Axe Elf

It's ironic that the Warren magazines became my rabbit hole, because a warren is a place where rabbits live.   A warren is literally a rabbit hole.
This gallery explores the depths of the Warren Publishing rabbit hole--excluding paperbacks, foreign versions and variants, and of course the four Warren pillars of Famous Monsters of Filmland, CREEPY, EERIE and VAMPIRELLA.   (I have other galleries for 3 of those 4, but don't hold your breath waiting for the Famous Monsters of Filmland gallery.)
My plan is that eventually this gallery will contain every American version and variant of every other magazine title Warren ever produced:
1984/1994 : #1 - #10/#11 - #29
After Hours : #1 - #4
Blazing Combat : #1 - #4
Comix International : #1 - #5, #4b
Famous Films : #1 - #3
Favorite Westerns of Filmland/Wildest Westerns : #1 - #2/#3 - #6
The GOBLIN : #1 - #3
HELP! : #1 - #26 ( MISSING 12b )
Monster World : #1 - #10
Movie Specials:
       Alien
       Close Encounters of the Third Kind
       Famous Monsters Star Wars Spectacular
       The Lord of the Rings
       Meteor
       Moonraker
On the Scene Presents Freak Out USA : #1 - #2
On The Scene Presents Superheroes : #1
The ROOK : #1 - #14
Screen Thrills Illustrated : #1 - #10
Spacemen : #1 - #8, 1965 Yearbook
Special Editions:
       Flintstones at the New York World's Fair (1964) 25c
       Flintstones at the New York World's Fair (1964) 29c
       Flintstones at the New York World's Fair (1965)
       Heidi Saha
       House of Horror
        The Best of  Blazing Combat Anthology
       The Odd Comic World of Richard Corben
       The SPIRIT Special
       Tiny Tim
       VAMPIRELLA Special
The SPIRIT : #1 - #16
Teen Love Stories : #1 - #3
Warren Presents:
       #1 UFO and Alien Comix
       #2 Future World Comix
       #3 Star Quest Comix
       #4 Galactic Wars Comix
       #5 Ring of the Warlords
       #6 The ROOK
       #7 Alien Invasion Comix
       #8 Movie Aliens Illustrated
       #9 Dracula '79
       #10 Strange Stories of Vampires Comix
       #11 Pantha
       #12 Empire Encounter Comix
       #13 Sword and Sorcery Comix
       #14 Rex Havoc
       Warren Presents Famous Monsters of Filmland 1981 Horror Movie Yearbook
       Warren Presents Famous Monsters of Filmland 1982 Film Fantasy Yearbook
       Warren Presents Famous Monsters of Filmland 1983 Film Fantasy Yearbook

I didn't set out to get the best Vampirella collection that anyone had ever seen.   Heck, a month ago, I didn't even know I WANTED a Vampirella collection.   CREEPYs and EERIEs, sure, but I always kind of considered Vampirella to be comic book soft porn for teenage boys.   But then I found out that while she has a storyline or two in each issue, there are also lots of other horror/sci-fi tales in the Warren tradition throughout most issues as well--so the interest began.
And then I kind of started to finish my CREEPY and EERIE runs...   And then there was this full run of Vampis that had been just sitting there on eeBay with like 34 watchers for a month or so...   And then there was this bottle of Evan Williams on a Saturday night before my birthday...   And then I took a chance...
There weren't pictures of every issue in the listing, and the ones that were pictured were in group shots and in bags, but the ones I could see SEEMED to match the seller's description of "FN to VF" overall, so I trusted that and crossed my fingers and made the necessary negotiations, knowing that I might just as easily receive a pile of garbage with a few good-looking issues for the pics.   But I was kind of ok with getting some beaters, too; after all, my EERIE collection is mostly just reader copies; as long as Vampirella fell somewhere between them and the CREEPYs, I'd be happy.
So it was kind of like opening a pot of gold--with bright yellow streams of pure energy bursting from the cardboard and paper shells--when I unboxed these beauties.   Needless to say, I was MORE than happy!
Now, I can't say I'm not posting this Gallery to show them off--because I am--but the fact that I won the lottery with this collection really has nothing to do with ME--I'm not a shrewd hard-bargain driving high-grade collector with a keen eye for values or anything--I just got lucky.   So I'm a proud owner, but I'm not boasting; I was just in the right place at the right time.   Let the glory be with the books themselves.   There's even a part of me that is somewhat disappointed, in that I firmly believe comic books/mags are to be read--but there are whole runs of this collection that are literally too nice to read/handle.   I don't like thinking of comics as mere commodities, but many of these deserve to be the sexy "look but don't touch" objects that they are.
So I feel I have become a little jaded, after my "comics are for reading!" stance--though in all honesty I will probably never have any of these slabbed, either--but slabbed or not, most of them really are spectacular for 40-50 year old books, and they deserve to be shared.   I didn't do anything to create them, preserve them, or deserve them; I've just been installed as the curator of this museum--because I took a chance.
I hope you enjoy them too.

My CREEPY collection isn't all slabbed NM copies.  In fact, the only one slabbed is CREEPY #1, and only because it came that way.  My collection is for people who might actually read their magazines once in a while.  I'd like for all of them to be at least a 6.0--but I don't know if that will ever happen, and there are some pretty nice books in here as well.
So this is what you can do on a reasonable budget...

This is where my Warren collecting began.   After finding 7 EERIEs and 7 CREEPYs from my teen years in a storage box in January of 2022, I set out to get all of them.   And that was literally my goal, to simply have a copy of every issue--I was completely ignorant as to grading/quality/value--I simply wanted a copy of every issue, as cheaply as possible.
My goal, in fact, was to spend less than $10 per issue, landed (including any applicable tax and shipping charges), and it's probably fortunate that I decided to start with the EERIEs in that respect.   At the time, the decision was based on my vague understanding of EERIEs being more episodic in nature, with CREEPYs being more anthologic--so it made sense to get all the EERIEs first if I wanted to follow all their story and character arcs.   I was buying them to READ, after all; not as collectibles.
But now that I have some experience with the Warren market, it retrospectively seems that EERIEs in general are not valued as highly as CREEPYs (and certainly not as highly as VAMPIRELLAs), so I kind of fell backwards into picking the right series to try obtain for under $10 per issue.
Unfortunately, after what I had to pay for even low-grade copies of EERIE #17 and EERIE #23, I didn't quite achieve my goal of $10 per issue landed--the actual average was $10.87 per issue landed--but I DID come in at $8.44 per book BEFORE tax and shipping charges.   (Of course, I still don't have a #1--but NOBODY has #1.)
So there are large chunks of this collection that are pretty rough--but at the same time, a large proportion of that roughness is exhausted in the first third of the collection.   By the middle third, more of the issues move from VG/F (and under) quality to the F/VF range, and the final third of the collection actually has a large percentage of very nice looking books.   That said, I think the best-looking book in my entire run is the #6, which looks to me like the only Niner of the EERIEs.
So if you can find the right lots at the right times, you too can own a full run of (mostly) decent reader EERIEs (well, except #1--but NOBODY has #1) for about $10 per book on the Po'Boy Plan--where low prices are everything, and quality is no object!

Ok, this will likely be my last gallery--I promise--unless I come into a great deal of money and decide to take on Famous Monsters of Filmland after all!
Barring that, this gallery displays those books in my collection that aren't strictly Warren publications, but which wouldn't exist without the Warren publications that came before them.   In many cases, they provide a forum for several of the same writers and artists that worked on the Warren magazines and characters (although I'm not sure what Harris was thinking with their incarnation of The ROOK).
With all of the authentic Warren magazines being 40-65 years old now, and many of them showing their age, it's kind of refreshing to see some pristine modern work from the same contributors--chief among them Kelly, Sanjulian, and Frazetta, among whom the first six covers of Warrant's The CREEPS are distributed equally.
I have posted the Harris issues of the original Warren runs (CREEPY #146 and VAMPIRELLA #113) both here--as they are not actually Warren publications--and in the CREEPY and VAMPIRELLA galleries--as they both fit naturally into those native numbering sequences, and were released relatively shortly after the demise of Warren.   Sorry for the redundancy.  
In the case of the two ongoing Warrant titles (SHUDDER and VAMPIRESS CARMILLA), I will be updating each year's back issues and annuals every Christmas, so long as they are printed and I am still alive.   All other listed titles are in hand and will be posted shortly, in turn.
The CREEPS (Warrant): #1 - #32 + 4 Annuals
CREEPY (Dark Horse): #1 - #24
CREEPY (Harris): #146
CREEPY The Classic Years (Harris)
CREEPY The Limited Series (Harris): #1 - #4 + 1993 Fearbook
EERIE (Dark Horse): #1 - #8
EERIE Greatest Hits (Harris)
FREAKY (Arco): #1
Pantha (Harris): #0 - #2
The ROOK (Dark Horse): #1 - #4
The ROOK (Harris): #0 - #4
SHUDDER (Warrant): #1 - #7 + 2023 Annual ( #8 - COMING/ONGOING)
VAMPIRELLA (Harris): #113
VAMPIRESS CARMILLA (Warrant): #1 - #11 + 2023 Annual (#12 - COMING/ONGOING)
" COMING/ONGOING " means all previous back issues and annuals will be updated each year around Christmas.
If it doesn't say anything but the title, it's already posted.
I hope you have enjoyed this trip through the Warren publications... and beyond!