Vampirella 96

A fairly good cover for this issue by Enrich.

Up first is "The Hound of Hell" by Rudy Nebres (art) and Rich Margopoulos (story). Continuing on with the recent Vampi events, Pendragon seeks revenge on one of the leaders of the Apocalypse Inc. group by sending a hound from hell after him. Our heroes eventually find Pendragon and defeat the hell hound while the Apocalypse Inc guy faces his own troubles. This story actually isn't as bad as usual and thankfully marks the end of Nebres's tenure doing Vampirella. Nebres is not a bad artist, but he just never fit doing Vampi in my mind and couldn't compare with two much better artists in Jose Gonzalzes and Gonzalo Mayo who had done the majority of the stories before him.

"A Matter of Karma" is this issue's segment in the Cassandra St. Knight storyline. As usual, art is by Auraleon and story is by Rich Margopolous. This story shows the past of some of our characters and their role in Atlantis. An okay story, which compared to the stuff around it makes it the best of the issue.

"Night of the Cat Goddess" is next, another segment in the 'Pantha' serial. Art is by Jose Ortiz and story is by Rich Margopoulos. A woman seeking the riches of a tomb in Egypt captures Adam and tries to take the treasures. This being related to Pantha's ancestors, she heads there to stop her and of course rescue Adam. Conrad meanwhile confronts the enemy from the prior issue and is helped by a new character.

Last is "Armistice" by Masanabu Sato (art) and Jim Stenstrum (story), about a war between two races that have fought so long that no one remembers what the other looks like. One of them, a woman, crashes on a planet where she meets her enemy, a man, and they have sex. Not that great a way to end the issue.

Creepy 116

This issue of Creepy was the final one edited by Louise Jones before she left Warren. The bizarre cover is by Terrance Lindall, part of which is reprinted on the table of contents page. The cover has the header "The End of Man!" on the top, although aside from the first story, it does not appear to be a theme of this issue (although all stories here have a sci-fi theme to them).

Up first is "Endangered Species" by Fred Carillo (art, miscredited to Corillo) and Gerry Boudreau (story). This doesn't really look like Carillo's usual art, but then I can't identify it as being anyone else's art, so perhaps it is him after all. Anyway, this story features an outbreak of disease infested creatures at a lab and the woman sent out to destroy them. At the same time, a group of aliens that have targetted humans to be used as clothings arrive and kill a number of people. The disease from the dead humans spreads to the alien races who use them as clothing, and as a result, in an ironic twist, result in saving humanity from being completely wiped out as humans are no longer desirable to them.

Second is "The Highway" by Val Mayerik & Rudy Nebres (art) and Nicola Cuti (story). The story features a futuristic highway and a family that heads across it for vacation. Along the way they figure out that they're going to the wrong place and the stubborn father tries to sidestep the rules imposed on the highway, resulting in them getting stuck there permanently.

Third is "Day of the Locust" by Masanabu Sato (art) and Jordan Black (story). Not too good a story here, featuring robotic humanoids fighting dinosaur like creatures over 6 pages.

Fourth is "Greatest Editor Alive" by Delando & Alex Nino (art, credited as The Nino brothers), and Bill Dubay (story, credited under his pseudonym, Will Richardson). The story features a horror comics editor who has been captured by aliens, but doesn't know it because they keep him brainwashed.

Last is "Graduation Day" by Val Mayerik & Jeff Easley (art) and Bruce Jones (story). The story features spacemen undergoing a simulation, unknown to one of them, who goes crazy, thinking that there is an alien city nearby. In the end it ends up that he was right after all, that aliens are nearby.

Overall not that good an issue. Nothing outstanding is here.

Creepy 111

Here's an issue of Creepy from near the end of Louise Jones's run as editor, in 1979. The cover by Duane Allen is of a vampire. This would be Allen's sole cover for Warren.

Up first is "Dreams of Grandeur" by Val Mayerik & Kllaus Janson (art) and Budd Lewis (story). It features a boiler room worker who has psychic abilities to occupy the mind of another person while he's asleep. This gets him in trouble with both his boss and eventually the pilot whose mind he keeps trying to occupy, and eventually results in all of them being killed.

"A Stiff Named Sczynsky" by Auraleon (art) and Bob Toomey (story) is up next, about a ghoul on a hospital ship who gets haunted by the corpses he's eaten.

"Heart of the Warrior" is third, with art by Alajandro Sanchez and story by Bill Dubay. This is a rather dull medieval story about a warrior going after a sorceror in order to save his lover. The hero ends up losing in the end and his heart is used for a spell. Sanchez's art is hardly all that to my liking either. He'd do another half a dozen or so stories for Warren over the next few years.

The cover story, "Blood Lust" is next, with art by Leo Duranona and story by Cary Bates. The story is about Wilma, a woman who was breeded with blood poisonous to vampires. After being used to kill many vampires, she desires to quit but decides to do one more mission in order to kill the original Count Dracula. Falling in love with him, she tells him the truth, but he reveals that he has taken a serum such that her blood won't be poisonous to him. Her superiors find out and are still successful in killing Dracula by killing her and filling her veins and arteries with garclic embalming fluid. Very good story, best one of the issue.

"Night Wind" by Masanabu Sato (art) and Masanabu Sato & Gary Null (story) is the issue's worst story. 'Gary Null' was actually a pseudonym of writer Bob Toomey, used when he rewrote scripts of other's stories. Jim Stenstrum did the same type of thing using the name 'Alabaster Redzone'. This is a rather dull story of a female knight rescuing another woman and killing a demon. Yawn.

Last up is "A Switch in Dime" by Leo Duranona (art) and Nicola Cuti (story), about a scientist who creates a device which is able to connect to another dimension (which he calls a 'dime'). After activiting the device, he switches places with another man and problems ensue. When both try to return to their home dime and end up getting stuck together, they are put into a freak show as siamese twins.

Overall, an average issue. Duranona's stories are pretty good, but the rest of the stuff isn't that special.