Warren Magazine Reading Club! 6 6

[Axe Elf]

On 12/9/2022 at 5:28 PM, OtherEric said:

It's Wood's first story in EERIE specifically, although he did the Monster Gallery in issue 5.  He had stories in Creepy #9 (Overworked), and Blazing Combat #3 (The Battle of Britain) and #4 (ME-262) so far.

Ah, ok.  I kind of thought I remembered his name in Blazing Combat, but I didn't remember his appearance in CREEPY #9 (or the previous Monster Gallery).

Edited December 10, 2022 by Axe Elf

[wpbooks01]

On 12/9/2022 at 3:28 PM, OtherEric said:

It's Wood's first story in EERIE specifically, although he did the Monster Gallery in issue 5.  He had stories in Creepy #9 (Overworked), and Blazing Combat #3 (The Battle of Britain) and #4 (ME-262) so far.

Didn't Wood also do comics adaptations of horror films in early issues of Warren's Monster World? My sense of Warren chronology fails me, but do those count?

 

[Axe Elf]

On 12/10/2022 at 1:16 PM, wpbooks01 said:

Didn't Wood also do comics adaptations of horror films in early issues of Warren's Monster World? My sense of Warren chronology fails me, but do those count?

Yes, "The Mummy" in EERIE #11 was a reprint from its original appearance in Monster World.

[Axe Elf]

On 12/4/2022 at 12:00 AM, Axe Elf said:

(This copy is a 6.5ish upgrade from my original 2.0ish copy, and outside of my 9.0ish EERIE #6, it is among my best-looking copies of the first 20 EERIEs.)

I kind of hinted at it in the introduction for the week, but I intended to point out that this was the third EERIE for which I had an undercopy, so I actually got to break open the physical magazine--cover barely holding on to both staples and all--and read the thing in hand, rather than as a digital copy on my computer screen.

That might have had something to do with why I enjoyed reading this issue so much!

[Axe Elf]

CREEPY #17 - October 1967

According to the Warren Magazine Index...

17. cover: Frank Frazetta (Oct. 1967)

1) Creepy’s Loathsome Lore: Werewolves! [Archie Goodwin/Frank Frazetta] 1p   [frontis] reprinted from Creepy #2 (Apr. 1965)

2) Zombie! [Archie Goodwin/Rocco Mastroserio] 6p

3) Thundering Terror! [Clark Dimond & Terry Bisson/John Severin] 6p

4) Mummy’s Hand [Russ Jones/Joe Orlando] 7p   [story is credited to Orlando alone]  from the 1940 Universal movie, reprinted from Monster World #2 (Jan. 1965)

5) Heritage Of Horror [Archie Goodwin/Donald Norman] 6p

6) The Creepy Fan Club: Goodwin’s Departure/”Miaow” Said The Pussycat [Archie Goodwin, James Warren & Richard Mills/R. David Duvall, Robert Sankner & Craig Thorton] 2p [text article/story]

7) Image In Wax! [Archie Goodwin/Tom Sutton] 6p

8) A Night’s Lodging! [Rhea Dunne/Maurice Whitman] 7p   [Lodging is misspelled in the title]

9) The Haunted Sky! [Archie Goodwin/Roger Brand] 6p

Notes: Frazetta’s classic cover depicts an executioner holding a bloody axe.  This would be his last cover for two years.  The money crunch that nearly crippled Warren started to show its effects as Goodwin’s departure is announced.  (Although he’s not listed as the editor of Eerie #12, he clearly had a hand in it & I’ve decided that issue was the final Goodwin Era title.)  Other effects from the money crunch included the massive use of reprints, {which began in this issue}, the near-devastating loss of Goodwin’s stories, and the mass exodus of artists due to page rate cuts.  In fact, all of the original artists introduced during Goodwin’s run would leave, with the noticeable exceptions of Rocco Mastroserio {who died in 1968} & Tom Sutton.  It’s interesting to note that Russ Jones, Creepy’s first editor and the adaptor of the reprinted ‘Mummy’s Hand’, routinely had his credits dropped or erased by James Warren after he and Warren had the falling out that led to Jones’ departure from Warren Publications.  ‘Thundering Terror!’ was originally entitled ‘Buffaloed’ {a title actually used for another Severin story in 1974} and was retitled by Archie Goodwin.

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Well, that's kind of depressing.  On the heels of my great enjoyment of the promise of the new contributors featured in EERIE #11, it appears that many of the established artists I have come to appreciate over the early issues of the Warren mags will soon be leaving!  I can only hope they will be replaced by equally skilled contributors.  And the last Frazetta cover for two years??  Woe!

I thought Frazetta's "Loathsome Lore" on Werewolves was worth reprinting in my version of the 1968 Yearbook, so it's gratifying to see that the staff felt the same way about printing it again here!

Looking forward to more Tom Sutton, and the second "Monster World" reprint--"Mummy's Hand."

[OtherEric]

Creepy 17 thoughts:

Cover:  While this is far from Frazetta's last Warren cover, this does mark the end of the era where he is the primary cover artist.  This one is firmly in the "mediocre Frazetta is better than most people's best day" category.  It may be my least favorite of his Warren covers, although I've never ranked them all in my head.  It's still pretty darn spectacular.

Loathsome Lore:  If you're stuck with reprints, starting with Frazetta is the right place.

Zombies:  We haven't seen Mastroserio in a while, and he turns in a nice job here.

Thundering Terror:  Cousin Eerie acting as host points to the problems the books are starting to have, but it's hard to complain about Severin drawing one of his spectacular horror westerns.

Mummy's Hand:  If they couldn't get Wood to follow up his Mummy adaptaion from Monster World #1, Orlando was an excellent choice.  A very nice little story, even if I've never seen the movie, and the fact this was originally in Monster World #2 makes its reprint nature somewhat less obtrusive.

Heritage of Horror:  Very solid work from Norman Nodel & Goodwin.

Fan Page:  We get the announcement of Goodwin's departure.  He will be back several times, as writer and even editor again, but this really does mark the end of Warren's golden age.  Goodwin even now has a reputation as one of the best editors who ever worked in comics, particularly from those whose work he edited, and this run is where his reputation began.

Archie Goodwin was the writer on the first comic book I ever collected rather than just randomly reading issues (The original Marvel Star Wars run), he was the writer of the first run of back issues I ever started looking for because I had heard good things about it (Manhunter in Detective Comics #437-443), and to this day he remains one of my favorite comic creators, decades after his death.  So I have really enjoyed the chance to finally go back and look at the Warren runs where his astounding body of work began, and see than even at the beginning of his career he was one of the greats.

Image in Wax:  Great work by Sutton, even compared to his story in Eerie 11 we see how his style of exaggeration is rapidly being honed to serve the story.

A Night's Loding (sic):  Rhea Dunne has no other credits at Warren or elsewhere that I can find, and may well be a pseudonym.  Maurice Whitman had an extremely extensive carrer in comics, but this is his only solo art job for Warren.  He co-wrote one other story, and co-drew another, both of which we've already covered in the reading club.  Even as one-time contributors they turn in a very solid story here.

The Haunted Sky:  Roger Brand draws a handful of stories for Warren, as well as writing one.  He started out as an assistant to Wally Wood, but he's probably best known for his work in underground comix.  His art here is a bit sparse, but works well with the story.

And so, the Goodwin era on Creepy ends with one of its strongest issues.  When the biggest complaints about an issue are directed toward Frazetta you're looking at a pretty spectacular package.

Edited December 11, 2022 by OtherEric

[Axe Elf]

On 12/11/2022 at 12:10 AM, OtherEric said:

Fan Page:  We get the announcement of Goodwin's departure.  He will be back several times, as writer and even editor again, but this really does mark the end of Warren's golden age.  Goodwin even now has a reputation as one of the best editors who ever worked in comics, particularly from those whose work he edited, and this run is where his reputation began.

Archie Goodwin was the writer on the first comic book I ever collected rather than just randomly reading issues (The original Marvel Star Wars run), he was the writer of the first run of back issues I ever started looking for because I had heard good things about it (Manhunter in Detective Comics #437-443), and to this day he remains one of my favorite comic creators, decades after his death.  So I have really enjoyed the chance to finally go back and look at the Warren runs where his astounding body of work began, and see than even at the beginning of his career he was one of the greats.

I've been occasionally critical of his weaker plots and his occasionally sloppy editing, but I have to temper that with respect for the volume of work he cranked out in those early years.

In any case, I have my own soft spots for various aspects of the Warrenverse, and I love hearing about other people's deep-seated connections too.

Great post.

[The Lions Den]

On 12/11/2022 at 1:00 AM, Axe Elf said:

I can only hope they will be replaced by equally skilled contributors. 

Things eventually get better, but it's pretty tough sledding for a while...  

[Axe Elf]

On 12/16/2022 at 10:52 AM, The Lions Den said:

Things eventually get better, but it's pretty tough sledding for a while...  

I had been pretty optimistic after the influx of new contributors in EERIE #11, but yeah, CREEPY #17 reminded me of the downside of change--sometimes the new product isn't as good--and I wasn't as impressed this time around.

I did like that the Frazetta Cover was incorporated so well into "Heritage of Horror," but I was more amused by the "executioner identity" issues (finally "coming out of the closet" as a hangman after being trapped in a family of axe murderers) than I was horrified.

But before I get into the rest of the stories, there were a bunch of pretty entertaining Letters this issue, from the reader suggesting that Thane should have his own magazine (who does he think he is, the Rook?) to the writer who lived in Archie Goodwin's mother's back yard to Uncle Creepy explaining how they credited Frazetta's cover on #16 to Morrow because they had credited Morrow's cover on #12 to Frazetta.  I doubt if that's really the reason--and I hadn't caught the error in #12--but it was kind of clever to suggest that the two wrongs made a right.  Also giggled at the gal who likes to go into a dark place to enjoy her CREEPYs.  I promise you Debbie, they are a lot more interesting in the light where you can see the illustrations and read the words!

I was a little skeptical of the twist in "Zombies"--would the Amazon really empty enough fresh water into the ocean to make the ocean water "fresh" for several miles out?  But I looked it up, and the Amazon does indeed fill the ocean with fresh water for like 100 miles opposite its mouth--so cool piece of knowledge to fuel that twist, I guess.  And it explains why the story was set at the Amazon river, when zombies are usually more of a Haitian thing.  And I was kind of amused at how lucid Cargill was when he came back as a zombie.  Most zombies are just brainless shambling "things," but Cargill was all like, "Yeah, they cut my heart out.  Now, if it's not too much trouble, would you accompany me back into the jungle to meet their vengeance?"

Was "Thundering Terror" originally supposed to be in EERIE or something?  Curious that Cousin Eerie would be the narrator for this one instead of Uncle Creepy.  I always enjoy the Severin art, though; my brain is used to seeing his work as comical, and it's hard not to feel a sense of lightheartedness when I'm viewing his work.  I wasn't a big fan of the story; I guess it's a revenge of the dead story, but I'm not sure if it was Smiley's revenge or the revenge of all the buffalo Johnny had killed.  In any case, if they'd taken their revenge earlier, there might still be some buffalo left alive--what were they waiting for?

"The Mummy's Hand" didn't seem as good as the first Mummy reprint from the Monster World series, but I'm not blaming Joe Orlando for that.  It just seems like the movie was too intricately plotted to be summarized in a 7-page comic.  For instance:

That's a lot to be going on in one panel--even BEFORE the panel starts!  A magician and his daughter?  Wait, what?  A dynamite explosion?  Where did THAT come from?  So yeah, it just seemed a little too ambitious for its own good.  And again, it seems like this was supposed to be printed in EERIE, as the cover for EERIE #12 is essentially this panel:

I don't have too much more to say about the announcement of Goodwin's departure in the Fan Club; @OtherEric made a better homage to Goodwin than I ever could, and I appreciate him sharing his personal feelings on the matter.

"Image in Wax" was ok, even if it stretches credibility to think that all these monsters could be real and alive while on "display," and nobody ever notices any of them moving so much as a whisker?

Yes, it irritates the editor in me to see "A Night's Loding."  And it was kind of a ho-hum vampire filler story, with art that was good in places and sloppy in others--sometimes even within the same panel.

"The Haunted Sky" was kind of cool in historical context, as the aircraft in it appears to be modeled after the SR-71 Blackbird, which was unveiled about a year before this story would have been written, and it set new records for speed and altitude.

The story reminded me of some of the things that were recounted in "The Right Stuff" from the early supersonic test pilots--a "demon" that lived in the air beyond the sound barrier, the solitude of the upper atmosphere, etc.  So it wasn't necessarily the strongest story in its own right, but I found it interesting because of the accuracy of its technological and historical contexts.

I don't remember seeing this ad before, but it amused me:

It would be interesting enough just to hear Forrest Ackerman's voice, but the parts about time-traveling to the 21st century and "weird multisonic effects created for the ears of androids" gets me right in the funny bone.

So yeah, I don't know, it wasn't a terrible issue, but it kind of fell flat in a few different ways this time.  So I'm apprehensive about the coming "Dark Age of Warren."  I see how the influx of new contributors could be refreshing, but I also see how it could be disappointing, if the new efforts aren't up the standards set in the earlier issues.

[The Lions Den]

On 12/16/2022 at 6:14 PM, Axe Elf said:

So yeah, I don't know, it wasn't a terrible issue, but it kind of fell flat in a few different ways this time.  So I'm apprehensive about the coming "Dark Age of Warren."  I see how the influx of new contributors could be refreshing, but I also see how it could be disappointing, if the new efforts aren't up the standards set in the earlier issues.

I'd say that's the case for the next couple of years or so...   

[Axe Elf]

EERIE #12 - November 1967

(Ugh; that foxing is really bad--and those staples!  I need an upgrade...)

According to the Warren Magazine Index...

12. cover: Dan Adkins (Nov. 1967)

1) Eerie’s Monster Gallery: Zombies! [Archie Goodwin/Roy G. Krenkel] 1p   [frontis]  reprinted from Eerie #4 (July 1966)

2) The Masque Of Death [Archie Goodwin/Tom Sutton] 6p   from the story by Edgar Allan Poe

3) Vampyrus! [Archie Goodwin/Jeff Jones] 7p

4) …Nor Custom, Stale… [Johnny Craig] 8p

5) Escape! [Archie Goodwin/Joe Orlando] 7p

6) Portrait Of Satan! [Archie Goodwin/Ric Estrada] 8p

7) The Past Master [Craig Tennis/Al McWilliams] 10p   from the story by Robert Bloch, reprinted from Christopher Lee’s Treasury Of Terror (Sept. 1966)

Notes:  Editor: James Warren?.  According to Clark Dimond, Warren wasn’t actually the editor.  Instead a friend of Warren’s at Gold Key did the actual editing.  Goodwin’s absence was immediately noticeable as the story credits weren’t listed for any story here.  This was the last largely original Eerie issue for some time as Warren placed a freeze on any new stories or artwork for at least seven months.  Including this issue, Goodwin left enough stories in inventory for possibly three issues (and that might be stretching it) so Warren was forced to resort to all reprint issues for Eerie & largely reprint issues for Creepy.  He also raided the paperback horror book ‘Christopher Lee’s Treasury Of Terror’ and its unpublished sequel for stories to print, beginning with this issue.  The cover by Dan Adkins was clearly intended for the previous issue’s Mummy reprint.  Not a bad issue but nowhere close to the strength in story and art that Eerie had displayed in the previous 10 issues.  Sadly, it was a strength that Eerie would never recapture.

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Never recapture?  Ok, Mr. Doom & Gloom.  I'm kinda looking forward to the glory days of the Rook, myself, since that was the running character at the time I was picking EERIEs up off the magazine stand in the Variety store in the late 70s.  And no offense, EERIE has indeed been pretty good so far, but I'd like to think that what we've seen so far isn't the best it will ever be--that IS depressing.

It's already kind of depressing that the next two EERIEs will be entirely reprints (although at least a couple of them are reprints from paperbacks, so they'll be new to us), but with the time crunch of the holidays upon us (as witnessed by my delayed postings of the last two reviews), I can't say that I won't welcome a little less pressure to get my book reports done over the next few weeks.  And it looks like it will only be two issues until there are at least a limited selection of new offerings again.  So we'll survive--and it looks like we have one more issue of originals to enjoy before crossing the reprint desert.

I have to quibble with the assessment that this cover was clearly intended for the previous issue's "Mummy" reprint, though.  It appears to me that the cover would be more suited as the cover for CREEPY #17 and it's "Mummy's Hand" reprint, as it is an almost exact replica of one of the panels from that story.

[OtherEric]

Eerie #12 thoughts:

A general observation:  The letter column in Creepy 17 said Goodwin was leaving after finishing this issue.  Clearly something pushed up the timetable, since he's not credited here.  But it's also pretty clear that the issue was worked on extensively by Goodwin before he left, despite him not getting credited.  I agree with the index that this counts as the last Goodwin Era book more than the first Dark Era book, but there are some hints of the shift here for sure.

Cover:  A nice Adkins cover, with some interesting color choices.  But it's also oddly static for such a dynamic event, almost looking more like a couple of friends posing in their Halloween costumes rather than a supernatural murder.

Monster Gallery:  It's a reprint.  It's still nice Krenkel art.

The Masque of the Red Death:  Sutton is probably the highlight of the upcoming dark era, and it's fun watching his talents develop.  A nice adaptation by Goodwin of the Poe classic.

Vampyrus: Beautiful work by Jones.

... Nor Custom, Stale ...:  One of the most EC-esque stories we've seen yet, and that's saying something.  Great work by Craig.

Escape:  A so-so effort by Orlando.  This is Orlando's final work for Warren; I feel like I've been really harsh on Orlando over the course of the reading club, he is normally an excellent artist. The flip side to that is I think he was generally turning in second rate work for Warren, with a heavy reliance on ghosts.  Ironically, the one place I think he generally did turn in his better efforts were the Adam Link stories... which I couldn't bring myself to care about.

Portrait of Satan:  Ric Estrada is an EC alumnus who is probably best known as the co-creator of Power Girl for DC.  He only did a couple stories for Warren, and this one really doesn't impress me.  It doesn't really look like the other work I've seen by him, to the point I almost wonder if they were working from preliminary layouts rather than finished pencils.  Just inexplicable.  I've got to give the story credit for a very nice twist at the end, though.

The Past Master:  An adaptation of a Robert Bloch story, reprinted from Christopher Lee's Treasury of Terror.  This gives us the odd case of the writer of the adaptation, Craig Tennis, actually having done no work for the Warren magazines, just three stories taken from the same book.  It's a decent enough story with art by Al McWilliams, but to my mind it doesn't quite feel like it belongs in the magazine.  At least it's new to the magazine material.

Not a bad issue to end the era, but not a spectacular one either.  It's very much a book of two parts... the first half is excellent with Sutton, Jones, and Craig; but the second half just collapses.  It's almost like the eras change in the middle of the issue.

 

[OtherEric]

On 12/17/2022 at 10:00 PM, Axe Elf said:

Never recapture?  Ok, Mr. Doom & Gloom.  I'm kinda looking forward to the glory days of the Rook, myself, since that was the running character at the time I was picking EERIEs up off the magazine stand in the Variety store in the late 70s.  And no offense, EERIE has indeed been pretty good so far, but I'd like to think that what we've seen so far isn't the best it will ever be--that IS depressing.

I think it's more the case that "the book never has another extended run with this high a percentage of excellence", not that the book doesn't have some great stuff and classic stories still to come.  But there's always going to be the group that feels the Goodwin-edited, EC-inspired run that just ended is the greatest era the title ever had.  Heck, I'm probably a part of that group.  But I think that view is heavily weighed towards the EC fans, who are a large and vocal group but are not a majority of the fans.  But even if I'm in the group that considers this run the high point, there's still vastly more good material to come than what we've already seen.  And coming up we have more diversity in styles of stories and art, the Goodwin run played the EC style as well as anybody other than EC ever has... but EC's, as much as I love them, played to their strengths and never really broke out of that format until the were down to just MAD, which figured out new tricks once they went to magazine format.

So while the era might be the 'best' if you need to pick a run to stick the label on, there's far more greatness to come than we've seen so far.

[Axe Elf]

On 12/18/2022 at 12:15 AM, OtherEric said:

So while the era might be the 'best' if you need to pick a run to stick the label on, there's far more greatness to come than we've seen so far.

I would assume so, but it still seems kind of sad that the first 30 books right out of the gate in a run of nearly 300 total books would be the yardstick that defines the CREEPY/EERIE "glory days."

I will take the point about the EC tradition as one reason for applying that yardstick, but I'll definitely keep an open mind going forward as well.

[Jayman]

Great reviews guys! Just wanted to put that out there first. 

The Eerie #12 cover is actually a pretty good rendering of a movie still from the 1944 Universal movie The Mummy's Curse.

[Axe Elf]

That is kind of weird how the cover apparently mirrors a still from "The Mummy's Curse," and yet that same still was apparently copied for a panel from "The Mummy's Hand" in CREEPY #17.  So who's your mummy's daddy?

I honestly don't remember seeing this Monster Gallery ("Zombies") when it was first printed; probably because I find it rather unremarkable now.  It's like he just colored the whole page black and then left some white for windows and eyes.

I had noted in its review that EERIE #11 had a different layout for the Contents page.  It appears that they are back to having columns of comics on both sides of the contents again--but now there are no descriptions of the stories after the titles--just the titles.  And good grief, if Goodwin was sometimes a sloppy editor, things aren't getting any better in his absence.  "Portrait of Satin"??  "Vampyrus" is also misspelled, with an "i".

Seems kind of odd to see a letter suggesting that CREEPY and EERIE publish Yearbooks, since we just read the first Yearbook a couple of weeks ago, but I suppose this reflects the early release of the issues compared to their cover dates--EERIE #12 is dated November 1967, but it was probably being put together a couple of months earlier, about the time when the CREEPY 1968 Yearbook was hitting the stands.  Another letter pointed out something I'm surprised I missed--but I guess I was distracted by the new layout of the contents page--the story "The Monster from One Billion B.C." was incorrectly listed as "Image in Wax," although that story didn't actually appear until CREEPY #17!

So I dunno, but editor, no editor, it's hard to tell the difference sometimes.

There was also a letter from someone like me--who reads and enjoys the advertisements in each issue as well!

I'm glad to hear there will be more of Tom Sutton; I enjoyed his work on the adaptation of "The Masque of the Red Death" as a good balance between cartoonish and realistic.  I have never been as fond of the original story as I am of some of Poe's other tales, though, so I wasn't expecting a lot.  I was impressed that when the clock was striking each hour with a series of disconcerting "BONG"s, there were at first 8 BONGs and then 9 BONGs the next time, so even the number of BONGs increasing as the evening progressed was realistic.

("Can't we all just get a bong?")

I'm really getting into the Jeff Jones artwork too, here for "Vampyrus."  I like that it's not too concerned with backgrounds--lots of detail in the foreground, but little definition in the background.  It makes it all the more fanciful--or "dreamlike" maybe...  in any case, an interesting version of a vampire story.

I don't really understand the title of "...Nor Custom, Stale..."  Was that a saying in the 60s or something?  The country of "Sumaria" was also kind of weird; was it supposed to be a fictional country, or were they going for Sumeria?  Some of it was kind of dumb, like where did he think he was going, carrying his wife out into the desert... to save her?  Seems like he sentenced them both to death with that choice.  So yeah, not a fan of this one--and what was with that funky Cousin Eerie for the end narration?  It looks like they copied and pasted his image from the "rubber masks" advertisements.

I was a little surprised to hear that "Escape" would be the last work of Joe Orlando's we would see.  I could have sworn he did some of the art in the later issues that I'm more familiar with too--but I guess his style must just be pretty close to someone else's in the later issues.  Since the first story in CREEPY #1 was also his, this really does mark the end of an era, as we enter the Dark Days of Warren Publishing.  I thought it was a pretty good story--until the end.  Putting his head on a snake's body?  Dumb.

I was really intrigued by the Ric Estrada art for "Portrait of Satan."  I thought at first it was done by Jerry Grandenetti, as it uses those same sharp, fine lines to outline the subject matter, and then broad wash tones for atmosphere and shading.  Grandenetti's work can feel kind of sloppy at times, and Estrada's art here really pushes that envelope as well, but it works for me.

The story, however, not so much; I thought the twist was dumb.  Just because someone says, "I put my heart and soul into it," doesn't mean their SOUL is really IN it; duh.  If he put his heart into it, doesn't that mean they could save someone who needed a new heart with it too?  Just dumb.

I was looking forward to "The Past Master" because I generally enjoy Robert Bloch, but this one kind of fell flat for me as well.  I liked that it was more of a science fiction story than a horror story, and EERIE does seem to take that turn more than CREEPY does over the course of the series, but it doesn't make sense to me that the only thing the Past Master would want to save is mankind's artwork.  And maybe it wasn't so tired back then, but by now, the trope of time travelers accidentally causing the very thing they are trying to prevent has been worked to death.

So a pretty issue for me, although a good deal of that falls under personal preferences, rather than actual flaws (although the editing, or lack thereof at times, is driving me crazy!).

Seemed like a lot of advertisements in this issue, too--maybe trying to add a little more revenue from the Captain Company?

[OtherEric]

On 12/23/2022 at 12:44 PM, Axe Elf said:

I don't really understand the title of "...Nor Custom, Stale..."  Was that a saying in the 60s or something?

‘Age Cannot Wither Her, Nor Custom Stale Her Infinite Variety’

It's a quote from Shakespeare's Anthony and Cleopatra; although the non-existent editor managed to botch the punctuation.

[FoggyNelson]

On 12/18/2022 at 11:11 AM, Jayman said:

Great reviews guys! Just wanted to put that out there first. 

The Eerie #12 cover is actually a pretty good rendering of a movie still from the 1944 Universal movie The Mummy's Curse.

Love this movie still❤️‼️

[Taylor G]

On 12/18/2022 at 1:15 AM, OtherEric said:

there's always going to be the group that feels the Goodwin-edited, EC-inspired run that just ended is the greatest era the title ever had.  Heck, I'm probably a part of that group.  But I think that view is heavily weighed towards the EC fans, who are a large and vocal group but are not a majority of the fans.

The problem with this era is that they were doing 1950s horror comics in the mid to late 1960s.  Sure it has Ditko's best work (yes, Virginia, better than Spiderman), and great work by Torres, Toth, Crandall and Williamson (and some great early work by Adams), but it had clearly run out of steam by the end of that decade.  They limped along publishing stories they had earlier rejected, until Vampirella turned things around for them.

For some of us, the 1970s were Warren's best era.  Not just the Spanish artists like Sanjulian, Enrich, Gonzalez, Maroto, Garcia Mozos and Torrents, but also the best work by newcomers Corben and Wrightson.  That period takes off when Goodwin comes back as editor, also writing early Vampirella stories.  Look up lists of people's favorite Warren stories, most of them will come from this later period.  Even 1984/1994, otherwise an embarrassment of juvenile porn, has some of the best work by Nino and Nebres.  And unlike EC, Warren didn't bury the art in long discursive descriptions like Feldstein did.

Say, is this thread going to cover 1984/1994?  

[Axe Elf]

On 12/24/2022 at 12:26 PM, Taylor G said:

Say, is this thread going to cover 1984/1994?

Yes, we'll get to 1984 #1 five years from Monday--the week of December 26, 2027.