Axe Elf

So I happily unbagged my undercopy of EERIE #29, happy to be reading the first physical copy of a Warren magazine since EERIE #27 back on Labor Day, but I was about to get a shock. I didn't really bother to read the anti-war editorial again, but I had just cruised through "Dear Cousin EERIE" (I never thought that girl looked much like Vampirella anyway) and was happily making my way toward the end of the first story, "Loophole," when I found it. Someone had cut out the rocket and planet panel from the first page of the next story, "The Fiend Planet," leaving a big hole in the final page of the first story! ARGH! I mean, it's not a huge blow; I'd graded the undercopy about a 3.5 anyway, but treating it as an interior coupon cut out of a story page, I guess it's about a 1.0 now, although the 0.5 "Incomplete" designation makes some sense too. Seems like there is a lot better art in this issue to cut out rather than this largely black panel, but I guess someone really liked space or something. Anyway, I had to go back to a digital version to read what was missing. Once the girl disappeared in "Loophole," I could kind of see the twist coming, in that they were probably going to do something to make everyone disappear--but I really wasn't expecting the crossover from "science" fiction to "religious" fiction when they prevented the human race from ever existing by killing Adam and Eve! It's kind of an eye-roller, but at the same time, it's kind of cute, and definitely unexpected! The EERIE sci-fi theme continues with "The Fiend Planet," but its resolution was even more of an eye-roller. Maybe the humans wouldn't have been so quick to fear the "aliens" if they had spoken to them in English (as they did on the last page of the story), rather than that "tiki-wik-wik" nonsense. "Genetically modified" to live in the Gamma quadrant? Why?? The other humans didn't need to be genetically modified, and they were expecting other non-genetically modified humans to join them, so that's just some kind of silly MacGuffin to make the story work. "Bloodstaff" on the other hand was a fairly solid piece of sword & sorcery; that it was written and illustrated by the same person--and a new contributor at that--makes it all the more remarkable. Some of the little touches, like seeing his demon reflection in the water, or the demon footprints that never left the camp, I didn't appreciate until I went back looking for clues, but it's really a very well-told story, and the art was more than competent. I wasn't nearly as fond of "Gallery of Horror," although the concept for the story was interesting. I just didn't get the end--was there actually a giant spider living in the house, or was there a painting of a giant spider on the ceiling that he neglected to destroy, or the spider got out of its painting before he destroyed it, or what? As the "cover story" (?) written by Nick Cuti and illustrated by Tom Sutton, "The Vorpal Sword," was probably the highlight of the issue. I mean, if you were going to cut some art out of this issue, I would think you would cut THIS out, instead of that relatively barren spacescape: Magnificent. Again, the twist is a bit of an eye-roller, but again, it's kind of a cute one--especially after she began apologizing for her "rotundness." I just have to think that in reproducing with a vorpal sword, one runs a very real risk of adult circumcision or even castration, but I guess love makes one do crazy things. I thought it was a little weird that the "Fan Fare" pages included a professional artist's illustrations paired with what appeared to be a regular fan fiction--"The Tomb of Ankh-Ra"--although I must admit that this fan fiction was much better written than the usual fare, so if any fan fiction deserved professional illustrations, it was this one. "The Headsman," paired with Frazetta's CREEPY #17 cover, wasn't as good, but still above par. "Strange Getaway" seems out of place in a horror magazine. There's the typical sci-fi/fantasy aspects that EERIE leans toward, but a happy ending?? The mirror actually led them out of their struggling existence into a paradise where they lived happily ever after? It didn't cost them their firstborn, or condemn them to some horrible dimension-traveling disease? I think I want my money back... I thought I could see the ending to "Snow Job" coming--the sherpa guide IS the yeti, right? Well, close; but surprise! The guides are all werewolves perpetuating the yeti myth to draw in victims! Ah-HA! Ya got me there! Overall, this was a fairly pleasant issue to read (other than discovering a third of one page cut out of my undercopy)! It didn't have any real "must-read" stories, but for an issue with several new and newish contributors involved, it also didn't have a lot of major problems, either--and it's the first Ken Kelley EERIE cover!

EERIE #29 - September 1970 According to the Warren Magazine Index... 29. cover: Ken Kelly (Sept. 1970) 1) An Editorial To The President Of The United States And All The Members Of Congress [James Warren] 1p [text article, frontis] 2) Loophole! [Nicola Cuti/Jack Sparling] 7p 3) The Fiend Planet [Buddy Saunders/Dan Adkins] 6p 4) The Bloodstaff [Rich Buckler] 7p 5) Gallery Of Horror [Buddy Saunders/Carlos Garzon] 7p 6) The Vorpal Sword [Nicola Cuti/Tom Sutton] 7p 7) Eerie Fanfare: The Tomb Of Ankh-Ra/Headsman [Virginia Jenkins & Don Allen/Phillippe Druillet & Frank Frazetta] 2p [text stories] Frazetta’s art from the cover of Creepy #17 8) Strange Gateway! [T. Casey Brennan/Jack Sparling] 8p 9) Easy Way To A Tuff Surfboard! [Archie Goodwin/Frank Frazetta] ½p reprinted from Eerie #3 (May 1966) 10) Snow Job! [Doug Moench/Jack Sparling] 7p Notes: Archie Goodwin was listed as Associate Editor. Doug Moench made his professional comics debut. Famous French artist Phillippe Druillet made his only Warren appearance, but oddly enough it was on the fan page!?! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I think I always thought this was a Frazetta cover. I'm a little surprised to see it's a Ken Kelley cover, so quickly after his VAMPIRELLA #6 debut--and especially as the artist to break up the recent trifecta of Kenneth Smith covers! You can tell he was still heavily influenced by The Man at this point, though, as the cover is certainly reminiscent of Frazetta. We're back to new EERIE stories again, after a 6-week hiatus, and back to a normal-sized, 7-story issue again after the brief experiment with the 9-story CREEPY #35; I for one will be glad to sacrifice the quantity for quality again (hopefully). And I'm back to having my first physical undercopy to break out and actually read this week, for the first time since EERIE #27. I'm thinking after this week I might try to sell my EERIE undercopies up to this point. I've done enough upgrading to pretty much have a complete full set of reader-quality undercopies from #2 to #19, with a handful here in the #21-#29 range after that as well. If anyone is interested, let me know and I'll keep you posted. I'm a little leery of posting my first official "sales thread," but I'd rather offer them here first before I try to go through daBay or whatever. I also wanted to comment on keeping up over the holidays, as @OtherEric kind of ran into that problem last week when his review was delayed by his travels. He got his review in on time, but if he hadn't been able to do so, I was going to suggest that when he could get to it, he could go back and edit his review into his original post about his review being late this week. And I may have to do something like this myself, as I'm going to be at my mom's house in rural Kansas for about a week around Thanksgiving, so I may have to make a "placeholder" post, for the kickoff post for the week, or for my review for that week, or both, and then come back and edit them in later as necessary. And I would suggest the same strategy for anyone else who might be in danger of missing a week in which they wanted to post--if you can at least make a "placeholder" post sometime during the week in question, then you can come back and edit your review into that post when you get the time later, and all of the current issue's reviews will stay within its own week. Hope that makes sense...

Wish I could find a bigger/better image of this, but it caught my eye and my fancy anyway... I bet some of you collectors can produce the original mag satired here.

So NINE new stories, plus a Fan Club AND a Letters section AND an anti-war editorial from James Warren himself? I think this is the biggest issue so far (at least in terms of non-advertising content), and that automatically makes it a GOOD issue--but I think it fell short of being a GREAT issue. To start with, our third Kenneth Smith cover in a row raises a lot of questions, but none of them seem to be answered by any of the stories in the book; I like it better when the cover relates to something inside the issue. Still, he sure likes his greens. The editorial was much more interesting to me; putting each issue into historical perspective is always one of my goals. It's also interesting that it touches on the Blazing Combat title, kind of foreshadowing "Army of the Walking Dead," which appears later in the issue, and felt to me like it could have been a story in an issue of Blazing Combat. It had that same feel of a purportedly true war story that simply never got told because of its bizarre supernatural nature. I'd call it one of the highlights of the issue. And to further the theme of addressing real-life social issues, Uncle Creepy's response to the featured letter on the "Mail" page assured us that more socially pointed stories are coming in future issues, so I'm looking forward to those for more historical perspective. Other highlights of the letters included the debate between sci-fi and horror, and a lengthy response by Uncle Creepy regarding what it takes to break into the business as an artist. As is always the case, the best part of "The CREEPY Fan Club" was the profile of artist Ken Barr. I generally like reading about the contributors a lot more than I like trudging through the tripe submitted by fans. It was kind of curious that the main fan story, "The Littered Trashcan of Humanity," apparently also had a fan illustration--by a different fan in another city!? Maybe they weren't intended to be related and just coincidentally worked well together? I don't know, but I do know that as a former child care worker, the story itself concerned me. All those references to "no garden-variety drunken stepfather," as were probably written by a teenage girl, just reeks of unspoken abuse in her real life, now some 50 years ago. Sometimes horror isn't imaginary. But back to the world of fantasy... "Tough Customers" was a good lead story. It was kind of predictable, but still engaging. I've always had a bone to pick with the "protection" trope, though. If the thugs would risk being charged with aggravated battery or even murder to lean on the business owners who won't pay their $150 a week or whatever, why wouldn't the thugs just steal the $150 from them and only risk a misdemeanor theft charge? After they put two "robber baron" stories so close together in CREEPY #34, I see they haven't learned their lesson, placing two stories based in the alchemist's dream of turning things into gold back-to-back in "Legend in Gold" and "Polly Want a Wizard." Neither story was all that great, although the storytelling style of "Polly" was more engaging--but it was also more confusing at the end. I'm not really sure what happened for Mr. Black's spell to go wrong--was it the parrot repeating Osiris' name a couple extra times? Roger Brand's art was interesting, though; some of the faces reminded me of characters from the old "Adventures of Tintin" strip. "Godslayer" may have been the highlight of the issue. The art and story were both engaging, the plot was tight, and I hope it is what it appears to be--the first of three chapters in an epic sword & sorcery tale--and that it doesn't get abandoned after this first chapter. And that's kind of where the issue should have ended, in my opinion, as I wasn't very fond of any of the remaining four stories. The title of "It's Grim" doesn't really have anything to do with the story, at least not in any clever way beyond the generic foreshadowing of the word, and its subject matter wasn't particularly credible, either. Its only redeeming quality was the psychological horror that the protagonist went through as he agonized over his friend's actions. "The Druid's Curse" wouldn't have been too horrible if they hadn't tortured the ending to make it fit the curse--drowning in blood? He was dying from his wounds anyway--and he was still talking, so he probably wasn't drowning in his own blood. And what's up with the druid's forehead at the end? It looks like he was transforming into a hornet's nest or something. "Gunsmoke Charly" started out as a credible "deal with the devil" story, but then Charly starts to feel bad about it and chases the devil out into the desert (to do what, exactly?) only to meet his quite uneventful doom. It was kind of a story without a climax. And finally, "Justice" is another Pat Boyette story that I don't really get. The main character seems to be on trial for his crimes, but then suddenly he is back in the sewer contemplating putting his victims back together again (at least what he doesn't eat of them)? So he imagined the trial, or what? So overall, while I really did enjoy having to read this jam-packed issue in two sittings because it was so jam-packed, I was a little disappointed that the quality was notably sparser than the quantity. It had its moments, though.

CREEPY #35 - September 1970 According to the Warren Magazine Index... 35. cover: Kenneth Smith (Sept. 1970) 1) An Editorial To The President Of The United States And All The Members Of Congress [James Warren] 1p [frontis] 2) Tough Costumers! [R. Michael Rosen/Tom Sutton] 6p 3) Legend In Gold [R. Michael Rosen/Roger Brand] 6p 4) Polly Want A Wizard [Howard Waldrop/Ernie Colon] 6p 5) Army Of The Walking Dead! [R. Michael Rosen/Syd Shores] 7p 6) The Creepy Fan Page: Ken Barr Profile/Rock God/The Littered Trash-Can Of Humanity/The Fool’s March [Archie Goodwin?, Bradley Burke, Jessica Clerk & Ted Dasen/Winsor McNemo] 2p [poem/text article & stories] 7) Godslayer [Bill Stillwell] 6p 8) It’s Grim… [Al Hewetson/Syd Shores] 7p 9) The Druid’s Curse [Buddy Saunders/the Bros. Ciochetti] 6p 10) Gunsmoke Charly! [Alan Weiss] 8p 11) Justice! [Pat Boyette] 6p Notes: Archie Goodwin returned, listed as Associate Editor. Cost of the magazine went up to 60 cents. This issue was a brief experiment with all stories/no ads format, usually suggested as a response to the first issue of Skywald’s rival B&W magazine, Nightmare. But Nightmare’s first issue is cover dated Dec. 1970 so it was more likely that this was also a reaction to Major’s Web Of Horror magazine, which had a no ads format (although the magazine itself had been recently cancelled) rather than the upcoming Nightmare or Skywald. Warren’s anti-war editorial was the first in only two attempts to use his magazine line as a bully pulpit. The fact that he was confident in being blatantly anti-war in the editorial underscores the massive changes the country had undergone socially and politically in the four years since conservative elements had forced Blazing Combat off the stands. Future gonzo SF writer Howard Waldrop made his professional writing debut, while fan artists Bill Stillwell and Alan Weiss also make their mainstream debuts. A good, solid issue. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oh cool, a predominantly green Kenneth Smith cover! We haven't seen one of those in a while! I mean, I generally like them, but they could have spaced them out a little. I just now realized that the figure on the cover isn't a hunchbacked Yoda-looking character swathed in robes, as I have thought since first unpacking the run, but a disgusting little spheroid of a creature picking its teeth as it leans against a huge fluorescent ghost skull. I've learned something about this issue already! I'm loving the idea of NINE new stories... but no ads? What if we need a live monkey or a rubber fly? With 3 CREEPYs, 3 EERIEs, and 2 VAMPIRELLAs all released in the 3 consecutive months of July, August and September of 1970, I'm not sure that this was the most sustainable of ideas, but after the last two Annuals took me down memory lane, having an abundance of new material to drag me back to the (past) present sounds like a good thing in the short term. Hopefully Goodwin's return means we will start seeing some new scripts from him as well. I also respect Warren for the stand(s) they (he?) took on social issues, and I look forward to reading the anti-war editorial as the frontis this time. Congress is probably the next-best thing to a Monster Gallery anyway, and it has certainly generated its share of Loathsome Lore... EDIT: P.S. It's "Customers," not "Costumers," as the Index indicates.

I still think it's pretty cool that the same guy did the covers for both of the Annuals this year, and that they were both dominated by the same shades of green. I don't have a lot to say about this week's collection of reprints which is the EERIE 1971 Annual, other than like the CREEPY 1971 Annual, I enjoyed reading through them again without the usual tedium of the letters page(s) or the eye-rolling fan fiction page(s). It was also fairly refreshing to not notice a lot of editing/spelling/grammatical errors in this issue--the main offense being that they didn't bother to re-write the outro to "Island at World's End" so that it didn't sound like the last story in the issue, as it was when it first appeared: I don't know if it was intentional or not, but it felt a little like this Annual is starting to acknowledge the differentiation between the "supernatural monsters" focus of CREEPY and the more sci-fi, psychological horror pieces that seem more common in EERIE (like "Hatchet Man," "The Defense Rests," and "It" in this issue). In revisiting @OtherEric's review, he seems to have noticed the diversity between the two as well, but it didn't work as well for him. I kind of see it as foreshadowing the paths each title will take in the future, although I realize that interpretation only works in retrospect, and probably wasn't the intent at the time. But it definitely highlights the difference that I saw in the later issues as a teen. "Wolfbait" and "The Changeling" seem like kind of middling stories for a "best of" issue, but "Island at World's End" and "Swamp God" are both classics, and that full-page panel where the T-Rex first appears is still as strikingly majestic as ever. So the last couple of weeks have been a pleasant trip down memory lane, but now we can look forward to a new year of new stories and new art from half a century in the past... thanks to our friends at Warren.

What's wrong with this picture?

Yeah, I think the red highlights are supposed to be the glow from the explosion in the background, but it reminded me of that old 3D printing technique.

EERIE 1971 Annual - August 1970 According to the Warren Magazine Index... 2. cover: Kenneth Smith plus a montage of previous covers (1970) 1) Hatchet Man [Archie Goodwin/Gene Colan] 8p reprinted from Eerie #4 (July 1966) 2) Wolf Bait! [Archie Goodwin/Rocke Mastroserio] 8p reprinted from Eerie #8 (Mar. 1967) 3) It! [Archie Goodwin/Dan Adkins] 8p reprinted from Eerie #10 (July 1967) 4) The Defense Rests! [Johnny Craig] 8p reprinted from Eerie #7 (Jan. 1967) 5) Island At World’s End [Archie Goodwin/Gray Morrow] 10p reprinted from Eerie #4 (July 1966) 6) The Swamp God! [Archie Goodwin/Angelo Torres] 6p reprinted from Eerie #5 (Sept. 1966) 7) The Changeling [Archie Goodwin/Gene Colan] 8p reprinted from Eerie #6 (Nov. 1966) Notes: Editor: James Warren. Title changed to the Eerie Annual. $.60 for 64 pages. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There's that Kenneth Smith again; I guess it makes sense that he would do both covers for the Annuals this year. This one also makes extensive use of the same eerie (no pun intended) green hues that graced the cover of the CREEPY 1971 Annual, and with the contrasting red highlights, it almost looks like it should be viewed through the old red/blue 3D glasses. It seems like they were experimenting with smaller CREEPY and EERIE logos on this year's Annuals as well. I'm glad it didn't catch on. Only 7 stories in the EERIE Annual to 8 for the CREEPY; seems like kind of a gyp, doesn't it? At least almost all of these are actually from the single-digit issues--but I see no clue that the "first seven issues" copy that I questioned in last week's CREEPY was ever intended for this book, although it's much closer to being accurate in this case. So again I'm looking forward to the walk down memory lane and revisiting some of the classic stories. It's nice that they included a Mastroserio piece in both Annuals this year--but I'm not sure they needed two Gene Colan vehicles when they're already going with only 7 stories anyway.

Maybe it's Evily...

Hardcovers are usually more expensive anyway, but that's probably why there was such a price difference. As a "budget" collector, I was ok with the paperback version--but I assumed it would be the same thing! On the other hand, the Spanish artists don't necessarily interest me any more than any of the other artists, so I'm probably ok without the extra spotlight. Good information to know, though! Just when I think I know all there is to know about Warren, something else pops up... ...like that Dracula Book 1 special edition... still trying to find a decent affordable copy of that... ...and I just recently learned there was a variant cover for the first Dark Horse issue of CREEPY too... so I have one of those en route... ...and it's almost time to catch up on the 2023 issues of SHUDDER and VAMPIRESS CARMILLA... ...it just never ends!

Missed another one tonight... My max bid was $200. It would have been SO COOL to move my only other slab--a CGC 9.0 CREEPY #1--up to the top shelf (where the CREEPYs are actually located) to make room for hanging a CGC 9.0 EERIE #2 as the endcap on the second shelf (where the EERIEs are actually located) of my Warren bookcase! But it was not to be...

We already discussed what a cool freaking cover this Annual has--good enough to grace a regular issue, and way better than a montage of past covers! So right off the bat, I'm reading the frontis, and it refers to the collected reprints as coming from the "FIRST SEVEN" issues of CREEPY: But only ONE of the eight stories is from the first seven issues of CREEPY ("Grave Undertaking" is from CREEPY #5)! That's weird; would it be that much harder to say the first eighteen issues? It made me wonder if the frontis had been recycled from a previous Yearbook or something--and sure enough, the speech balloon copy was lifted directly from the frontis of the CREEPY 1969 Yearbook! But wait! There are ZERO stories from the first seven issues of CREEPY in THAT Yearbook (there is only a "Loathsome Lore" lifted from CREEPY #7)! So it's bad enough that they just copied and pasted verbatim without updating the text (at least they remembered to change the year!), but it wasn't even CLOSE to being correct in the first place! WTF, Warren?? I actually re-read every story word for word this time, which is something I don't usually do with the reprints--but it was kind of bittersweet to revisit the classic stories and art. Sweet, because they really were some pretty cool stories--and some damned fine art! Bitter because of how much the contrast struck me. It's kind of like the proverb about slowly boiling a frog and what you get used to. Granted, these are hand-selected as the better stories, but there have been so many really silly plots and sloppy editing lately--even in otherwise enjoyable presentations... I don't know. I feel like now I'm going to sound too critical, and I don't mean to be critical of the present so much as nostalgic for the past. But as I mentioned in a recent review, I kind of miss seeing things like classic horror literature brought to life by classic illustrators--like Crandall's work on Poe's work--and of course I miss looking for Crandall rats. (Found one this issue, too!) The other main thing I got out of re-reading all the stories is that I kind of remember being baffled by "The Rescue of the Morning Maid" when I first read it back in CREEPY #18. I don't think it registered with me that the little girl was the spirit of the witch's rival being kept "alive" against her will, for some reason. I thought the title just referred to the "rescue" of her china doll or something. It makes a lot more sense now, and I understand why they didn't focus so much on the "rescuer" himself. And he might not be a Ditko or an Adams, or even a Crandall or Toth or Torres, but it was nice to be reminded of the astounding Johnny Craig ("Jay Taycee") art on "The Mountain."

I was hoping to spend this year upgrading some of the key Warren issues, and I kind of feel like I missed one here. LINK I sat and watched as the timer ran out on the auction, expecting there to be a flurry of late bids--which is also why I didn't bother putting in a bid myself. I probably would have paid $250 for it if I thought that would take it--but I kept expecting it to jump up another $200-$250 as the auction ended, and it just didn't. Who knows what the max bid was, or if I would have gotten it for the $250-$275 that I probly would have been willing to pay--but it was kind of bittersweet to see it go for a price that I actually had a shot at winning. Pretty nice-looking 6.0, too. Oh well, on to the next... (At least now I don't have to decide whether or not to crack the slab!)

Good catch!

Heh, my thoughts exactly. Good call!

CREEPY 1971 Annual - August 1970 According to the Warren Magazine Index... 4. cover: Kenneth Smith (1970) 1) Beast Man! [Archie Goodwin/Steve Ditko] 8p reprinted from Creepy #11 (Oct. 1966) 2) A Curse Of Claws! [Archie Goodwin/Neal Adams] 6p reprinted from Creepy #16 (Aug. 1967) 3) The Mountain [Johnny Craig] 6p reprinted from Creepy #8 (Apr. 1966) 4) Grave Undertaking [Archie Goodwin/Alex Toth] 6p reprinted from Creepy #5 (Oct. 1965) 5) Castle Carrion! [Archie Goodwin/Reed Crandall] 8p reprinted from Creepy #14 (Apr. 1967) 6) Image In Wax! [Archie Goodwin/Tom Sutton] 6p reprinted from Creepy #17 (Oct. 1967) 7) The Rescue Of The Morning Maid! [Raymond Marais/Pat Boyette & Rocke Mastroserio] 10p reprinted from Creepy #18 (Jan. 1968) 8) Skeleton Crew! [Archie Goodwin/Angelo Torres] 7p reprinted from Creepy #11 (Oct. 1966) Notes: Editor: James Warren. The title was changed to Creepy 1971 Annual. $.60 for 64 pages. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hello again, reprints! We thought we ditched you after LAST year's Yearbooks! But now it's almost like we're getting a two-week vacation, with the CREEPY and EERIE Annuals on tap for our next two issues. And they really dove into the Wayback Machine for these reprints, going as far back as the fifth issue to harvest reprints for this year's annual. Someone will need to explain to me how that makes any sense at all (I would prefer the Annual to be primarily a review of the best that the past year had to offer), but I'm actually kind of looking forward to looking back on some of these classic artists--Ditko, Adams, Crandall, Toth, Mastroserio, Craig, Torres, and even a dash of the more contemporary Sutton. The list of artists in this issue certainly deserve to be featured in an Annual, just maybe not in 1970. Anyway, we have now officially transitioned from "Yearbooks" to "Annuals" for some reason. I don't recognize the cover artist's name from any previous issues, but I think this is my favorite cover of the Yearbooks/Annuals overall (although the EERIE 1972 Annual is a close second). There's kind of a big fish/little fish sense to it, only it's a big demon/little demon in this case, with the poor human souls at the bottom just watching helplessly. The Index didn't have much to offer in the way of new information, but it will be interesting to hear if anyone here has any new thoughts about the classic strips. So if it's your intention to provide introspection on your retrospection, leave it here for our inspection.

Was just browsing someone's sales thread and saw the back of Famous Monsters of Filmland #46, which also uses the traditional spelling of "castle" in "Castlemare." If it's an Aurora toy, then I'd have to defer to Aurora's ad for the "correct" spelling, but it appears that the Warren publications are at least consistent in their misspelling of it.

Yeah, I assumed that was a cut and paste from the original ad. I guess you can take your pick on which was misspelled then--the ad, or the title of the story.

I was doing my usual once-over of the contents page when I noticed that the word "CREEPY" in the indicia appeared to be in bold-face type this time. I hadn't noticed it being different before, so I went back to look at a few other recent CREEPYs to see if it was a consistent thing--and I hadn't gotten further than the last issue when I found an even MORE egregious error in the indicia--as you can see in the close-up below, the indicia for CREEPY #33 says "EERIE"! Oops! As I've said before, I like it best when the cover artist also draws the story associated with the cover--because they know what they were thinking when they drew it. This issue is no exception, as I had a completely different idea about the "Lifeboat" concept from the cover than I did after reading the story. The cover led me to believe that the little pods were the "lifeboats," climactically escaping from a valley of long-necked dinosaurs or something, when in fact the cover represents nothing more that a "then they went to" moment early in the story, which utilizes an entirely different concept of a "lifeboat" (and almost completely ignores the long-necked dinosaurs). It was actually a pretty good story, if you suspend disbelief regarding some of the logistical details, finishing with a weighty moral issue regarding the survival of one race at the expense of another. One of the better stories in some time. I also thought "Minanker's Demons" rose above the typical Warren fare to give us a second standout story in this issue, packing a lot of sword and sorcery into 6 short pages, even if the way the pentagram was damaged in the end was a little farfetched. It might have been better if the hero hadn't lost the magic sword scaling the wall, and then the pentagram could have been damaged in the course of attacking the wizard with it. But besides a solid story and improved art from Fantuccio, my real delight from this story came from the vocabulary Buddy Saunders displayed in the text. For instance, I had never heard the word "ensorcelled" before, but it is in fact a real word! As is "cacodemons," although the term was later somewhat hijacked by the "DOOM!" games. I thought "cendiaries" might also be a word I hadn't heard before, but it doesn't appear to have any existence outside of the flaming demons that appeared in the story. Still, with spelling and grammatical errors comprising my biggest pet peeves in Warrendom, this relatively literate tale was a delight to read, and I even learned a thing or two. I also learned something new from "CREEPY's Monster Gallery... er... Loathsome Lore" this week; I had never heard of the "makara" before. At first I thought the makara was that Submariner-looking fellow riding a Dumbo submersible, but as I read on and Googled "makara" I realized it was the Dumbo submersible itself that was a makara. Not really Adkins' best work, in my opinion, but at least it was kind of unusual. The "Mail" page (I hadn't noticed that it stopped being "Dear Uncle CREEPY"; it looks like the transition happened in CREEPY #30) was dominated by praise for CREEPY #32 and the "Rock God" story. Longtime letterer Ben Oda got a shout-out too. Quite surprisingly, there was actually some good fan fiction in the "CREEPY Fan Club" this time, to match the quality of the fan art. I was pleasantly surprised, as I can usually hardly stomach reading those. But for all those highlights and pleasant surprises, the absolute pinnacle attraction of the issue still has to be seeing Ken Kelley's work on "The Cool Jazz Ghoul." The shading/wash work was pretty mesmerizing. I'm just not sure if the ending suggested that the devil was coming for our hero again, either as that girl, or as the bespectacled gent turning to face us--or if our hero literally got away with his life after besting the devil--that would certainly make him "cool," if not necessarily a "ghoul." "Soul" music, heh. "X-Tra "X"" was another turn of the "this town isn't big enough for two monsters" tale, couched in some scientific nonsense. It was passable for an opening piece, if you could ignore some of the medical technobabble, but while Klinefelter Syndrome (an extra X chromosome) is in fact a real medical condition, it is usually manifest through "feminizing" otherwise male children, rather than turning them into lycanthropes--and chromosomes sure don't give off a fluid because of the moon's gravity. He should have just identified an entirely new gene--the Z gene or something--to be the culprit. I wasn't as turned off by "The Forgotten Prisoner of Castlemare" as I thought I might be, given that it was inspired by a toy advertisement, but it actually wasn't horrible. It even had some elements that reminded me of Poe's "A Cask of Amontillado." However, I thought Reed Crandall did a much better job of illustrating the adaptation of that story than "Williamsune" did with this one--and the piece ended on a sour note with the misspelling of "Castelmare" [sic]. I was just thinking the other day that we haven't seen any adaptations of classic horror literature in the Warren mags lately. I wonder if that was a function of the "dark ages" limited funds that didn't extend to purchasing copyright licenses? The fly in this issue's ointment is "The Swamp in Hell." After reading @OtherEric's analogy to the Frankenstein story, I can see that, and I'm a little less damning of it in that regard--but given that "love" somehow destroyed the monster at the end, I don't see how the kindness of the old blind man wouldn't at least have made the monster a little uncomfortable--but it seemed to be mollified by his kindness. And the idea that the monster spawned from the sewage of London piling up along the banks of the Thames in the first place is just too ridiculous to entertain. Oh well, they can't all be gems. I didn't even like new artist Don Vaughn's art for that one as much as I enjoyed new artist Syd Shores' art for the final entry this month, "Ando." It was also a pretty good script--it almost seemed like it could have been the origin story for an "Ando" continuing character series--but then they basically killed him off as an aside in the outro, killing any chance of a reprise with it. They also did this story a disservice by including it in the same issue--and so soon after--the "Castlemare" story, as both tales had their foundation in cruel robber barons terrorizing the countryside. It also doesn't seem that it was originally penned to be the final story of this issue (or any issue), as the Uncle Creepy outro suggests another tale to follow. Maybe so, but we're going to have to wait until the next issue. I hope it is as good as this one was.

Not many people know there was a 5th Beatle in that iconic photo--it's parked on the left in the background.

Upon further review, I guess the new SHUDDER is a Sanjulian Santa Claus with a bloody knife.

Quite probably, because I just got an email notice about the new SHUDDER preorder, and the cover was a Sanjulian Santa Claus with a bloody... club maybe? Anyway, I knew it was similar to one of the CREEPS covers, so I looked through them until I got to #21, which is a Sanjulian Santa Claus with a bloody axe. Long story, but yeah, that was probly where I saw it.

That's awesome. And I JUST saw that painting somewhere else within the last day or two, but I can't remember where...

CREEPY #34 - August 1970 According to the Warren Magazine Index... 34. cover: Ken Barr (Aug. 1970) 1) Creepy’s Loathsome Lore: The Makara! [Dan Adkins] 1p [frontis] 2) X-Tra…”X” [R. Michael Rosen/Jack Sparling] 7p 3) Lifeboat! [Bill Parente/Ken Barr] 7p 4) The Creepy Fan Page: The Doomed/The Movie Critic/Lost: A Life/The Search For The Phasimara Plant [Thomas Isenberg, Steven Hart, Anthony Kowalik & John Scorfani/Mondini Gianluigi, Gerald Colucci, Brant Withers, Scot Cassman & Carole MacKinnon] 2p [text stories] 5) The Cool Jazz Ghoul [Al Hewetson/Ken Kelly] 7p 6) Minanker’s Demons [Buddy Saunders/John G. Fantuccio] 6p 7) Forgotten Prisoner Of Castlemare [R. Michael Rosen/Bill Fraccio & Tony Tallarico] 6p 8) The Swamp In Hell! [Al Hewetson/Don Vaughn] 6p 9) Ando! [R. Michael Rosen/Syd Shores] 6p 10) Easy Way To A Tuff Surfboard! [Archie Goodwin/Frank Frazetta] ½p reprinted from Eerie #3 (May 1966) Notes: Editor: James Warren. Ken Barr was a Scottish artist who did quite a lot of work for DC’s war comics as well as for Warren over the next several years. He was a very good cover artist but strangely his best cover work never appeared for Warren. Instead, his Warren work often appeared muted and was overshadowed by just about everybody else doing covers at the time. Future underground & ‘Garbage Pail Kids’ artist John Pound appeared on the letters’ page. Future cover artist Ken Kelly made his professional debut by rendering a rare comic story. It’s pretty good too! The ‘Forgotten Prisoner Of Castlemare’ was based on the Aurora model kit of the same name, regularly advertised in the back of each Warren issue. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Odd that the Index would call this Ken Kelly's "professional debut"--and Kelly himself a "future cover artist"--when we just got done with Ken Kelly's professional debut as a cover artist for VAMPIRELLA #6--clearly dated "July 1970" while this issue of CREEPY is clearly dated "August 1970"--as the Index itself dates them! So maybe THIS is actually the 8th appearance of the Frazetta Surfboard ad, and the one in EERIE #28 was the 9th... (Cue the Twilight Zone theme.) Anyway, the Ken Kelly piece is probably the one I am the most anxious to read, even though he's not necessarily a "new artist" to me now. But this issue seems to have a lot of "new blood," so to speak, and speaking of which, I've always liked this cover, so I'm interested to see what new artist Ken Barr can do to "flesh" out the full gory... er... story. The issue closes with a couple of new artists as well--and of course I'm kind of infatuated with the Fantuccio story and how cool it is that some of you have books from his own personal collection! His art wasn't amazing the first time around, in VAMPIRELLA #5, but it was quite interesting. These will be our last original stories for some time, in any case, as our next two weeks will be occupied by the 1971 CREEPY and EERIE Annuals.