Warren Magazine Reading Club! 7 7

[Axe Elf]

On 9/3/2023 at 3:46 PM, Jayman said:

Nice-looking copy!

[The Lions Den]

On 9/3/2023 at 1:21 AM, OtherEric said:

This was an excellent issue, I don't really have much to say beyond that.  A nice change after my underwhelmed reaction to the Vampirella last week.

And I'm looking forward to what you guys think of the next issue of Vampirella...    

[Axe Elf]

Having such a crappy undercopy of EERIE #27, I again indulged myself this week by reading the physical book, instead of a digital version--and I wasn't even careful!  Instead of laying it open flat on a table and gingerly paging through the book, as I had done with physical undercopies before, this time I read it like I did when I was a teenager--rolling up the book on one side while reading the other, not caring if I bended a page, etc.--basically acting like a kid instead of a collector again!  So that was fun...

This was the first time that I remember seeing speech bubbles in the little illustrations on the "Contents" page; usually it's all just images.

The Golem was a good subject for a "Monster Gallery," but Sutton didn't really seem to explain it very well.  It was a magical ancestor of Frankenstein, and apparently those who were touched by it suffered a dreadful fate--but it doesn't really talk about it being animated stone/clay, or what that dreadful fate may be.

A lot of praise for Steranko's EERIE #25 cover in the "Dear Cousin Eerie" column, and one more poor kid who wasn't able to get a copy of EERIE #23 because his parents would have thought the cover was too trashy. 

The other fan-based feature, the "EERIE Fan Fare" pages, were highlighted this week by the Neal Adams bio--although it wasn't all that much different from the bio that appeared in CREEPY #32 for the "Rock God" intro.

"Journey into Wonder" was very engaging and entertaining, but as @OtherEric first observed, it's more sword-and-sorcery than horror.  I thought it was cool that the "Escher Path" on the cover is exactly the same as the path in the first panel of the story--again it makes me wonder which came first.

The woman on the cover looks more like a prisoner, though, whereas in the story she was more of a willing participant--although he did still lead her by a rope.

All in all, I think the inviting otherworldly charm of the cover was delivered by the story it illustrates, and in tandem with the second story in the book, "Amazonia," they make a pretty great opening to this week's issue.

The latter continued the sword-and-sorcery theme...  but the sword's name is "Excalifer"?  Really??  I thought it was just another typo (and there were a bunch of annoying ones this week) until I saw it repeated that way a few times.  The story was equally engaging and entertaining as the first one, but while the first one was a self-contained tale, this did seem a little more episodic, like chapter 1 to a whole book yet to come.

The art was somewhat interesting, though, as it seemed to border on the cartoonish, while at the same time flirting about as hard with female nudity as we have yet seen in CREEPY or EERIE.

I agree that it will be interesting to see what another artist--specifically one that I am coming to enjoy in general like Billy Graham--can do with the character (but I hope they don't change her costume - heh).  I guess this artist can't draw Cousin Eerie though; they used that pic of his rubber mask again to narrate the intro--I don't think we've seen that since the early issues.

"The Machine God's Slave" was pretty dumb, after the dual pleasures of the first two stories.  A machine that just drags a guy inexorably to the sea?  And then what, the machine rusts?  Goes back to the temple?  There should have been more about where this machine came from and why it does what it does, and why it's their god, or whatever.  As it is, it's just a story about some primitives on another planet and their bloodthirsty lawn tractor.

"Swallowed in Space" was even dumber than that.  I'm not even going to try to recap it.  They weren't even really "swallowed" in space, they appeared to become space, once they found whatever "answer" they were looking for.  It was fairly enjoyable reading up until the nonsense ending.

"Enter Dr. Laernu" does have the same episodic feel as "Amazonia," so it is odd that they never revisited the character.  It's a fairly well-told lycanthropy story, though, once you get past its treatment of one of the supporting cast as the titular character.  Ditko's Dr. Strange had been around for about 7 years at this point; I wonder if that character was any inspiration.

"All Sewed Up" was probably the best story of the issue, after the first two gems.  It was well-told and well-illustrated, with a nice satisfying twist.

"Face It" reminded me of both the Adam Link stories, and that alien in Men In Black who is really just a tiny alien piloting a human-sized body from a cockpit inside the head.  It was an entirely credible ending to an above-average issue, but there were a couple of things on the splash page that caught my attention.

"Warrenella" the Snake Charmer!  HA!

And the main character is always referred to as "Mister Mentalto" throughout the rest of the story, but I guess they only had room for "Mentalo" on the van?

This could have been a really excellent issue if not for the two clunker scripts in the middle--but I even enjoyed reading those until their endings made me go wtf.  And it seemed like an awful lot of annoying spelling errors this time again too.  But yeah, beautiful cover, engaging sword-and-sorcery fantasies, and a couple standard Warren lycanthropy tales with twists--this issue is a keeper.

[OtherEric]

On 9/8/2023 at 4:19 PM, Axe Elf said:

This could have been a really excellent issue if not for the two clunker scripts in the middle--but I even enjoyed reading those until their endings made me go wtf.  And it seemed like an awful lot of annoying spelling errors this time again too.  But yeah, beautiful cover, engaging sword-and-sorcery fantasies, and a couple standard Warren lycanthropy tales with twists--this issue is a keeper.

We both seem to agree this issue was a winner, with a couple weak points... but we don't remotely agree on what the weak points are. This actually tells me the issue is maybe even better than I thought, because different reactions shows that it's trying different things and appealing across a wider base.

[Axe Elf]

CREEPY #33 - June 1970

According to the Warren Magazine Index...

33. cover: Pat Boyette (June 1970)

1) Creepy’s Loathsome Lore: Mermaids! [Tom Sutton] 1p   [frontis]

2) One Too Many [Buddy Saunders/William Barry] 6p

3) Royal Guest [Pat Boyette] 6p

4) Blue Mum Day [R. Michael Rosen/Reed Crandall] 6p

5) Dr. Jekyll Was Right [Bill Warren/Bill Fraccio & Tony Tallarico] 7p

6) I’m Only In It For The Money [Al Hewetson/Juan Lopez] 7p

7) The Full Service! [Nicola Cuti/Jack Sparling] 6p

8) The Creepy Fan Page: Pat Boyette Profile/More Poetry/Rockets To Terror/I Love Her/Message From The Dead [Bill Parente,Joseph Westbrook, L. Alain Portnoff, David Martin, Allan Feldman & Mark Aubry] 2p   [poems & text stories w/photo]

9) Boxed In! [Tom Sutton] 6p

Notes: Boyette’s cover & interior story were quite good, as was the Rosen/Crandall tale.  The best story & art, however, came from Tom Sutton’s homage to Will Eisner—the excellent ‘Boxed In!’

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Ugh.  This is one of my least-favorite covers in all of Warrendom.  The art is ok (and I'm interested in reading what I assume will be a related story written and illustrated by the same artist within, especially given the Index's endorsement), but I just hate these big colored borders that make the art so much smaller--and I just hate that color!  It's some orangey shade of a yellowish ochre... I don't even like that word "ochre."  It's an ugly word for an ugly color.

Maybe the best thing about the cover for me was all the long-tailed rats, which reminded me of Reed Crandall--though Crandall rats were more fat-tailed than long-tailed.  But then how curious that Reed Crandall actually returns as a contributor in this issue when we haven't seen an original story from him in ages--and the Index also gives it a thumbs up!

I don't know much about Will Eisner, although I believe The SPIRIT is the next Warren title that will debut in the Reading Club (some 21 months hence), so I'm intrigued by the solo Sutton piece being an "homage" to Eisner--as it will be as much an introduction for me as an homage.

So not to judge the book by its cover (at least my copy is an 8.5ish orangey yellowish ochre), it looks like there's a lot of good stuff in here to look forward to.  And I suppose we shouldn't be spoiled already by ALL NEW material; this is only the second CREEPY to be ALL NEW since CREEPY #16!

[OtherEric]

Creepy #33 thoughts:

Cover:  One of the two Boyette covers for Warren.  It's not a bad painting, but it's badly cramped inside the huge yellow border.  I have no idea why they did this, it's not like the painting didn't leave room for the logo or something obvious like that.

Loathsome Lore:  Sutton provides an excellent bit of mermaid art, it seems like it was designed to work at either a lore page or a monster gallery, depending on where it was published.  I'm far from certain the Uncle Creepy at the top is by Sutton, it almost looks like a bit of left over Jack Davis work.

One Too Many:  There's a decent little story in here somewhere, but the pacing seems all off to me.

Royal Guest:  An excellent little story from Boyette.

Blue Mum Day:  A so-so story (starting with a horribly tortured pun of a title) that provides a frame for Crandall to hang some amazing art on.  Definitely a net win overall, though.

Dr. Jekyll Was Right:  Some very nice art by "Williamsune", but an ending that tries too hard to tie things up in a moral without actually working very well as a story.

I'm Only in it for the Money:  This seems to be Juan Lopez Ramon's only Warren story, and indeed only US story. They have some more credits in international publications.  Let's just say this one hasn't aged well and leave it at that.

The Full Service:  A decent little time paradox story, although the resolution isn't terribly clearly done.  I think I've finally figured out what it was going for, but I'm still not 100% positive.

Boxed In:  I'm not sure why the indexer said this was an Eisner homage.  It has a little bit of Eisner in the mix, but also some Kirby kid gang stuff, and a definite touch of EC in the ending.  It's an excellent little tale to end the issue on, though.

This was another strong issue; although I think it might have benefited by dropping one or two of the stories and letting the others have a few more pages to breathe.  Most of the stories are only 6 pages, with a couple at 7, and lots of them seem to be cramped with rushed endings.  But that's a relatively minor complaint, given the overall quality here.

[FoggyNelson]

On 9/10/2023 at 1:21 AM, OtherEric said:

Creepy #33 thoughts:

Cover:  One of the two Boyette covers for Warren.  It's not a bad painting, but it's badly cramped inside the huge yellow border.  I have no idea why they did this, it's not like the painting didn't leave room for the logo or something obvious like that.

Loathsome Lore:  Sutton provides an excellent bit of mermaid art, it seems like it was designed to work at either a lore page or a monster gallery, depending on where it was published.  I'm far from certain the Uncle Creepy at the top is by Sutton, it almost looks like a bit of left over Jack Davis work.

One Too Many:  There's a decent little story in here somewhere, but the pacing seems all off to me.

Royal Guest:  An excellent little story from Boyette.

Blue Mum Day:  A so-so story (starting with a horribly tortured pun of a title) that provides a frame for Crandall to hang some amazing art on.  Definitely a net win overall, though.

Dr. Jekyll Was Right:  Some very nice art by "Williamsune", but an ending that tries too hard to tie things up in a moral without actually working very well as a story.

I'm Only in it for the Money:  This seems to be Juan Lopez Ramon's only Warren story, and indeed only US story. They have some more credits in international publications.  Let's just say this one hasn't aged well and leave it at that.

The Full Service:  A decent little time paradox story, although the resolution isn't terribly clearly done.  I think I've finally figured out what it was going for, but I'm still not 100% positive.

Boxed In:  I'm not sure why the indexer said this was an Eisner homage.  It has a little bit of Eisner in the mix, but also some Kirby kid gang stuff, and a definite touch of EC in the ending.  It's an excellent little tale to end the issue on, though.

This was another strong issue; although I think it might have benefited by dropping one or two of the stories and letting the others have a few more pages to breathe.  Most of the stories are only 6 pages, with a couple at 7, and lots of them seem to be cramped with rushed endings.  But that's a relatively minor complaint, given the overall quality here.

Great post ‼️ informative 👍

[Jayman]

On 9/10/2023 at 1:00 AM, Axe Elf said:

Ugh.  This is one of my least-favorite covers in all of Warrendom.  The art is ok (and I'm interested in reading what I assume will be a related story written and illustrated by the same artist within

Boyette’s art can be hit or miss. I’m more familiar with him from his Charlton work. I’ll say I’m not a huge fan as his blocky style is not to my taste. His painted work is a bit better IMO.

[Axe Elf]

I criticized the cover in this week's intro, but I do like it when the cover and its associated story are from the same creative mind, rather than a story inspired by someone else's painting, or a painting inspired by someone else's story.  As such, the Boyette cover art works well with Boyette's story, "Royal Guest"--now I know why there were rats on the cover!--and Boyette is even featured in this issue's "CREEPY Fan Club!"  So it's kind of his issue.

And even in a relatively strong overall issue, "Royal Guest" stands as one of the better stories--it almost has an Edgar Allen Poe feel to it.  I guess they didn't have K95 masks back then, so COVID protocols would have included gold masks for everyone.  After I had reflected on it for a while, though, it was kind of hard to reconcile that the queen's caretaker wouldn't notice the stench of death when he delivered her food each day--or that the queen hadn't moved an inch in oh, say twenty years.  Even though the caretaker was portrayed as an oaf, that stretches credibility quite a bit.

And Boyette's bio was definitely the highlight of the newly-bloated two-page Fan Club; all the fan contributions read like they were written by children, and the poetry... well, never mind.  The Fan Club is starting to become my least-favorite feature, other than when they spotlight contributors--reading two pages of fan-produced tripe is getting awfully tedious.

Two pages of "Dear Uncle Creepy" can sometimes get tedious too, but there are usually a few of the letters that I find amusing.  Like this month, there was the guy who laid out all of the spelling errors (and their page numbers) in CREEPY #31--now that's my kind of a reader!  I also liked the kid whose grandfather just bought him $27 worth of CREEPY and EERIE magazines--that had to be like ALL of them at this point, didn't it?  (I spent considerably more getting all of them, parenthetically.)  And then there was a request for more Adam Link--don't forget Terry!

Sutton's "Loathsome Lore" on Mermaids was a good opener, and is it just me, or did Sutton make his mermaid look an awful lot like Vampirella?

Sutton also works his magic with another story about CREEPY kids in "Boxed In" (in line with his "Snowmen" from CREEPY #31 and his "No Fair" from CREEPY #22).  He always does such a great job of contrasting the innocence of youth with our sinister human nature--and he even sneaks in a couple of Warren cameos.

I enjoyed reading this issue's opener, "One Too Many," when I first dove into it, but again upon reflection I got stuck on a plot hole.  If the Kron are carnivorous, and there were no other animal species on the planet, then how did the escaped Kron survive--and reproduce thousands of times--without anything to eat?  I suppose they could be omnivorous or cannibalistic (although that wouldn't have helped the first Kron survive)--but in that case, why would they be so ravenously pursuing their human prey?

Still, it's nice to start out the naked hottie count with an appearance in the first story of the issue.

Jack Sparling also ups the hottie butt count with his heroine of "The Full Service."

I enjoy a well-done time travel piece, but sometimes in trying to create a paradox, their authors end up creating a huge plot hole to do it.  This one didn't seem to suffer from that pitfall, and made sense, even if it was somewhat predictable.

I didn't care for "Blue Mum Day" so much.  It was a nice attempt to merge the classic mummy trope with a sci-fi element, but the "stone" from space was kind of a mess, sometimes it was a solid stone, but it was also a blue slime that could take the form of a person--who still left traces of blue slime everywhere?  It wasn't horrible--and of course enjoying Reed Crandall's art is always a treat--I just didn't care for the story much.

"Dr. Jekyll Was Right" wasn't a bad piece, but we were just treated to another version of the "Hyde and Seek" joke a couple of issues ago, in "Dr. Jekyll's Jest" from CREEPY #30.  I thought it was interesting that one of the main characters was a black man, though; we haven't seen a lot of equal opportunity charactering in Warren books thus far.

And their treatment of a black man in that story was a lot better than their treatment in "I'm Only In It For The Money," which relied on now-antiquated stereotypes.  I'm not necessarily offended by that in a deep way, understanding that racial stereotypes in general were much more widely used in fiction and humor 50 years ago, but I did think that the contrast between a black scientist and black voodoo practitioners in consecutive stories was ironic.  The story was mis-named, though; it should have been "Quit While You're A Head."

And so will I.

[The Lions Den]

On 9/15/2023 at 6:25 PM, Axe Elf said:

I criticized the cover in this week's intro, but I do like it when the cover and its associated story are from the same creative mind, rather than a story inspired by someone else's painting, or a painting inspired by someone else's story.  As such, the Boyette cover art works well with Boyette's story, "Royal Guest"--now I know why there were rats on the cover!--and Boyette is even featured in this issue's "CREEPY Fan Club!"  So it's kind of his issue.

And even in a relatively strong overall issue, "Royal Guest" stands as one of the better stories--it almost has an Edgar Allen Poe feel to it.  I guess they didn't have K95 masks back then, so COVID protocols would have included gold masks for everyone.  After I had reflected on it for a while, though, it was kind of hard to reconcile that the queen's caretaker wouldn't notice the stench of death when he delivered her food each day--or that the queen hadn't moved an inch in oh, say twenty years.  Even though the caretaker was portrayed as an oaf, that stretches credibility quite a bit.

And Boyette's bio was definitely the highlight of the newly-bloated two-page Fan Club; all the fan contributions read like they were written by children, and the poetry... well, never mind.  The Fan Club is starting to become my least-favorite feature, other than when they spotlight contributors--reading two pages of fan-produced tripe is getting awfully tedious.

Two pages of "Dear Uncle Creepy" can sometimes get tedious too, but there are usually a few of the letters that I find amusing.  Like this month, there was the guy who laid out all of the spelling errors (and their page numbers) in CREEPY #31--now that's my kind of a reader!  I also liked the kid whose grandfather just bought him $27 worth of CREEPY and EERIE magazines--that had to be like ALL of them at this point, didn't it?  (I spent considerably more getting all of them, parenthetically.)  And then there was a request for more Adam Link--don't forget Terry!

Sutton's "Loathsome Lore" on Mermaids was a good opener, and is it just me, or did Sutton make his mermaid look an awful lot like Vampirella?

Sutton also works his magic with another story about CREEPY kids in "Boxed In" (in line with his "Snowmen" from CREEPY #31 and his "No Fair" from CREEPY #22).  He always does such a great job of contrasting the innocence of youth with our sinister human nature--and he even sneaks in a couple of Warren cameos.

I enjoyed reading this issue's opener, "One Too Many," when I first dove into it, but again upon reflection I got stuck on a plot hole.  If the Kron are carnivorous, and there were no other animal species on the planet, then how did the escaped Kron survive--and reproduce thousands of times--without anything to eat?  I suppose they could be omnivorous or cannibalistic (although that wouldn't have helped the first Kron survive)--but in that case, why would they be so ravenously pursuing their human prey?

Still, it's nice to start out the naked hottie count with an appearance in the first story of the issue.

Jack Sparling also ups the hottie butt count with his heroine of "The Full Service."

I enjoy a well-done time travel piece, but sometimes in trying to create a paradox, their authors end up creating a huge plot hole to do it.  This one didn't seem to suffer from that pitfall, and made sense, even if it was somewhat predictable.

I didn't care for "Blue Mum Day" so much.  It was a nice attempt to merge the classic mummy trope with a sci-fi element, but the "stone" from space was kind of a mess, sometimes it was a solid stone, but it was also a blue slime that could take the form of a person--who still left traces of blue slime everywhere?  It wasn't horrible--and of course enjoying Reed Crandall's art is always a treat--I just didn't care for the story much.

"Dr. Jekyll Was Right" wasn't a bad piece, but we were just treated to another version of the "Hyde and Seek" joke a couple of issues ago, in "Dr. Jekyll's Jest" from CREEPY #30.  I thought it was interesting that one of the main characters was a black man, though; we haven't seen a lot of equal opportunity charactering in Warren books thus far.

And their treatment of a black man in that story was a lot better than their treatment in "I'm Only In It For The Money," which relied on now-antiquated stereotypes.  I'm not necessarily offended by that in a deep way, understanding that racial stereotypes in general were much more widely used in fiction and humor 50 years ago, but I did think that the contrast between a black scientist and black voodoo practitioners in consecutive stories was ironic.  The story was mis-named, though; it should have been "Quit While You're A Head."

And so will I.

Well done sir...well done. An excellent summation...  

[Axe Elf]

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.

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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.

[OtherEric]

Vampirella #5 thoughts:

Cover:  My general reaction to this one is that I feel like I'm supposed to like it a lot more than I do.  It's not that I don't like it, but there's a lot of dead space, the figures don't quite sell the action, and the dinosaur is tiny.  As is, it's a classic example of lower end Frazetta being better than 95% of everybody else's efforts.

Feary Tales:  Nice work by Sutton, I think we're finally starting to find an identity for the Feary Tales feature... semi-original material based on an existing myth or situation.

The Craft of A Cat's Eye: It's a shame "Williamsune" wasn't properly credited for this, it's some of their best art yet.  The story leans into large panels and interesting layouts to excellent effect.

Scaly Death:  Great art, but I'm not sure the story quite hits the right note.  The "Snapp!" hits more as farce where they really would have wanted pitch-dark comedy instead.

An Axe to Grind: Jeff Jones is back after a long absence and better than ever.  Just amazing art as usual, and the storytelling has improved considerably from their earlier efforts.

Avenged by Aurora:  Sutton is, as usual, excellent.  The story from Parente is not his best but he's clearly reached a higher baseline than he had before.

Ghoul Girl:  John G. Fantucchio only has a couple of credits at Warren and a few in fan produced comics; but he's better known as one of the Big Name Fans and his pedigree collection.  I've got a few Warrens from his collection, in fact.  The art is pretty solid as first pro work goes, but gets somewhat lost compared to the earlier stories in the issue.

Escape Route: A solid story, but I find Royer's art to be very wooden at this stage still.

Luna:  Not impressed by the story, but I'm finding myself more and more impressed by Sparling and his studio.  They're not the revelation artists like Sutton or Graham have been, but they're far better that what I expected from their rep.

The best material was definitely front-loaded in this issue, but overall this issue was extraordinary, with the Williamsune and Jones stories standing out in particular.

[Axe Elf]

On 9/17/2023 at 12:50 AM, OtherEric said:

I've got a few Warrens from his collection, in fact.

That's pretty cool.

[OtherEric]

On 9/16/2023 at 11:03 PM, Axe Elf said:

That's pretty cool.

Here's a few more Fantucchio's from my collection that are either a) Warren, b) Frazetta, or c) Both.

[The Lions Den]

On 9/17/2023 at 1:50 AM, OtherEric said:

Vampirella #5 thoughts:

Cover:  My general reaction to this one is that I feel like I'm supposed to like it a lot more than I do.  It's not that I don't like it, but there's a lot of dead space, the figures don't quite sell the action, and the dinosaur is tiny.  As is, it's a classic example of lower end Frazetta being better than 95% of everybody else's efforts.

Feary Tales:  Nice work by Sutton, I think we're finally starting to find an identity for the Feary Tales feature... semi-original material based on an existing myth or situation.

The Craft of A Cat's Eye: It's a shame "Williamsune" wasn't properly credited for this, it's some of their best art yet.  The story leans into large panels and interesting layouts to excellent effect.

Scaly Death:  Great art, but I'm not sure the story quite hits the right note.  The "Snapp!" hits more as farce where they really would have wanted pitch-dark comedy instead.

An Axe to Grind: Jeff Jones is back after a long absence and better than ever.  Just amazing art as usual, and the storytelling has improved considerably from their earlier efforts.

Avenged by Aurora:  Sutton is, as usual, excellent.  The story from Parente is not his best but he's clearly reached a higher baseline than he had before.

Ghoul Girl:  John G. Fantucchio only has a couple of credits at Warren and a few in fan produced comics; but he's better known as one of the Big Name Fans and his pedigree collection.  I've got a few Warrens from his collection, in fact.  The art is pretty solid as first pro work goes, but gets somewhat lost compared to the earlier stories in the issue.

Escape Route: A solid story, but I find Royer's art to be very wooden at this stage still.

Luna:  Not impressed by the story, but I'm finding myself more and more impressed by Sparling and his studio.  They're not the revelation artists like Sutton or Graham have been, but they're far better that what I expected from their rep.

The best material was definitely front-loaded in this issue, but overall this issue was extraordinary, with the Williamsune and Jones stories standing out in particular.

This is the first issue of Vampirella I purchased off the stands...    

[wpbooks01]

And now a word, or the like, from Captain Company!

 

[Axe Elf]

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...

[Axe Elf]

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!

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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!

Edited September 24, 2023 by Axe Elf

[OtherEric]

Eerie #28 thoughts:

Cover:  I like Boyette's artwork well enough, but the color choices wind up making the whole thing look too brown- even if there really isn't that much actual brown on it, when you look closer.

Monster Gallery:  Sutton really has made the front page feature his own the last several months, hasn't he?

The Hidden Evils:  A fairly ridiculous twist, but written and drawn with enough conviction that it actually works surprisingly well.  A solid start to the issue.

The Beast in the Swamp:  More enjoyable for Graham's art than for the story, but even there Bill Warren tries to do something creative with the B&W format.  Not necessarily entirely successfully, but I do respect the effort

The Rescue Party:  Sparling continues to impress me.  Saunders story doesn't fare so well, mostly because the main character isn't enough of a villain... for the story to work, you really need the sense of justice being served on an evil man, and the sense I get of the main character is that, while he didn't do enough for mine safety or rescue attempts, he did as much, or even slightly more, than a lot of mine owners did in real life situations.

Follow Apollo:  Decent but somewhat uninspired art by Sutton on an uninspired story by Rosen.

Ice Scream:  Seven pages just to pull off a horrible, horrible pun at the end.  I'm fond enough of bad jokes that I really do admire the effort, but I can't say that the joke was bad enough to justify the use of the space.

Pit of Evil:  Excellent effort on an underlying concept that really wasn't strong enough to warrant the effort.

The Last Train to Orion:  This feels like bits of about 5 different stories crammed into 6 pages.  I could almost see Alan Moore making something like this work as a Future Shock in 2000 AD, with a continuing change of focus on what the story is about, but it's beyond Boyette to make it work here.  I can't fault it for lack of ambition, though.

And, finally, the most important bit of the review: Easy Way to a Tuff Surfboard count: 8

It seems like the initial plotting session came up with a bunch of fairly weak ideas for the stories this issue.  I suppose that could be down to Warren taking over as editor as he looks for somebody else to take the job.  But then everybody gave maximum effort on the art & scripts, so it's certainly not a bad issue while you're reading it.  I bet I forget everything about it 15 minutes after I save my notes, though.

A heads up for anybody looking to participate more in the reading club but who doesn't have the books: for the next 20 days, Humble Bundle has the entire run of the Eerie Archives in digital format available for just $18, and part of that goes to support the Hero Initiative.

[Axe Elf]

On 9/24/2023 at 12:08 AM, OtherEric said:

A heads up for anybody looking to participate more in the reading club but who doesn't have the books: for the next 20 days, Humble Bundle has the entire run of the Eerie Archives in digital format available for just $18, and part of that goes to support the Hero Initiative.

Great info!