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.

Vampirella 48

Enrich provides the cover for this issue of Vampirella, dated January 1976.

First is Vampirella in "The Wonder World of Ambegris, Kato and Tonto Too!" by Zesar (art) and Bill Dubay (story). When Vampi sees a pair of dwarves leading a doctor underground, she follows them and finds a nineteenth century style underground city. The father of the dwarves and other odd people is Ambegris, who is about to die of old age. By giving him some of her blood, Vampi enables him to live a little longer, although he gets too excited and ends up suffering a heart attack, passing away. Some nice art by Zesar here, a bit different than the usual fare.

Second is "The Satan Complex" by Ramon Torrents (art) and Bill Dubay (story). A businessman obsessed with being able to fly goes to a company run by Satan. While waiting in the lobby he has a dream about meeting Satan himself, who turns him into a bat. He makes sure that when he signs the contract with Satan that he remains human. But Satan still finds a way out of the contract by taking away his flying ability after a mere minute because the contract didn't specify how long he'd have the ability to fly. As a result, he falls to his death.

Third is "Of Death and Distinction" by Joaquin Blazquez (art) and Gerry Boudreau (story). An unemployed man who lives with his girlfriend becomes obsessed with the fact that he's a nobody. Meanwhile a slasher killer plagues the streets, killing many. Thinking that by taking credit for the deaths will make him famous, the man kills his girlfriend and admits to being the slasher. Only the real slasher had already been caught, meaning he killed her for nothing.

Fourth is "The Miracle Hands of Simon Silverstone" by Luis Bermejo (art) and Bill Dubay (story). Yet another terrific art performance here by Bermejo. Silvershoe is a man with the ability to heal people and change the faces of people, merely with his hands. He meets a woman who tells hiim that he is actually an alien savior, and that he needs to find a silver shoe to fulfill his destiny. They are caught by disbelievers however, and despite him changing his face to hide himself, he is killed nonetheless.

Last is "Star-Bright Lantern 909" by Jose Ortiz (art) and Gerry Boudreau (story). The lantern of the title is a space lighthouse run by an old man whose been alone for many years. Rebels are seeking an attack on the government, but know that in order to succeed the lighthouse can't identify them. As a result, they send a young woman to the lighthouse to seduce the old man so they can get by without being noticed. Only being alone causes the old man to snap, and he kills her instead. When another rebel goes there and finds what happened, he kills the old man, then tears the mechanics of the place part. Only instead of turning out the light, that causes the whole place to blow up, and the explosion is so big that it lights up the rebel crafts and they are all destroyed by the government.

Vampirella 46

Ken Kelly provides the cover for this issue of Vampirella, from October 1975. This issue is mostly reprints, with one new story.

First is "The Origin of Vampirella" by Jose Gonzalez (art) and Budd Lewis (story). This story was originally printed in the first Vampirella Annual, and was rewritten here by Budd Lewis. This story features Vampirella on Drakulon with her lover Tristan. The planet is dying and while Vampirella seeks to kill animals for their blood, Tristan doesn't want to do so, nor does anyone else, resulting in the people all dying off. Eventually people from Earth arrive on Drakulon as well and end up killing Tristan, He rises up again however and confronts Vampirella one last time before she heads to Earth.

Second is "Death's Dark Angel" by Jose Gonzalez (art) and Archie Goodwin (story), originally printed in issue 12. In its original printing, this story was Jose Gonzalez's first appearance in a Warren magazine. Its an okay art job, but pales greatly in comparison to the stuff he was producing by this point. This story features Vampirella being captured by an old man, W.W. Wade, who also controls a demon called Skaar. Wade wants to cheat death and thinks he can do so by getting Vampirella to bite him. He captures the Van Helsings as well. Vampirella eventually does bite him, but because she's not a traditional vampire, it kills him for good.

Third is "Isle of the Huntress" by Jose Gonzalez (art) and Archie Goodwin (story), originally printed in issue 14. This story surrounds Vampi, Pendragon and Adam arriving on an island where a werewolf like beast roams. The werewolf is actually a woman who lives on the island with her husband, who while looking for a cure also procures bait to be hunted by her in her wolf form. Vampi & friends are able to save themselves from being prey and kill the two of them.

Last is this issue's sole new story, "The Monster Called Vampirella" by Zesar (art) and Bill Dubay (story). This story was in color. Zesar was a pretty good artist, but only did five stories for Warren, with this being the first of them. I've already covered most of his other stories in other reviews. Unfortunate that he didn't do more Warren stories. This story continues with the storyline from the previous issues, where Pendragon and Vampi have been shot and Conrad has been killed. In this story Adam finds the true culprit behind whats happening, Sara, Pendragon's daughter, and his friend, Paul Girard. Paul is killed and Adam is arrested and questioned by the police. Vampirella meanwhile is attacked by burglers, but kills them and flies off.

Vampirella 51

Enrich provides the cover for this issue of Vampirella, which is miscredited to Sanjulian.

First is "Rise of the Undead" by Howard Chaykin & Gonzalo Mayo (art) and Mike Butterworth (story, credited as Flaxman Loew). In this story Vampirella and Pendragon visit a town where each year corpses start plauging the town. It incidently ends up being the night that they are there. It ends up that the corpses have come out due to a curse a man placed on the town. Vampi tries to get the man's descendant to end the curse. While he refuses, eventually things work out okay. This was Chaykin's sole Vampirella story, but his artwork is barely noticable here.

Second is "The Edge of Tomorrow" by Zesar (art) and Gerry Boudreau (story). This story takes place in a future where the communists have taken away and stripped humans of pretty much all their rights. Children are manufactured in a facility run by humanoid robots. A man and woman try to have a baby the natural way, which is now outlawed. They try to steal a drug that will cease them from being sterilized so they can have a kid, but the robots there simply activate a device implanted in their head that kills them instantly. Years later all humans revolt against the robot government until all of humanity is wiped out.

Third is "Uncle Wiggly's Magic Box" by Leopold Sanchez (art) and Bill Dubay (story). This story features a kid's book author nicknamed Uncle Wiggly who passes away. At his funeral he comes out of his coffin awake. While he has died, he refuses to be dead and through will alone keeps himself alive. Since he's really dead however he starts to decompose, and is eventually required to spend all his time in bed, dictating his book to his assistant.

Fourth is "Whitechapel" by Auraleon (art) and Gerry Boudreau (story). In a town where a jack the ripper style killer is running amok, a man is hired by a woman to find her sister. The man investigates a local doctor, thinking he's a lead, and finds the sister, dead. When he goes to tell this to the woman who hired him however, the dead sister suddenly turns up alive again. Our protagonist eventually finds out that the doctor is bringing dead people back to life, but is forced to kill them since the experiment isn't perfected yet. Our protagonist is killed by the doctor, and brought back to life, hoping for him to be the first successful experiment.

Fifth is "The Castle, the Dungeon and All by Vicente Alcazar (art) and Gerry Boudreau (story). This story features some knights and magicians battling each other in the woods. One ends up being victorious and continues on, finding a modern looking building. An odd ending, but some extremely good art by Alcazar, channeling Luis Garcia's style here.

Vampirella 52

A pretty good issue of Vampirella, starting off with a cover by Enrich.

First is Vampirella in "Dr. Wrighter's Asylum of Horror" by Gonzalo Mayo (art) and Bill Dubay (story). The Dr. Wrighter of the title is a doctor that Vampirella and Pendragon meet that has created a freak show. In reality he too is a freak, wearing a mask to cover up his horrifically deformed face. He seeks to make Vampirella a freak as well by transplanting her head with his assistant, in order to make her a movie star. This makes the other freaks angry however as he never had any such plans for them and they kill him.

Second is another Vampirella story, "The Beauty and the Beast" by the same team as the first story. In this story Vampirella becomes the subject of a hollywood writer/producer who hopes to make her into a movie star and help his own career in the process. His planned storyline is so horrific though that Vampirella mistakenly believes that he and his comrades are working for Chaos and bites them all, blowing a legitimate chance for her to become a movie star. Of course within 15 issues or so of this issue Vampirella would become a movie star anyway. Mayo's art is terrific in both these stories, far better than the work he had done in many of the 1980's issues of Vampirella that I've been covering over the last few months.

Third is "The House at Blood Corner" by Ramon Torrents (art) and Gerry Boudreau (story). A writer and his wife, whom he married only for her money move into a reported haunted house. It isn't long before they find a rat in their bedroom and see the spectral image of the home's former owner. It ends up that it was all a trick by the broker who leased them the house, who created holograms that made the house appear haunted. He wants the writer to write a book about him, but the wife, whose real father died in the house instead gets revenge by killing them both. Torrents does a good job in making the haunted house appear really scary in this story.

Next is "Stake-Out!" by Jose Ortiz (art) and Boudreau (story). A military leader seeks to destroy the world's vampires, despite the fact that in this age they get along peacefully with normal humans. He hopes to use a new weapon to destroy them, but tries to make it seem as if the vampires started it by killing off one of his own leaders. When the leader doesn't turn into a vampire himself however, the truth is revealed and the leader is handed over to the vampires to eat as punishment.

Last is "The Segerson Experiment" by Zesar (art) and Gerry Boudreau (story). Another haunted house-themed story featuring a young woman going to the house of the well known horror author Segerson and finding various horrors there. Not much of a plot in this heavily mood based story, but Zesar's art is quite nice. Its a shame he didn't do more work for Warren than the measely five stories he did.

Vampirella 53

Here's an issue of Vampirella from early in the Louise Jones era. The cover features who else, Vampirella, reclining on a tiger skin.

First up is "The Human Marketplace" by Jose Gonzalez (art) and Gerry Boudreau (story). 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.

Second is "Opium is the Religion of the People" by Auraleon (art) and Gerry Boudreau (story), featuring a man who goes after the drug dealer who was partially responsible for his sister's death. The man eventually tracks down the drug dealer, known as "the snowman" and with the help of his sister's former lover is able to take revenge.

Third is "The Professional" by Zesar Lopez (art) and Bruce Jones (story). Zesar only did five stories for Warren which is unfortunate, as I enjoyed his art. From what I hear he did do a lot of stories for skywald though. 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. Very good story, best of the issue; my only complaint is that Zesar has a few Fernando Fernandez swipes in his artwork from "Goodbye My Love Goodbye" (Vampi 41) and "The Last Testement of Angus Crow" (Vampi 43).

Fourth is "The Last Man Syndrome" by Ramon Torrents (art) and Roger McKenzie. A man finds himself in a town, deserted. Eventually he comes across cloaked skeletons whom he rescues a beautiful woman from. She soon turns into a skeleton and kills him. It is then revealed that the man was actually suffering from a mental condition. Good art as usual here, although according to Richard Arndt's great Warren bibliography Torrents swiped some art from Pablo Marcos (a much lesser artist in my opinion) towards the end of the story.

Last is "Jackie and the Leprechaun King" by Esteban Maroto (art) and Bill Dubay (story). A boy who spends much of his time daydreaming, Jackie, runs away from home into the forest where he meets Bubba, a lying dwarf. The two become friends and Jackie spends all his time in the dwarf's town. His father and the townfolk meanwhile think the dwarves are demons and rush in and kill them all. A pretty good story with very pretty art from Maroto, as usual for him when he did these types of stories.

Little to complain about this issue, with the exception of the Auraleon/Boudreau story, this is a terrific issue.