hard to summarize here. This story features a man and woman in ancient Egypt confronting the Egyptian God Horus, guarding the sleep of someone, who ends up being the man himself.

"Death in the Shadows" by Luis Garcia (art) and Doug Moench (story) is next. Garcia is my personal favorite of all Warren artists. This story features a girl who exhibits very strange behavior, such as sleeping only during the day. Her parents put her in an asylum, and she is eventually released. Although it appears that she's a vampire, in the end it ends up that its actually her father who is the vampire.

Next is "A Man's World" by Jose Bea (art) and Mike Jennings (story). A pair of reporters visit an all female colony which is located near where a murder took place. There they are treated like kings, including being fed a significantly large amount of food. Eventually they realize the truth, that the women have literally been eating men. They try to escape but are unsuccessful.

Fifth is "Lover of the Bayou" by L.M. Roca (art) and Jan Strnad (story), featuring a girl who lives in the swamp with her parents. She keeps hearing of an entity called 'The Lover' but her parents won't reveal exactly what it is. She heads out for a walk in the swamp and is rescued by a handsome man who tells her that he invented 'The Lover' as a way to scare people away from his home so he'd have some peace and quiet. Only it ends up that he's been lying, and he locks her in a room with 'The Lover', a tentacled monster, which kills her.

Last is 'The Wedding Ring' by Jerry Grandenetti (art) and Steve Skeates (story). A man goes to visit two old friends who got married. The man had always liked the wife and forces himself on her when he learns her husband is away. It ends up that she's a member of a strange cult that causes a ring to appear and shrink around his neck, strangling him.