Creepy 134

This issue of Creepy features Ken Kelly's final Warren cover. Rudy Nebres provides a one page Uncle Creepy introduction.

First story is "Guardians of the Universe!" by Delando Nino (art) and Budd Lewis (story). This story features a pair of men on a planet whose ship is destroyed and confronted by a large tentacled monster.

Next is "Hear the Organ Grinder Play" by Martin Salvador (art) and Mark Willard (story) about a group of homeless people who come across an organ grinder who collects real organs!

Third is "Soul Sucker!" by Fred Carillo (art) and Gerry Boudreau (story) about a man at a hotel who faces a soul sucking monster which he is able to kill.

Fourth is "Wreck of the Vendigo Shafter!" by Gene Day & Rudy Nebres (art) and Rich Margopoulos (story), which tells of a ship that is overtaken by vampire rats.

Fifth is "Nefites" by Jun Lofamia (art) and Bruce Jones (story). A woman goes to a planet with uncivilized frog like creatures who act very bad. Eventually she is impregnated by one of them.

Sixth is "Orson Who?" by Carmine Infantino & Wayne Howard (art) and Nicola Cuti (story) a futuristic retelling of the Orson Wells incident when people believed his reading of War of the Worlds were real. Only this time there really were aliens!

Seventh is "War is Hell!" by Val Mayerik (art) and Roger McKenzie (story) about a soldier on D-Day who finds bizarre things keep happening to him which he dreams of. It ends up that he is in hell.

Last is the issue's best story, "The City of God" by Steve Gan (art) and Budd Lewis (story). Two people in a plane crash come across a giant bald man and a large city, which he says they built for him but passed away, leaving him alone. They die too, as he is radioactive and causes anyone near him to die of poisoning soon after.

Overall a rather lousy and boring issue, which is why my summaries are so short this time.

Vampirella 112

Vampirella's final issue, featuring a cover by Martin Hoffman, his sole Warren appearance. Jose Gonzalez provides art on the table of contents page.

The first of two Vampirella stories is first, "The Walker of Worlds" by Jose Gonzalez (art) and Rich Margopoulos (story). Vampi encounters the Walker of the title, a mysterious man who walks around with a large number of floaing eyes. The Walker figures out that Vampi won't love him since she loves Adam, so he goes to kill Adam. Vampi is able to convince him that she isn't worth his love however by saying its okay to kill Adam, and he leaves the both of them alone. Gonzalez's art is extremely good here.

Second is the Fox, in "Shadows of the Mind" by Luis Bermejo (art) and John Ellis Sech (story). Will gets very sick, so Sha Ming heads into his mind to help him. There she encounters various enemies including Will himself who tries to kill her. She stops him and in the real world he gets better. A rather poor end to this saga, with Bermejo's art being quite bad compared to how good he used to be.

Third is the latest segment in "Torpedo" by Sanchez Abuli (story & art). Luca is hired to take out a rival mob boss. He does so by using a woman friend to sleep with the man and lead him right into a place where Luca is hiding. He plans to kill the woman whom he had promised half the proceeds to, but she turns the table on him and escapes with her life, the money, and his car.

Fourth is "Ransom" by Auraleon (art) and Michael Fleisher (story). A man's wife is kidnapped, so he goes to the police, who plan to hand over the money they requested, but when the man heads into the house, the police announce themselves, causing his wife's death. The kidappers are killed in a car crash shortly after discovering that the suitcase of cash they were given was actually filled with newspaper. The real cash was taken by the man, who planned this all, including the announcement from the police to kill his wife and get away with the money.

Fifth is "Limbo" by Esteban Maroto (story) and Bill Dubay (story). Aliens from the planet Limbo encounter the barbarian Krak, who they argue on whether to bring back to their planet, where their race is being attacked by evil lizard creatures. The male, Enore thinks they shouldn't bring Krak to their planet, bringing violence to their people, while Leejah, the female thinks they should bring him back. Eventually they go along with Leejah's plan and Krak kills numerous lizard men while Enore is killed. With the lizard men defeated however, Leejah regrets bringing so much violence to Limbo in the first place.

Last is another Vampirella story, "Feeding Frenzy" by Gonzalo Mayo (art) and Rich Margopoulos (story). Vampi and Pantha, reunited, are on a cruise when suddenly the cruise is taken over by terrorists. The terrorist leader wants to take those on the ship hostage and force society to stop using nuclear energy, as he was in a power plant that had a meltdown. Vampi, whose blood substitute was destroyed goes on a rampage and kills all the terrorists in her blood lust except for the leader, who goes crazy.

Eerie 71

Quite a good issue of Eerie, featuring mostly stand alone stories. The cover, featuring the character 'Goblin' is by Sanjulian. Berni Wrightson provides a Cousin Eerie intro on the front inside cover.

First is "Goblin" by Jose Ortiz (art) and Budd Lewis (story). The Goblin seeks to return to the magic world he came from, but scares mostly everyone he meets. He does befriend a beautiful woman who helps him, but is shot by policemen coming after the Goblin. Luckily he finds another friendly person who has a portal in his home back to Goblin's world. Although self-contained here, Goblin would become a recurring character and receive his own magazine in the early 1980's.

Next is "Time in Expansion" by Paul Neary (art) and Budd Lewis (story), part of the Hunter II series. Hunter and Exterminator meet a group of people in a fortress who have lost their king. Goblins come to attack, but the King returns, and they are able to defeat the Goblins.

Third is "Irving and the Devil Pie" by Leopold Sanchez (art) and Bill Dubay (story). Irving is an outlaw who is very famous and thinks he's immortal, only to be killed. He finds himself not going to hell, but a spirit world where he meets Devil Pie, who allows him to return to the real world, where he marries a rich, but ugly woman. He plots on killing her, but becomes scared of the Devil Pie, so he runs off and hides in the woods until his death. The Devil Pie had no intensions of doing anything bad to Irving however, making it all a waste.

Fourth is "Pooter and the Magic Man" by Luis Bermejo (art) and Bill Dubay (story). Pooter is a failed magician who meets the ghost of a Dr. Sigmond who says he'll let him be a famous magician as long as he assists the poor as well. Pooter becomes rich because of an inheritance and becomes quite famous, but pays no attention to his deal, so Sigmond causes his 'magic' to actually kill his assistants, driving him crazy. Bermejo's art is extremely good here.

Fifth is "Demon's Treasure", by Gonzalo Mayo (art) and Budd Lewis (story). This would be El Cid's final appearance. The story is about El Cid being sent to help a thief who had gone after treasure rumored to belong to a demon. After passing multiple distractions, he meets the wizard who created the demon, and switches cups with him when the man tries to poison him. Some very detailed, but hard to comprehend art by Mayo.

Last is "Mordecai Moondog" by Esteban Maroto (art) and Bill Dubay (story). The issue's best story, this features the character of the title, an exorcist, who is called by an old man to his mansion, which is haunted by seven spirits. The old man goes through the horrific history of the spirits, who were all of the 'Von Daemon' family. The spirits are all actually just part of one spirit, the old man, but Mordecai, who is actually the person who killed the original Von Daemon destroys him. A very interesting story with the horrific, long history of the Von Daemon story providing a lot of interesting and bizarre tales.

Creepy 38

Ken Kelly's cover of an axe wielding maniac starts off this issue. It was Kelly's first cover for Creepy. Clif Jackson provides the frontis, "Creepy's Loathsome Lore: Killer Plants!"

First story is "Wooden Cross!" by Rich Buckler (art) and Steve Skeates (story). A young man is called to a town by his uncle only to find him dead of a 'plague' when he gets there. It ends up that the plague is actually a vampire. The young man suspects the vampire is the head of the town, but it ends up being the son of the town doctor who he manages to kill with a cross after being made a vampire himself. Buckler's art appears very heavily influenced by Angelo Torres in this story.

Next is "The Vengeance of the Hanged!" by Syd Shores (art) and Chris Fellner (story). A corrupt judge sentences innocent people to die by hanging, doing so for some just to show his power to an enemy lawyer. One night he has a dream of being pursued by the corpses of the innocent people he's had hanged over the years. During the dream he is hung by them. He is found dead of a heart attack the next day, with rope burns appearing on his neck.

Next is "Sticks and Stones to Break Their Bones" by Tony Williamsune (art) and Stu Schwartzburg (story). A man finds many ancient carvings of people with modern weapons. This causes him to go to the military, telling them that ancient civilizations must have reached modern levels only to be wiped out, forcing civilization to start over. The military doensn't believe him, choosing to focus on their latest weapon... a primitive catapult. Not much of a sensical ending here.

Fourth is "The Way Home!" by Mike Royer (art) and T. Casey Brennan (story). A disoriented man talks to manequins, sits in a bar occupied by skeletons, and has dreams of going home to see his mother, who is with another boy, and kills her. He sees a black haired woman in a trenchcoat who says she'll bring him home... which ends up being a cemetary.

Royer provides the art again for the following story, "Sleepwalker!", with writing by Gerry Conway. A young woman beliees herself to be a vampire and attends therapy to cure herself of it, which she believes is successful. The killings continue however. She soon realizes that her husband is the true culprit, who had it blamed on her. Not only that, but he's a ghoul, who makes her his next victim.

Sixth is "Secret of the Haunted Room!" by Ernie Colon (art) and Bill Warren (story). A young man is given a house as part of his inheritance, under the condition that he live there for the rest of his days. The house is haunted however, and he soon meets a young woman inside who claims to be from 1910, not the present year, 1970. It ends up that she's a vampire, and makes him her next victim. This story is enhanced by inclusion of some real life shots, a shot of the cover, and some extra detailed drawings from Colon.

The story concludes with "The Cosmic All" by Wally Wood (story & art). Astronauts heading across the universe find a blob like creature on each planet they come to. They finally find a planet with humanoid people who attack them and are killed, leaving behind a message that their death was clean compared to whats going to happen to the astronauts. They decide to sleep there and the next morning two of the astronauts find everyone else reduced to skeletons. They escape, but one of them sends their ship crashing to Earth. Immediately after the flesh falls off their bodies, turning into the blob seen before, known as the 'Cosmic All' that is bringing peace to the universe by turning everyone to blobs. A very interesting sci-fi story.

Vampirella 110

Enrich's final Warren cover kicks off this issue of Vampirella. Jose Gonzalez provides a table of contents image of Vampirella.

First up is "A Feast of Fear" by Jose Gonzalez (art) and Rich Margopoulos (story). This issue features a murder mystery where Vampirella and Adam investigate. It ends up that a demon a woman summoned went out of control. Vampi and Adam are able to defeat the demon, but unfortunately for Vampirella she and Adam find it hard to redeem their prior romantic relationship.

Next is "The Masque of the Red Death", an adaption of the classic Poe story by Auraleon (art) and Rich Margopoulos (story). This classic tale tells of a plague that arises, killing many. Prince Prospero and his friends barricade themselves in a castle safe from the plague, and won't let any of the sick people in. They hold a ball where a mysterious masked man arrives with a skull like face who touches them, causing them to all die of the plague themselves.

Third is "Jeremy" by Paul Gillon (art & story), the latest story in this series. The pirate ship that Jeremy is on heads to an island where they are fought by new enemies. Later Jeremy takes advantage of an internal scuffle to escape along with Dona Aurelia.

Fourth is "Torpedo" by Alex Toth (art) and Sanchez Abuli (story). Luca, our hero from the previous story is attacked by a young boy, the orphaned son of one of his victims. Luca flashes back to how the man, who was a good friend of his was killed by him years ago in order to keep the mob from coming after him. Another pretty good story in this series, which would continue, without Toth in the next issue.

Fifth is another Auraleon drawn story, "Nightwind", featuring a story by Gerry Boudreau. A young man murders one of his father's tenants, a young black woman who he had fallen in love with but was forbidden from being with. His arrest and pleading of guilty due to insanity sparks an uproar that between a mob of black men and the young man and his father, with them all end up perishing.

Sixth is "The Queen of Souls" by Esteban Maroto (art) and Bill Dubay (story). My favorite story of this issue, this story also features some very good art by Maroto. The Queen of the Valley of Souls encounters a handsome man, Tristan, and his lover in the woods. The Queen asks him to become her husband, but he refuses so she kills her lover. He still refuses her demands and decides to kill himself instead. The Queen, desperate to bring him back to life finds her advisors and servants no help, until she finds an old woman who tells her of a boatman in a valley. She heads there and he brings her to 'The Dark Pit of Torment', where she finally finds him. He tells her there is no escape however, that they are in hell, where she is trapped forever and faces an eternity of torment.

The issue concludes with "Tales of Lost Drakulon" by Gonzalo Mayo (art) and Bill Dubay (story). This story was to kick of a new sequence of Vampirella stories, featuring Vampirella in her youth. With Vampirella coming to a quick end due to Warren's bankruptcy only this story was made in this serial. The story features Vampirella as a teen (still wearing her usual costume) and Tristan trying to save some lizard creatures on Drakulon. A very short story at only 4 pages long.

Eerie 70

Coffin gets yet another cover dedicated to him for this issue, done by Sanjulian. Berni Wrightson provides a one page intro by Cousin Eerie.

First story is Coffin's finale, "The Final Sunrise" by Jose Ortiz (art) and Budd Lewis (story). Coffin seeks to redeem himself by helping a native american tribe who has been ordered by the government to give up their land. Coffin initially tries to deal peacefully, but after multiple failures, he instead goes to battle with the native americans, who successfully defend their land. Coffin writes to his congressman brother hoping that he can help the native americans keep their land. Having done a good deed, Coffin goes to see the native american that cursed him, hoping that he can die for good. Only he finds the man already dead, leaving him alive for good. Coffin realizes how he can truly die for real, and allows himself to be completely consumed by ants, ending his saga once and for all. A terrific end to yet another terrific series drawn by Ortiz, who drew three of Eerie's best series ever, Night of the Jackass, Apocalypse and Coffin, all within the space of a year or so.

Next is the third part of the Hunter II series, "Goblin Thrust" by Paul Neary (art) and Budd Lewis (story). Hunter is confronted by a group of men who think he's a Goblin, but thanks to the Exterminator they reveal themselves to be allies. They head to an outpost where the Exterminator replenishes his energy, then helps defeat some Goblins. One of the men ends up being a traitor, summoning a bunch of Goblins, so Hunter and Exterminator head off on their own while the others fight, and unfortunately give up their lives.

Third is "From the Cradle to the Grave" by Leopold Sanchez (art) and Gerry Boudreau (story). This story carries the series title "Code Name Slaughter Five" but as you'll see by the conclusion, this ended up being a self contained story. In the future overpopulation has plagued the Earth so much that the government has put into steps attempts to control the population, such as forcing abortions on pregnant women, castrating men, and lessening the penalties for murder. They also secretly support revolutions that will cause even more deaths. Our hero, Ames is a government agent sent to work with an activist, Winthrop and infiltrate her organization. He succeeds, but the two of them end up being eaten by cannibals!

Fourth is another appearance by El Cid, "Crooked Mouth" by Gonzalo Mayo (art) and Budd Lewis (story). El Cid defeats the Moors in battle, but is accused of being a traitor when he decides to let them live. An old enemy of Cid's, Count Ordonez tells this to the king, trying to get Cid in trouble, and summons a demon to kill Cid. Cid defeats the demon however, reveals Ordonez's treachery and kills him. He explains his reasoning to the King, which is accepted. Some very nice art by Mayo, but it does get rather confusing at times, particularly in the battle scenes because it is so complicated.

The issue concludes with "Oogie and the Junkers", the first part of the Oogie series. Art is by Esteban Maroto and story is by Bill Dubay. Not the greatest story, but some very enjoyable Maroto art, reminicent of my favorite art job of his, "Scourge of the Spaceways" from 1984 issue 2. The story is about Leroy, a crewmember on a Junker ship who is a big fan of Buck Blaster and his companion Thelma Starbust. While married, Leroy has a relationship with a female crewmember on his ship, Prunie. The two of them head down to a planet hoping to salvage some supplies, but instead find Oogie, a creature who has the ability to create anything he desires. Oogie, a big fan of Buck Blaster as well, desires for Leroy and Prunie to stay there with him and experience Buck Blaster for real. They end up having no choice as Oogie ends up destroying their ship, causing their allies to think they have died.

From front to back this is quite a good issue, not a single poor story.

Creepy 96

An alien encounter special for this issue of Creepy, featuring an alien on the cover by Kim McQuaite.

First story is "Predation" by Rudy Nebres (art) and Bruce Jones (story). This story would win the Warren award for best art in a story for 1978. The story features a pair or alien lovers who look like humanoid frogs that come to Africa and decide to spend their day in the bodies of a pair of lions. Meanwhile a husband and wife head hunting into this area with a tour guide. While the husband does work, the wife and tour guide head out hunting and she ends up killing one of the lions, and the other soon is killed as well. The aliens however decide to occupy their bodies, and are forced to stay on Earth because their ship gets destroyed.

Next is "Trilby and the Star Rovers" by Luis Bermejo (art) and the team of Bill Dubay & Budd Lewis (story). A young boy named Toby is spoken to by the Trilby of the title, who comes from another planet. His parents don't believe him however, thinking he's making it up. When Toby is taken for real by Trilby however, his parents soon realize that he wasn't lying after all.

Third is "Bonga and Me" by Esteban Maroto (art) and Nicola Cuti (story). A young woman named Felci, the last surviving member of her tribe is kicked out of the tribe that destroyed her's. She wanders through the woods where she meets a baby dinosaur which she calls Bonga. When Bonga grows up into a Tyranosaurus Rex like creature, she heads back to the tribe and takes over, declaring herself chief. She works on taking over multiple other tribes, but suddenly Bonga dissappears when aliens, who originally lost him on Earth arrive to get him back. They are forced to seek her help however to keep him under control. This story was clearly originally intended for Eerie 90, which is a girl & lizard monster special issue. Maroto's artwork is quite poor compared to his usual excellence.

Fourth is "Alien!" by Martin Salvador (art) and Bill Dubay (story). A depressing story about a pair of men at war with alien creatures that look like giant walking frogs. One of the soldiers decides to leave two orphanned aliens alone, including one which is half human, half alien, but it comes back to haunt him later when they come after him and his friend.

Fifth is "The Green" by Luis Bermejo (art) and Bruce Jones (story). A young man, a 'Green', gets assigned for transporting ammunition through space rather than going into battle like he had hoped. As the months pass by on their long mission, his commanding officer tells him of their destination, a planet occupied by beautiful woman who will continuously have sex with them, as well as the fabulous food and exciting battles they will get into there. When they finally arrive, the Green realizes that it was all a lie, and was just a story his commander told him so he wouldn't go crazy on the way there. A fun story that I would rank as my favorite of the issue.

The issue concludes with "Alien Strain" by Alex Nino (art) and Bill Dubay (story). A 'Banggi' and his human friend are attacked by various aliens when they arrive at a planet where they have transported some robots. The mob has good reason to fear him however, as by arriving the Banggi has caused an epidemic where thousand of Banggi larva work their way through various prostitutes, infesting the planet. Very odd looking aliens here by Nino, as usual for him.