Warren Magazine Reading Club! 7 7

[The Lions Den]

A really cool issue with a great Sanjulian cover (a similar painting was also used as a cover for The Creeps #31). The Frankenstein story is probably my favorite, and the Ploog art is a suitable precursor to the Marvel comic which came out less than a year later. Nice work from Maroto, Kim, Bea and Auraleon, too. Another one of my favorites, and another issue that's really tough to find in high grade.  

[Stevemmg]

You’ve moved solidly into a sweet spot for me at least over the last few issues and lasting a fair while as we see some of Maroto’s best work for Warren, Auraleon, Bea, Gonzalez, Corben then leading up to Wrightson’s transition over from Swamp Thing , spectacular covers particularly from Sanjulian and Enric.  Oh, what a glorious time!

Edited July 1 by Stevemmg

[The Lions Den]

On 6/30/2024 at 8:40 PM, Stevemmg said:

You’ve moved solidly into a sweet spot for me at least over the last few issues and lasting a fair while as we see some of Maroto’s best work for Warren, Auraleon, Bea, Gonzalez, Corben then leading up to Wrightson’s transition over from Swamp Thing , spectacular covers particularly from Sanjulian and Enric.  Oh, what a glorious time!

And how sweet it is...    

[Jayman]

Eerie #40 thoughts:

Love this cover by Sanjulian. The colors, balance and design all work. Also the hollowed out Eerie logo treatment allows you to enjoy more of the cover while still keeping the name the same size, clever!

Eerie’s Monster Gallery: Dracula’s Castle:

If any Gallery entry deserved two pages, I’d guess Dracula would be entitled. Although I’ve heard the original pronunciation was “Dragul” meaning the Dragon and “Dragula” meant son of the Dragon. Nice artwork on this entry despite the region being spelled Rumania.

1 The Brain Of Frankenstein:

The reading club has really become an eye opener to little bits of missing comic book history for me. Case in point, I never realized the timeline for Ploog to start his Marvel run of Frankenstein was right after this story. Knowing that now, this was a very decent warm up story! The opening splash was brilliant IMO, using the head of Frankenstein to hold the contents of the panels!

2 The Once Powerful Prince:

A sequel to The Other Side of Atlantis! Great, wanted to see the sea beast Targo has become. Oh wait, we get this instead…

This story had some corny plot elements, (ie. gets drunk and loses his magical ring. Meets the villain and says “I met you in a bar once!”) Targo apparently likes to drink more than sea water! Despite this being a prequel, I thought the story was a bit better than the first installment. Not great, but more along the lines of a 70’s Aquaman tale. Except this is a Warren horror book and you get this that would never happen in an Aquaman story. 

3 The Paradise Tree:

The second installment of Dax the warrior finds him blissfully enjoying a hunt for game with no anger or remorse for the girl from the last tale. Ah, to be free as the wind such as Dax is. Although he quickly finds himself entangled with yet another beautiful woman courtesy of Maroto. This was a fairly basic tale with stunning art that I really hope builds to a more fulfilling story as we go on.

4 Deathfall:

Sanho Kim’s style may not be to everyone’s liking but I have become a fan. I really enjoyed this one the best. It was actually the story itself and how the panels were laid out on paper that made this an excellent story to be read in comic book format.

5 The Prodigy Son:

A carnival freak show, human deformity and an ill fated love affair all combine for an entertaining read.

6 Pity The Grave Digger!:

A Gravedigger relates a tale of Vampires and something even worse to his new apprentice. Rafael Auraleon’s artwork along with a nicely paced script made this one enjoyable.

Another above average issue here for me. Eerie is giving Creepy a run for its money.  Deathfall and Brain of Frankenstein being my top two, but I really enjoyed them all this issue!

Edited Tuesday at 01:09 AM by Jayman
Grammar

[The Lions Den]

On 7/1/2024 at 7:35 PM, Jayman said:

A Gravedigger relates a tale of Vampires and something even worse to his new apprentice. Rafael Auraleon’s artwork along with a nicely paced script made this one enjoyable.

I really enjoyed this one; the art was moody and perfectly suited for the spooky story by Saunders. And it was cool seeing Buddy's profile in this issue too, although I sincerely hope he didn't waste his entire career in the comic business...  

[Jayman]

On 7/3/2024 at 10:11 AM, The Lions Den said:

I really enjoyed this one; the art was moody and perfectly suited for the spooky story by Saunders. And it was cool seeing Buddy's profile in this issue too, although I sincerely hope he didn't waste his entire career in the comic business...  

You had me curious so I looked up some info via Wikipedia:

I found this interesting.

Saunders operated his own mail orderservice starting in 1961. He owned and operated Lone Star Comics, a chain of seven Texas comic book stores founded in 1977. With the sale of the Lone Star comic book store chain in 2013, Mr. Saunders and his family now operate the online Lone Star Comics, www.mycomicshop.com.

The Dallas in 73 committee didn’t garner the votes needed for the World Science Fiction Convention as it was held in Canada that year.

Edited Thursday at 03:12 PM by Jayman

[OtherEric]

On 7/4/2024 at 8:08 AM, Jayman said:

You had me curious so I looked up some info via Wikipedia:

I found this interesting.

Saunders operated his own mail orderservice starting in 1961. He owned and operated Lone Star Comics, a chain of seven Texas comic book stores founded in 1977. With the sale of the Lone Star comic book store chain in 2013, Mr. Saunders and his family now operate the online Lone Star Comics, www.mycomicshop.com.

The Dallas in 73 committee didn’t garner the votes needed for the World Science Fiction Convention as it was held in Canada that year.

I would estimate about half of my Warren magazines came from MCS.  I always find it charming that on most of them, they list that there is a story by Saunders in the issue, noting he's the owner of MCS.  I just checked and this issue is, in fact, one I got from there.

 

Edited yesterday at 04:26 AM by OtherEric

[OtherEric]

Eerie #40 thoughts:

Cover:  An excellent piece by Sanjulian that I tend to underrate, because I think it's a little too similar to #41, and I think 41 is a better cover.

Monster Gallery:  An absolute first-rate Loathsome Lore feature that deserves both pages.  Although, as we've mentioned before, we as readers tend to find the Lore/ Gallery/ Tales pages not nearly as interchangeable as Warren seemed to, and it's particularly frustrating to me here.

The Brain of Frankenstein:  I don't have much to add here, it's a magnificent preview of Ploog's work on Marvel's Frankenstein that works well on its own.  Shame it's his last Warren work.

The Once Powerful Prince:  A pretty nice story in isolation, but it's actually brought down by its connection to "The Other Side of Atlantis".  We weren't desperate for more background there, and there's just not enough to justify a preview.  Maybe if it's somehow setting up an actual sequel, rather than a prequel, a third story would tie it all together.  I can't say I'll care that much if we don't get a follow-up, but I would be happy to see it turn up.

The Paradise Tree:  Even more than the first Dax story, this feels like something going back to the original Conan tales by Robert E. Howard for inspiration.  Those stories all stood alone, but as you read several of them something of a history of the character and the world got built up.  I can see the series doing something similar.

Deathfall:  Wow.  Sanho Kim's last Warren story is amazing.  I'm not sure it doesn't succeed somewhat more as an experiment in storytelling than as a story in its own right, but as an experiment it's just jaw-dropping, with sound effects worthy of Walt Simonson and an incredible sense of mood.  It's stories like this that make the reading club so worthwhile.

The Prodigy Son:  Not bad, although I think the clever title pun was the best thing about it.

Pity the Grave Digger:  We're getting close to the end of Buddy Saunders' tenure at Warren, I think there's only one more story by him to go.  I think he tends to be underappreciated as a writer, given that other than his twenty or so Warren stories he only appeared in fan publications, and he's best known as a comic shop owner.  But his work is really quite consistently good for the titles, even if he never quite manages a story I can recall as a masterpiece.  He deserves more credit for what he actually did at Warren rather than it being something of a trivia question answer.

A very strong issue, I concur with @Jayman that Brain of Frankenstein and Deathfall are the standout highlights, but the whole issue had a very high batting average overall.

[Jayman]

On 7/6/2024 at 1:06 AM, OtherEric said:

Deathfall:  Wow.  Sanho Kim's last Warren story is amazing.  I'm not sure it doesn't succeed somewhat more as an experiment in storytelling than as a story in its own right, but as an experiment it's just jaw-dropping, with sound effects worthy of Walt Simonson and an incredible sense of mood.  It's stories like this that make the reading club so worthwhile.

I’m so glad you enjoyed this one as much as I did! You also explained it much better than how I was trying to convey what I loved about it. I could see someone thinking the last two pages being mostly made up of solid black panels with word balloons as being lazy. I think it was genius! Kim is a great story teller and I first noticed this with his standout work over in Charlton. Looking back at this story Deathfall, I did happen to notice something that I missed the first time around. The guard mentioned his name Mr. “Papillon”.

I instantly made the connection to the 1973 Steve McQueen movie of the same name. Convicted murderer Henri Charriere (Steve McQueen), known as "Papillon" for his butterfly chest tattoo.
I would think Kim borrowed some inspiration from this movie but this issue is from 1972. Kim must have read the first of two autobiographical novels in the Papillon series: Papillon (1969) and Banco (1973).

This extra tidbit of info made the story even more enjoyable for me!

Edited yesterday at 02:13 PM by Jayman

[OtherEric]

On 7/6/2024 at 7:06 AM, Jayman said:

I’m so glad you enjoyed this one as much as I did! You also explained it much better than how I was trying to convey what I loved about it. I could see someone thinking the last two pages being mostly made up of solid black panels with word balloons as being lazy. I think it was genius! Kim is a great story teller and I first noticed this with his standout work over in Charlton. Looking back at this story Deathfall, I did happen to notice something that I missed the first time around. The guard mentioned his name Mr. “Papillon”.

I instantly made the connection to the 1973 Steve McQueen movie of the same name. Convicted murderer Henri Charriere (Steve McQueen), known as "Papillon" for his butterfly chest tattoo.
I would think Kim borrowed some inspiration from this movie but this issue is from 1972. Kim must have read the first of two autobiographical novels in the Papillon series: Papillon (1969) and Banco (1973).

This extra tidbit of info made the story even more enjoyable for me!

I think the choice of name is actually more simply explained by the ending, where we get the classic story of someone wondering if they were a man dreaming they were a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming they were a man.  No need to reference the book or movie.

With that said, I didn't know the meaning of the word, thank you for pointing it out.  A nice additional touch.

[Jayman]

On 7/6/2024 at 12:37 PM, OtherEric said:

I think the choice of name is actually more simply explained by the ending, where we get the classic story of someone wondering if they were a man dreaming they were a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming they were a man.  No need to reference the book or movie.

With that said, I didn't know the meaning of the word, thank you for pointing it out.  A nice additional touch.

Well the word papillon is French for butterfly and I’d assume Kim would have used maybe a Korean word if he wanted to make that connection. Why a French name then? I’m thinking he may have been influenced by the novel. 
 
And again I just noticed that the story begins and ends with the thin all black panels creating a loop of you will…

Edited 20 hours ago by Jayman

[Jayman]

Vampirella #17

From the Warren Magazine Index:

Cover: Enrich Torres (June 1972)

1) Vampi’s Feary Tales: The Story Of Arachne [Jan Strnad/Rafael Auraleon] 1p   [frontis]

2) The Story Behind The Story: ‘Quavering Shadows’ [Doug Moench] ½p   [text article on letters’ page & fan page]

3) Vampirella: …Beware, Dreamers [T. Casey Brennan/Jose Gonzalez] 20p

4) Tomb Of The Gods: Horus [Esteban Maroto] 8p

5) Death In The Shadows [Doug Moench/Luis Garcia] 8p

6) A Man’s World [Mike Jennings/Jose Bea] 8p

7) Love Of The Bayou [Jan Strnad/L. M. Roca] 8p

8) Vampi’s Flames: Rafael Auraleon Profile/Reflections Of The Dead/The End!/The Last Room/Revenge Of The Dead/The Second Age [J. R. Cochran, Robert R. Arbuthnot, P. R. Seamon, Mark Collins, Doug Moench, Jim Martincie & Bob Siegal/Rafael Auraleon, Dave Carrigan, Thomas J. Golash & Brant Withers] 2p [text articles/stories]

9) The Wedding Ring [Steve Skeates/Jerry Grandenetti] 7p

Notes: Editor: J. R. Cochran.  Price increase to 75 cents and page increase to 72 pages.  Don McGregor sent in a letter complaining about Vampirella’s comments at the end of his ‘Witches’ Coven’ story from #15.  Maroto’s ‘Tomb Of The Gods’ series was printed in Europe around 1969 or 1970.  His artwork had improved a great deal since then, making this series look somewhat undercooked.  This was a much better issue than the previous two with Garcia and Roca providing the best artwork.  Strnad’s story ‘Lover Of The Bayou’ was the best story. 
——————————————————

This cover looks like it was done more for Wood’s “To Kill a God” story from Vampi #12 but may have been repurposed for Maroto’s “Tomb of the Gods”. We shall see…

Edited 12 hours ago by Jayman