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 July 2 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 July 4 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 July 6 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 July 6 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 July 6 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 July 7 by Jayman

[The Lions Den]

On 7/6/2024 at 9:41 PM, Jayman said:

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”.

Interesting observation, Jayman...  

[Jayman]

Vampirella #17 thoughts:

Finally an issue I have to read in hand. Much more enjoyable for me. I did however use pics from online due to a tight schedule this week. Another one of my favorite early Vampi covers. Enrich does an excellent job which I now believe to be based on Maroto’s work. I also think the choice of the blue logo works well here.

Vampi’s Feary Tales: The Story Of Arachne:

Appreciate them keeping with female themed lore with nice art by Auraleon. 

1 Vampirella: …Beware, Dreamers:

I’m a fan of recaps, but I’d rather just have them as a footnote than have poor old Pendragon spew out his dissertation on the matter. Just seemed out of character. Other than that, T. Casey Brennan tells a competent Dreamscape type of tale this issue that seemed more of an interlude from the main ongoing story. That is unless we see Dreamslayer in future tales. 

2 Tomb Of The Gods: Horus:

Nice art by Maroto helps this one along. Interested to see how this series pans out. 

Here is the interior art the cover was based on.

3 Death In The Shadows:

A fairly good story that leads to a predictable ending. Some really nice art on this one from Garcia such as this page for example.

4 A Man’s World:

Just as I thought the Woman’s Lib/Male Chauvinist Pig themed stories were starting to wear thin on me, Mike Jennings crafts a tale with a blatant obvious plot, but works for me. Bea does a fine job even in his more simplistic style of conveying that look of madness in his drawing. 

The story ends as you would expect but with a clever little twist at the end that had me grinning too!

5  Lover Of The Bayou:

Roca delivers some excellent creepy atmospheric art on this one. The story leaves you with just enough unanswered questions that gives you that sense of horror. This was a good one! 

My mind automatically went to this HoM cover.

6 The Wedding Ring:

Kind of an odd story here as they show the final outcome in advance. Grandenetti’s style is a bit tighter here for some reason. Another story attempting to showcase the male chauvinism of the times Just ok for me.

I’d say another good issue here. The Vampi storyline took a little dip in story quality this go around but was still enjoyable. A Man’s World and Lover of the Bayou were top with The Wedding Ring coming in last for me.

Edited July 11 by Jayman

[OtherEric]

Vampirella #17 thoughts:

Cover: A very nice piece by Enrich, not much to add to what's already been said.

Feary Tales:  This could have been a lore page instead, but it works fine as a Feary Tale as well.  As good as the single pagers ever get, which is damning with faint praise but it's still praise.

Vampirella:  Not bad, but it does make me suspect Brennan got the scripting job on fairly short notice when Goodwin left.  Call it an interlude, or a fill-in that led to the actual job, or whatever.

Tomb of the Gods:  A rather dream-like piece, with excellent art by Maroto no matter what the indexer thinks.  Not sure how it winds up as a series, unless it's more of a thematic series rather than specific characters.

Death in the Shadows:  Another story with a rather unreal feel to it.  It seems like all the stories in the issue are dealing with dreams or not quite connected with reality ideas, but they're doing it in different ways.  The problem is, they're tripping over each other rather than exploring the spectrum of concepts.  I think the first three stories would have worked better in separate issues.

A Man's World:  Mike Jennings doesn't have a lot of credits at the GCD, just a couple of stories at Warren and one at Skywald.  Not particularly impressed by this one, but I agree with @Jayman that the final twist was genuinely clever.

Lover of the Bayou:  Nice work on developing the mood here

The Wedding Ring:  My usual dislike of Grandenetti is out in full force on this story, and his tighter style actually gives me less to enjoy in terms of the craft.  And agreed that the pacing was odd as well.

Not a bad issue by any means, but it's one of those where I feel the whole issue is a bit less than the sum of its parts.

[Jayman]

On 7/12/2024 at 8:14 PM, OtherEric said:

A Man's World:  Mike Jennings doesn't have a lot of credits at the GCD, just a couple of stories at Warren and one at Skywald.  Not particularly impressed by this one, but I agree with @Jayman that the final twist was genuinely clever.

What I didn’t like about it at first was that Jennings made it too obvious what was going to happen to those two reporters. I thought it was just bad storytelling. Then I realized he made it obvious on purpose so the reader would be thinking; “When the hell are these two guys gonna realize they’re in danger!” And of course the ending grin topped it off. 

[OtherEric]

Creepy #46- July 1972

46. cover: Manuel Sanjulian (July 1972)

                1) Creepy’s Loathsome Lore: The Undertaker’s Model [Jack Butterworth/Luis Garcia] 1p  [frontis]

                2) Inside 46/The Story Behind The Story: Like A Phone Booth, Long & Narrow [J. R. Cochran & Jan Strnad] ½p   [text articles on letters’ page

                3) Cross Of Blood [Doug Moench/Esteban Maroto] 10p

                4) Behold The Cybernite! [Rich Margopoulos/Tom Sutton] 8p

                5) On The Ninth Day Of Satan [Kevin Pagan/Felix Mas] 8p

                6) I, Invisible [Jose Bea] 6p

                7) Spellbound [Lynn Marron/Luis Garcia] 8p

                8) Night Watch [Ed Fedory/Jorge Galvez] 7p

                9) Creepy Book Reviews: The Panic Broadcast/The Great Radio Heroes/All In Color For A Dime [Doug Moench] 1p   [text articles]

                10) Creepy’s Fan Club: Lynn Marron Profile/ Instant Replay/ After Nightfall/ The Spice Of Life/ Perpetual Search/ The Story Behind The Story: Something To Remember Me By!/ Creepy’s Catchall [Lynn Marron, John C. Salzano, Chris Monzert, Lee Breakiron, George B. Evans, Tom Sutton & J. R. Cochran/Tom Sutton, Terry Harrison & Jack Davis] 2p   [text articles/stories w/photos]

                11) Friedheim The Magnificent [Greg Potter/Richard Corben] 8p

                12) Creepy’s Loathsome Lore: Monsters Of The Id! [Clif Jackson] 1p   [on inside back cover]

Notes: Behind a second rate cover was a decent issue.  Best stories were from Doug Moench, Lynn Marron, Ed Fedory and Greg Potter while best art was from Esteban Maroto, Luis Garcia and Richard Corben.  Fedory’s story had originally appeared as a fan page submission.  J. R. Cochran liked it enough to encourage Fedory to rework it into a comic script.  To my knowledge, this was the only time that a fan page story contribution directly led to a professional writing career.  Rich Margopoulos made his professional debut with Tom Sutton (again!) doing the debut art honors. 

_____________________________________________________________________________

This should be an interesting one, Corben is always a highlight of any issue he's in and Rich Margopoulos winds up being a major writer at Warren (and Archie, apparently...)  I thought Buddy Sanders also started with a fan page contribution, as well as Fedory, but I could be wrong.

 

[Jayman]

On 7/14/2024 at 1:03 AM, OtherEric said:

Notes: Behind a second rate cover was a decent issue. 

I love this cover! 
 

PS: I know this is from the index…

Edited July 15 by Jayman

[OtherEric]

Creepy 46 thoughts:

Cover:  I actually like the cover as far as it goes.  But it looks to me like they cropped the outside of the image, and the net effect brings it down a notch or two.  The hollow lettering on the title brings it back up one of the lost notches, though... the black on black logo works very well.

The Undertaker's Model:  A first rate lore page, based on genuine fact, telling a story that actually is appropriately, well, creepy, that I had never heard before.  Other than misspelling Bailey it seems to be all accurate, with great art by Garcia.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/205798744/george-bailey

Cross of Blood:  I love the Eisneresque title design, and the story itself is an exercise in mood and style... nothing particularly original or surprising, but that's not the point in this case.  Excellent work all around.

Behold the Cybernite:  Rich Margopoulos, making his debut here, is one of the major Warren writers, with something around 100 stories, and he'll be here until the very end, with stories in the last issues of Eerie and Vampirella both.  The story isn't much as a story, but it has some nice moments of characterization and works well as a showcase for Sutton's art.  Not a masterpiece right out of the gate but quite a bit better than a lot of first stories.

On the Ninth Day of Satan:  A nifty idea, with very nice art from Mas.  But the story didn't really have enough room to breathe, and was somewhat muddled on the time frame, switching from nine to seven days and back with surprising frequency.

I, Invisible:  Nice art by Bea, and the story is well done, with a couple of clever twists on the standard invisible man tropes.  But I felt the protagonist's death was not particularly earned, for lack of a better word, and I really don't like that sort of story much... I prefer the EC style where it ends with the character meeting an ironic and deserved fate.  So I'll mark this one as much higher on craft points than me personally enjoying it.

Spellbound:  Gorgeous art by Garcia, and a very nice story by Marron.  My main complaint is that it starts somewhat in media res, and it took me a bit to figure out what was going on.  But still a high point of the issue.

Night Watch:  A vampire story that works as solid filler, but nothing spectacular.  Still good enough that you see why they decided to promote it from a fan page story,  it's a reasonable way to see how the writer works.

Creepy Book Reviews:  An interesting idea, I think they try this more than once but it never seems to last very long.

Friedhelm the Magnificent:  The story is mostly a framework to hold Corben's art.  And it's worth it, Corben seems to have made a huge step forward in his craft at this point.  A story that would have been trite and uninteresting in other hands becomes amazing here... just look at the sequence at the bottom of page 70 and top of page 71 for an example.  Kudos to Potter for the story as well, I have to assume he knew what he was going to get and tailored it for Corben's work.

Monsters of the Id: We get one last page from Clif Jackson, one that I'm morally certain was originally done as a Monster Gallery page, not a lore page.  It's such an oddball concept that I wonder if they held it for a while before burning it off as an extra Lore page.  But it's nicely drawn and the concept is decent, if oddball.  I really wish we had seen more by Clif Jackson... the little he did seemed to be vastly better than I would have expected from somebody with only a few pages of pro work.

Overall, an excellent issue.  No all-time classics in this issue- even the Corben story is really a step forward rather than where he ends up- but the baseline here is extremely high.  

 

[Jayman]

On 7/15/2024 at 12:56 PM, OtherEric said:

Cover:  I actually like the cover as far as it goes.  But it looks to me like they cropped the outside of the image

I’d expect @Stevemmg to have a comment on this with a pic of the OA! 
Anything to add Steve?