Axe Elf

Well, what do we think... did someone get a steal, or did someone get the shaft? LINK

In relation to this cover in particular, or (as I have heard before) in general with Frank's work? Yeah, that's kind of my thinking... It seems like a new artist would be asked to create a cover for a story already written, rather than having the honor of having their art written into a story. But then if Frank did the original layouts for the piece, was he working from scratch, or was he also working from the story as a way of helping out Ken? We may never know...

I wasn't really thinking about the cover as I was reading "Darkworth," and then, there it was! "All right ma'am, would you like your stick here, or..." So that set off a whole "chicken vs the egg" train of thought as to whether the cover or the panel in the story came first. It's not technically a Frazetta cover, although he apparently had a hand in it, and I know that most of the stories correlated with Frazetta covers were written to fit the cover, rather than the other way around. Given that this was Ken Kelley's first cover art, though, it would stand to reason that he fashioned the cover after this panel in the story--but then we have the Index referencing published layouts for the cover done by Frazetta, so again I'm not sure which came first. If the story didn't come first, though, it was an odd way to write in the little troglodyte with a stick as the magician's henchman. The story itself isn't too bad, although it stretches credulity that the assistant would have been buried in the empty grave the magician had purchased for his escape trick--and that she would have died from having her spine smashed by a stick in the first place. And I agree with the index that Royer penned the heroine as hawt as any of the other females depicted in this issue--but just about every story had some appearance by one hottie or another. Grandenetti's opening piece, "The Curse of Circe" was a surprising close second in the hottie contest--surprising because Grandenetti's faces are often pretty harsh and stark, but he manages to draw both of the main female characters and a few supporting actresses with enough charm to make their irresistibility credible. This is pretty much instantly my favorite Grandenetti work ever. I was disappointed that both of the main characters died trying to escape, but I guess it wouldn't be a curse if everyone lived happily ever after. "One Way Trip" was the most thought-provoking story of the issue. It read a little like the comic book version of "Reefer Madness" in places--"this guy is so drugged, NOTHING may help him!"--but at the heart of it, it had to do with drugs as a means of self-exploration, and in particular, confronting one's own original sin, that "beast" of evil within us all. And just as our hero's "evil" was ultimately the source of his destruction, so is our own sin the invoice of our death. I agree with @OtherEric that "The Wolf-Man" rises above the standard fare of the genre with an original twist, and I thought it was ironic that Frank Bolle also drew the other offering from the standard Warren monster catalog--"The Victim of the Vampyre." The former had a much better -script, though, with the "vampyre" story being more typical--the only real twist being that the vampire was the hero's brother. I also agree with @OtherEric about the torso of Adkins' centaur for "Vampi's Feary Tales" (which isn't even much of a "tale" this time; this would be more suited to a Monster Gallery). Usually only the chest and shoulders of the man rise above a transitional abdomen into the body of the horse, but this pictures the man's hips basically transitioning into the horse's neck. So yeah, kind of a fail all around--especially for an artist as skilled as Adkins. It seemed obvious that the twist in "New Girl in Town" had to do with the girl's identity, since her face was conspicuously hidden in every frame--but I was expecting her to have vampire teeth or pointy ears or a rabbit's face or something when we finally saw her--but once she got to the cemetery I knew we were dealing with another in the genre of "dead people who don't know they're dead." As such, it was a fairly light, but entertaining filler piece. "The Brothers Death" was an interesting concept--that Death is not a single hooded figure, but a family of brothers, but I thought that concept could have been put to better use than a silly love story, in which the balances of life and death are disrupted for the relatively trivial pursuit of a bride. Nothing much caught my attention in "Vampi's Scarlet Letters," other than a mention of the spirograph designs in VAMPIRELLA #4, but the writer complained that there were 24 spirograph designs in the story and it was a bit too much. I guess they didn't realize that the spirograph designs represented the story's omnipresent deity, and that's why it was in almost every panel. Likewise, the fan fiction for "Vampi's Flames" was as nondescript, if not as terrible, as ever--but the fan art continues to maintain my interest to some degree. I read the book a few days ago, and I have the lingering impression that this was a pretty bad issue in terms of editing and proofreading--one speech balloon was so garbled it was hard to make out what they were trying to say--but going back to the issue now, I can't find where it was. On the plus side, I'm not so bothered by those little errors in the long run as I once was, and I still have an overall positive impression of this issue--the art was all pretty good, and for the most part, the stories weren't plagued by glaring plot holes (even if they could have been proofread a little more closely). After the first year of VAMPIRELLA, I'm mostly just still enjoying that it leans a little more toward the risque than the CREEPY or EERIE titles. The Vampis are FUN, if nothing else!

Mike Royer the artist? That's pretty cool...

That was to be the cover for "Wolverines Ripped My Flesh," the lost album by Frank Zappa.

I was thinking that as I pasted in the titles; "Oh, THE Wolf-Man, eh? Like we haven't had a hundred wolf-men already..." Glad to hear it rises above! I've thought about this quite a bit lately too, as there have been some issues where I've been kind of disappointed with the stories--but I think it's just that I remember the "highlights" from the issues I read as a teen--stories that entertained me like The Rook, or made me think like Moonshadow, or for whatever reason really kindled my imagination, and I want EVERY story to be that good! And it's just impossible to do that, story after story, seven times an issue, eighteen issues a year at this point. So I get kind of critical of the writing (and the editing!) at times, but I still love these books, and even when I roll my eyes at a limp twist or a massive plot hole, I almost always still enjoy looking at the art in all but the most rare of occasions. As always, thanks for your thoughts.

VAMPIRELLA #6 - July 1970 According to the Warren Magazine Index... 6. cover: Ken Kelly (July 1970) 1) Vampi’s Feary Tales: The Centaur [Dan Adkins] 1p [frontis] 2) The Curse Of Circe [Gardner Fox/Jerry Grandenetti] 6p 3) The Brothers Death [Nicola Cuti/Jack Sparling] 7p 4) Darkworth! [Nicola Cuti/Mike Royer] 7p 5) New Girl In Town! [Gardner Fox/Dan Adkins] 4p 6) Victim Of The Vampire! [Vern Bennett/Frank Bolle] 7p 7) Vampi’s Flames: Untitled/The Bat [Ron Fisher & Brian O’Malley/Ron Fisher, Ken Christie, Jerry Conessa, Anthony Kowalik, Jack Becker, Toby Caputi, Chris Haug, Richard Cherron & Ed Shea] 2p [text stories] 8) One Way Trip [Larry Herndon/Bill Fraccio & Tony Tallarico] 7p 9) The Wolf-Man [Buddy Saunders/Frank Bolle] 7p Notes: Editor: James Warren. Ken Kelly debuts his first cover art. Comic Book Artist has printed layouts for this cover done by Ken’s mentor, Frank Frazetta. Best story & art belonged to ‘Darkworth!’ with Mike Royer’s best & sexiest renderings! Story revolved around a stripper—always a good subject for a comic strip! Frank Bolle also had two good strips here. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm not sure if the Index intentionally overkilled the word "strip" there, but it certainly makes it sound alluring! It looks like Tom Sutton took a vacation this month, with no appearance in this issue but Dan Adkins stepping in for the Feary Tales and another full story--"New Girl in Town" sounds alluring too! I didn't mention it in my review of EERIE #28, but one of the letters was from a fan requesting more Jerry Grandenetti, and I was thinking, "Ew, why would you want more Jerry Grandenetti, of all people?" and then here we go, a new piece by Jerry Grandenetti! I'm interested--and they apparently thought it was good enough to lead off the issue--but careful what you wish for, I guess... So we're already finishing up the first full year of VAMPIRELLA! Ken Kelley's first cover art means a lot more to me now than when I was first exposed to the fact; I'm blessed to have a nice copy of it.

Wait, what? Where's the car pictures?

And finally, I found my own copy of The Warren Companion without having to spend triple digits on it!

The last 2 EERIE upgrades...

I guess "SAUCERIANS" sounds cooler than just "ALIENS" for "EERIE's Monster Gallery," but it was basically carte blanche for Sutton to explore alien creatures. The art itself was great--he packed a lot onto the page, and the three main panels really have a lot more depth than it appears at first glance--but I thought he could have been a little more imaginative with the aliens; they all appeared pretty similar to me. Sutton also got a shot at drawing more aliens when he was assigned this issue's "what-did-they-really-find-on-the-moon" story, which wasn't much more than a retread of last week's "Luna" in VAMPIRELLA #5. "Follow Apollo" was interesting to me in the same historical context as the other moon landing stories, but it's pretty eye-rollingly unoriginal so soon after "Luna." But Sutton's moon aliens were different from his "saucerians," so that's a plus. I was surprised by how many writers to "Dear Cousin EERIE" seemed to be mortally offended by the depiction of a monster with a gun on the cover of EERIE #26. Everybody knows monsters don't use guns, sheesh! And I smiled at the guy trying to find a copy of EERIE #1--hope he found one! Cousin Eerie also spills the beans about Ernie Colon being the "David St. Clair" credited as the "Forgotten Kingdom" artist (the spirograph story) in VAMPIRELLA #4. And just to quickly address the "EERIE Fan Fare" pages, which are quickly becoming my least-favorite feature (except when they spotlight a contributor), the fan art was quite a bit better than the (as usual) pathetic fan fiction. And now, back to the stuff for which we actually read these books... I was taking in the Dan Adkins art as much as the story itself when I started out reading "The Hidden Evils," and then I found myself being immersed in the story as well. It was really very well-drawn and well-written--right up until the end! Satan himself went through all that just to tell one of his demons that he possessed the wrong person; now go and don't screw it up this time? There was so much drama building up to that little slap on the wrist; it's almost comical how bad that ending was, given how good the piece was up until that point! Hey! You said there would be suffering! Where's the suffering? Billy Graham's art for "The Beast in the Swamp" was no letdown after the opener from Adkins, although the facial features of the main barbarian were oddly indistinct most of the time. The story itself took enough time to breathe and develop the foreign world and its creatures for the twist to have a thought-provoking impact in terms of mankind's exploratory effect on existing ecosystems. It was a gorgeous journey. "The Rescue Party" reminded me more of "classic" (Goodwin) Warren stories where the villain is confronted by the dead they have left behind. In that sense, it wasn't a bad story, but it also felt like it was just different characters in a story I'd read before. Sparling's art wasn't his best, but it was as good as it needed to be. The first real let-down of the book (for me) was "Ice Scream." The Bill DuBay art was kind of puzzling, in that he seemed to spend a lot of effort on intricate backgrounds, but then the characters themselves were at times little more than line drawings. It was pretty obvious the janitor knew what was going on, but I had hoped he was doing something more interesting with the bodies than just feeding them to his family--so the story seemed kind of slight to me, and a missed opportunity to do something more unique with the cryogenic theme. "Pit of Evil," though, was really a waste of its Piscopo art--which was pretty credible, for the number of fight sequences required. To be whisked away to another dimension to fight an intergalactic champion, though, I wanted to see higher stakes--like he was fighting for the survival of the human race or something. But they were just offering him his own planet to control for a year as the champion and he said, "No thanks," and they said "Ok" and sent him home and none of this really mattered at all...? Pretty unsatisfying. I had really been looking forward to the Pat Boyette piece, "The Last Train to Orion," to close it out, and how it would relate to his cover for this issue, but I didn't think this story was nearly up to the standard he set with his "Royal Guest" tale from CREEPY #33. Most of the space stuff was just gobbledygook--"an atomic sea, spanning the measurable expanse of the universe"?? "An endless mass of atomic matter"??? C'mon, man. And I didn't really understand how all the various parts of the story worked together... Everyone was under 40... except the captain, but it was ok, because he wore a mask... and he wanted to kill everyone for some reason... and that infected the galaxy with the "humanitis" disease for the next ten million years or something...? I dunno, it was all just a mess. Fun to look at, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it was trying to say, and I'm not sure I even care. At least it brought us back around to the topic of aliens.

These first two were the last two of my EERIE collection that I had self-graded below 4.0 VG (at 3.5). The 1972 Annual isn't a HUGE upgrade, but it was only $10, and it's at least a 5.0, so that's good enough for me. The EERIE #41 was won in an auction for about $16.50, and it was a distinct upgrade--more like a 7.5 over the old 3.5. And the same seller also had a few other EERIEs up for auction at the same time, so I THOUGHT I was combining shipping with a nifty little 4.5ish EERIE #17 that I won for a cool $12.50--but upon arrival, I found that its center wrap was detached at both staples--and the back cover looked like it had been soaked in coffee. Sigh. I guess it looked that way in the listing, too, but I thought it was just all in shadow or something, it's so universally dirty. So now I have like three copies of EERIE #17, each of them having their own shiny features, but each of them hampered by their own serious flaws which keep any of them from grading out in the top half of the scale when taken as a whole. My first copy had a pretty gorgeous front cover, but ugly water damage on the back cover. Looks great in a bag... until you take it out. The second copy I got is cleaner overall, but the front cover is less appealing, with those tears at the staples, exposed by that ugly spine roll. Still, I guess this is my "best" copy? If you squint a little, you could probably call it a 5.0. If I could marry the front cover of my first issue with the back cover of my second issue, I'd have a 7.0! And then I'd keep my latest coffee-soaked "upgrade" for my reader undercopy.

Been a while since I posted updates, so I have a handful from the past couple of months... Upgraded two Spacemen (#2 and #7); they don't look so much different in the scans, but my #2 had a spine split halfway up from the bottom, and my #7 was completely split and mostly detached (half the cover was hanging on at one staple). The new #2 has a completely intact spine (but a date written in the title), and the seller TOLD me that the #7's spine was intact, too, but it turns out to be split about halfway up itself. They were shipped poorly enough--and the envelope was in poor enough shape upon arrival--that I can't be sure the spine didn't get some help splitting in transit. Still, it's an upgrade over what I had, so I'm keeping it. I'll add some EERIEs later...

Great info!

EERIE #28 - July 1970 According to the Warren Magazine Index... 28. cover: Pat Boyette (July 1970) 1) Eerie’s Monster Gallery: The Saucerians! [Tom Sutton] 1p [frontis] 2) The Hidden Evils! [James Haggenmiller/Dan Adkins] 9p 3) The Beast In The Swamp! [Bill Warren/Billy Graham] 8p 4) Eerie Fanfare: The Horror Of Biscayne Gardens/The Man On The Hill/By The Moon/Who Is In The Shadows?/Poem/A Dragon’s Tale [mike Petit, Jeff Kadish, Peter MacKenzie, Steven Teal, Danny Massoni & Brad Linaweaver/Mike Jasinski, Tony Bishop, Greg Theakston & Arvell Jones] 2p [text stories & poems] 5) The Rescue Party! [Buddy Saunders/Jack Sparling] 7p 6) Follow Apollo! [R. Michael Rosen/Tom Sutton] 6p 8) Ice Scream [R. Michael Rosen/Bill DuBay] 7p 9) Pit Of Evil [Al Hewetson/ Piscopo] 7p 10) The Last Train To Orion! [Pat Boyette] 6p 11) Easy Way To A Tuff Surfboard! [Archie Goodwin/Frank Frazetta] ½p reprinted from Eerie #3 (May 1966) Notes: Editor: James Warren. Interesting cover & story from Pat Boyette but the best story was Bill Warren’s & Billy Graham’s ‘The Beast In The Swamp!’ This sword & sorcery effort (as well as the Amazonia stories in Vampirella) makes one wonder why Graham never got a chance to draw Conan. He’d have been great at it! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Surfboard Counter Alert! It's kind of hard for me to reconcile the gothic tone of Boyette's art for the cover of CREEPY #33 with the sci-fi tone of this cover, but I suppose that only testifies to his versatility. I'm looking forward to his associated story, since the cover hints at an unconventional use of the word "train" in its title, though "Orion" makes a lot of sense. Seems like the Index kind of buried the lead with no mention of the first Dan Adkins sighting since I don't know when--leading off the issue, to boot--so I'm looking forward to that, too! The Index also kind of glosses over something that my newly-acquired Warren Companion notes for this issue--that it marks the return of James Warren as temporary editor! I'm looking forward to fewer spelling and grammatical errors (fingers crossed)! And from what the Index does tell us, I should probably be looking forward to the new Billy Graham work as well. I'm even looking forward to some new Piscopo art, and Sparling and Sutton can't be bad either, can they? Heck, I'm just looking forward to it all! Say goodbye to EERIE for a while; this will be the last (new) issue we see (other than the 1971 Annual) until November!

In the case of Frazetta covers, it seems like the associated story was always written to fit Frank's work, rather than his covers being painted to fit the associated story--and in this case you can really tell. "Scaly Death" was basically just a way to tell a story about the cover, but as a childhood dinosaur aficianado, I found it kind of dumb having two herbivorous dinosaurs (triceratops and dimetrodon) chasing the humans and then fighting to the death along the way. The Billy Graham art was top-notch, though; including what may be our best Vampi yet for the intro. And speaking of great art, the Jeff Jones vehicle, "An Axe to Grind," was insanely great in that department, even if the story itself was kind of slight. The use of extreme contrasts reminded me of a black and white Hitchcock film or something, and at its best, the story utilized a Hitchcock sense of suspense, even if the denouement might not have been worthy of Hitchcock's mastery. And I think Sutton's work in this issue deserves to be called out, both for "Avenged by Aurora" and for his "Vampi's Feary Tales." However, the Feary Tales work is probably more "tail" than "tale," as the "Satanic Sisterhood of Stonehenge" theme gave him a great opportunity to crank out some lurid hotties--but it's not really based in anything historical that I've ever heard of. His art in his longer story was so good it reminded me of some of the earlier fantasy work by Ditko. The story itself really disappointed me, though. It was working pretty well as a fantasy tale right up until the end, and then it seemed like we went through that whole story just to land the joke about "A Roarer." The miscredited "Williamsune" art for "The Craft of a Cat's Eye" was also remarkable in terms of their unique use of layouts and blended askew panels and whatnot, but again, it deserved a better story. It seemed like it was headed for a more satisfying ending than just, "and then the cats tore him apart," but whatever. Jack Sparling's rendering of "Luna" was also better than the story itself, but as always, I get a kick out of these stories about space exploration--and particularly the moon--in the historical context of being published only a few months after the first moon landing in August of 1969. I guess I can blame Don Glut for getting the quote wrong, though... It was of course, "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." But again, the story itself was really dumb--reconstituting crystallized life from the moon by just adding water... It's more like one of the advertisements for "sea monkeys" you might find in the back of the mag or something. "Escape Route" didn't stand out in either art nor plot; I guess as filler material it does ok; it just wasn't very meaty. And that leaves "Ghoul Girl," which is more fascinating to me in terms of the rarity of the artist's work--and of course @OtherEric having some of the books from the artist's own collection!--than it is on its own merits. I didn't think the art was particularly outstanding or anything, although it was serviceable, and I liked the way the artist signed his work. But again--the story! Everyone is consumed with bloodlust to destroy the ghoul--but then it suddenly flips and everyone else is a ghoul out to destroy the competition--but just this one competitor? Makes no sense. So my overall impression of this issue is that it is a GREAT book to look at, with impressive offerings from several great artists, but between all the plot holes and typical spelling/grammar errors, it's a more difficult issue to read. Even "Vampi's Scarlet Letters" and the newly-christened "Vampi's Flames" were pretty tedious this issue, with a lot of the letters just drooling over Vampi herself, and most of the fan contributions being pretty juvenile, as usual. But I did enjoy the profile of Billy Graham, since I am liking his art so much--and I hadn't even thought about him being a black man, given that the more famous "Billy Graham" was not--so the pic was an eye opener! I'm also not sure I'm on board with the name "Vampi's Flames." In today's parlance, a "flame" is like an insult. I guess back then they meant it in terms of "lovers" or at least "admirers," but it has a negative connotation to me now. 50 years later, though, I guess we're stuck with it...

That was printed in their blood, right?

I only liked this because there's not a love button. Never saw that before!

Well darn, I didn't mean to deprive us of some amusingly improbable explanations! Yeah, just an asking price--but sheesh, who do they think they're kidding?

Really? For a 4.0 with a big- water stain? Just because it's in a slab??

There is no Grace Slick on that cover.

That's pretty cool.

Yep, the fake I.D. to the EERIE #23 Club!

VAMPIRELLA #5 - June 1970 According to the Warren Magazine Index... 5. cover: Frank Frazetta (June 1970) 1) Vampi’s Feary Tales: The Satanic Sisterhood Of Stonehenge! [Tom Sutton] 1p [frontis] 2) The Craft Of A Cat’s Eye [Don Glut/Bill Fraccio & Tony Tallarico] 9p 3) Scaly Death [Don Glut/Billy Graham] 6p 4) An Axe To Grind [Jeff Jones] 7p 5) Vampi’s Flames: Billy Graham Profile/The Sorrowful Hounds/Double Feature/A Pain In The Neck [Billy Graham, John Pitts & James Perry/Richard Charron] 2p [text article & stories w/photo] 6) Avenged By Aurora [Bill Parente/Tom Sutton] 9p 7) Ghoul Girl [Don Glut/John Fantucchio] 6p 8) Escape Route! [T. Casey Brennan/Mike Royer] 6p 9) Luna [Don Glut/Jack Sparling] 8p Notes: Striking Frazetta cover showing a caveman & woman menaced by a T-Rex. Fan page regular Anthony Kowalik named the fan page Vampi’s Flames. Very nice art & story by Jeff Jones. Also good work by Billy Graham, Tom Sutton and John Fantucchio. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is another issue I feel very lucky to own in a 9.ish condition, given the gorgeous Frazetta cover. Even once I get past the hottie and the dinosaur, I'm really entranced by the mountains in the background and the intervening mystical blueness. The mountains look a little snowcapped, so I thought maybe the blueness was a glacier of ice or something, but dinosaurs wouldn't be all that compatible with arctic environments. So then I thought maybe it was just a body of blue water--but the mountains aren't exactly reflected in it. So that leaves us with some kind of glowing blue time portal through which prehistoric creatures are transported unsuspecting into a Neanderthal valley in the Himalayas to threaten the indigenous humanoids. ...but then I have yet to see Page 15, so everything could all be made clear soon. Many of the artists credited here are becoming regular Warren features now, so we should be in for another generally strong issue this week. I'm probably most looking forward to more Billy Graham and Jeff Jones, but Royer, Sparling, Sutton--there's not really a suspect name here. I don't really remember Fantucchio's name, but the Index assures us that his work is a highlight, so I'll be looking forward to that, too.

Without pulling mine out of the bag, there's just the tiniest bit of "chipping" of the inside pages at the top corner, visible from the back cover scan--but it's so small as to almost be insignificant unless you really zoom in.