Warren Magazine Reading Club! 6 6

[OtherEric]

Cover:  A great cover by Prezio, for the H2O world reprint.  I think, overall, Prezio's covers show a general improvement over his time on the comic mags, not so much in his basic craft (which was always solid) but in his grasp of what actually works as a horror comic cover.  Warren includes the cover in the page count, apparently the index doesn't in this case.

Monster Gallery:  The perspective still seems a little off.  One detail I missed the first time around is the ball of string in Theseus's hand; a very nice touch for those who remember the myth.

H2O World:  Still incredible art, still not much to add beyond that.

Family Curse:  Nice art, taken panel by panel. T. Casey Brennan, who winds up writing a lot of stories for Warren, has a solid idea for his debut.  Brennan is arguably best known for his Warren work, but did some stuff for other publishers and has had more recent stories turn up in the Warrant mags.  But the layouts, while interesting, are not friendly to the storytelling at all.  Page three, for example, makes me want to go from panel 1 to panel 4 reflexively, and then backtrack to figure out I should have read panels 2 and 3 instead.  Still a decent introduction to a new writer.

The Devil to Pay:  Once again, I'm impressed with Nodell's artwork here.

Permanent Members:  I wonder if this was meant for Creepy #22.  Not only does it match the cover, Sutton's art, while good, is much simpler than most of what we've seen from him.  It wouldn't surprise me if it was drawn quite a bit earlier in Sutton's (admittedly short at this point) career.  Better storytelling than what we sometimes get from Parente, although the twist out of the end comes out of nowhere, I think.

Fan Fare:  Len Wein makes his debut here, he writes several Warren stories later on.  It amuses me that a legendary writer makes their debut as an artist.  On a personal note, he's one of the very few Warren creators I've ever met, having talked with him at Emerald City Comic Con several years ago.  A nice guy who is still missed.  Since @Axe Elf doesn't recognize the name, I'll mention his two most famous creations as a writer:  Wolverine and Swamp Thing.

Scooped:  Great art by Colon and a very solid twist by Parente at the end, not much else to say about it.

Watch Out:  You could make an argument that the ad here is the most important part of the book.  But, while it's clearly intended as a tease for the upcoming Vampirella book, it manages to be completely wrong on the details as far as Vampi being related to Creepy and Eerie.  I suppose you could claim they have different standards of what looks appealing in their description, but it's also way off base.

A solid but not completely spectacular issue, but it still points to the rebuilding era having begun with the debut of a couple of creators and the first hint at Vampirella's arrival.  First rate reprints and better than average for the era new stories makes this a book that would have well been worth my 40c if I had been around then, at least.

Sorry for my later than usual post, I had to add some details after @Axe Elf's introductory entry.

[Axe Elf]

On 5/14/2023 at 12:07 AM, OtherEric said:

Since @Axe Elf doesn't recognize the name, I'll mention his two most famous creations as a writer:  Wolverine and Swamp Thing.

Thanks for that, and yeah, those are pretty awesome credentials!

On 5/14/2023 at 12:07 AM, OtherEric said:

Sorry for my later than usual post, I had to add some details after @Axe Elf's introductory entry.

There's no rule that says you have to have your review in during the first hour of each new week, you know... 

[OtherEric]

On 5/13/2023 at 10:17 PM, Axe Elf said:

There's no rule that says you have to have your review in during the first hour of each new week, you know... 

I do know, and the times I've been late I don't worry about it.  But I think it's useful for the group to have at least one person's review up quickly if possible, so we have a point of comparison with your introductory post from the index to get things rolling.

[Axe Elf]

It had never occurred to me that the cover of EERIE #22 related to the "H2O World" story, but then that's probably because I never knew that story was reprinted in this issue until this week, so I guess I just never really thought about it--but it does work well in that capacity.  I thought this piece had some of the best art in CREEPY #1 (though I wasn't as fond of the plotting), so it was kind of a blast from the distant past to be reprinted here.

The other reprints were high-water marks from an artistic standpoint as well.  "The Devil to Pay" (incorrectly listed as "The Devil to Play" on the "Contents" page) showcased the "Donald Norman" art that at times looks like a woodcutting, and "The Spirit of the Thing" is a Ditko piece, so enough said.

Finally, the Neal Adams' Minotaur "Monster Gallery" reprint did nothing to lower the quality of the art in this issue.  I wonder if Neal was becoming enough of a name by this time for them to factor that into choosing his work to reprint, or if it was just the luck of the draw.  (Tip of the cap to @OtherEric for noticing the unwinding ball of string!)

I felt some camaraderie with the reader from Jupiter (Florida, that is), who commented for "Dear Cousin EERIE," "John Severin took time out from CRACKED magazine to draw a story for you, eh?" (in regards to the "Dark Rider" reprint), since I also largely knew Severin from CRACKED.  I wanted to tell him to go check out Blazing Combat some time (but he's probably dead now)!

Before I get too much into the stories themselves, I just want to say that the plague of editorial mistakes seems to be back (starting with the misprinted title on the Contents page).  Surely they didn't have separate people proofreading EERIE and CREEPY, did they?  I haven't paid too much attention to distinguishing between the two titles until just these past few weeks, but it seems like our last couple of issues of EERIE have been plagued with errors, while the last issue of CREEPY was relatively polished in comparison.  Maybe the most egregious error in this one was misspelling "asleap" [sic].  It's probably mostly just up to me to get over my pedantic nature in being put off by the errors--I'm sure I would enjoy the books much more without fretting over them--but one error in this issue seemed particularly grievous, affecting as it did the twist of the story itself.

I enjoyed "Family Curse" quite a bit, both looking at the art (having the main character being a young woman in a nightgown for most of the story didn't hurt) and absorbing the plot of the story, but when it came to the big reveal, they misspelled her father's name (it was "Bordman")!

I also have to stand by my original assessment that Sutton's cover for CREEPY #22 goes perfectly well with Sutton's "No Fair!" story in that issue, right down to the same mausoleum structure both on the cover and in the story.  "Permanent Members" may be another story by Sutton that features kids in a graveyard, but while these kids are werewolves (and one unfortunate vampire), the kids in "No Fair!" were ghouls.  So I can't get behind the theory that the current story was supposed to go with the previous cover.  It seems like the whole kid-monster concept might have carried some inspiration into this piece, but I would argue that it is a completely separate work.

"Scooped" completes a nice little trifecta of new stories that all work pretty well on their own terms; this one felt like something that might have appeared in the Golden Years issues.  It's interesting seeing how some of these early alien speculations coincided with the excitement over NASA and the moon landing in the late 60s, from a historical standpoint.

"Familiars" wasn't a terrible topic for the "EERIE Fan Fare" dictionary entry this month, and though I didn't recognize Len Wein's name, it looks like he was almost as good at illustrating as he was at writing!  There's also an announcement teasing the start of Cauldron Contest winners in the next issue, and the fan story was an introduction to solipsism.

The VAMPIRELLA tease was pretty underwhelming, both in the misinformation of portraying the coming of a female relative, rather than a citizen of Drakulon, and in otherwise not really hinting at anything at all of relevance to VAMPIRELLA herself.  One would never know this was a teaser for VAMPIRELLA if one were to read this in isolation.

Still, with the exception of another rash of editorial and proofing failures, it seems we have another pretty solid issue here!  I'm glad, as only CREEPY #28 and the two Yearbooks stand between us and the end of the Warren Dark Ages!  Hopefully CREEPY #28 will be a worthy stepping stone from these solid issues of late into the dawning of the VAMPIRELLA age and the rebirth of Warren!

[Axe Elf]

CREEPY #28 - August 1969

According to the Warren Magazine Index...

28. cover: Vic Prezo (Aug. 1969)

1) Creepy’s Loathsome Lore: Fakirs! [Bill Parente/Bill Fraccio & Tony Tallarico] 1p   [frontis]

2) Madness In The Method! [Carl Wessler/Rocco Mastroserio] 7p   reprinted from Creepy #13 (Feb. 1967)

3) The Creepy Fan Club: Ghoul/Reuben Reid Profile [Bill Parente & Reuben Reid/David Fletcher] 2p   [text articles w/photo]

4) In The Subway [Reuben Reid/Bill Fraccio & Tony Tallarico] 7p

5) The Worm Is Turning [Kim Ball/Ernie Colon] 8p

6) Grub! [Nicola Cuti/Tom Sutton] 6p

7) Valley Of The Vampires [Ron Haycock/Bhob Stewart & Steve Stiles] 6p    [Haycock’s story credited to Arnold Hayes.]

8) The Doorway! [Archie Goodwin/Dan Adkins] 6p   reprinted from Creepy #11 (Oct. 1966)

9) The Adventure Of The German Student! [Archie Goodwin/Jerry Grandenetti] 8p   from the story by Washington Irving, reprinted from Creepy #15 (June 1967)

10) Vampirella Is Coming! Ad [Bill Parente/Tony Tallarico] 1p

Notes: Cost of magazine rose to 50 cents.  Reuben Reid was the Cauldron Contest winner for Creepy.  Best story & art was ‘The Worm Is Turning’.  Nicola Cuti made his professional debut with ‘Grub!’.  The ad at the end shows Uncle Creepy & Cousin Eerie reacting in fear to the coming of an unseen Vampirella.

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August of 1969...  Woodstock kicks off... Captain D's and Long John Silver's open their first stores... the Manson murders...  the Beatles' Abbey Road photograph is taken... Rocky Marciano is killed in a plane crash... and the last few Warrens hit the stands before VAMPIRELLA arrives and the rebirth begins!

I wish the Index would get Vic Prezio's name right, but they seem persistent in calling him "Prezo."  I do love this cover, though; as I remember recognizing it from Adkins' art in "The Doorway" when we first encountered it back in the classic CREEPY #11.

With FOUR new pieces as the meat in the middle of this issue--and a new Loathsome Lore to boot--I wouldn't have felt cheated if they hadn't included the reprint of "The German Student," as I didn't like it that much the first time.  I guess I'll just treat it as the bonus hidden track at the end of the CD; I don't really care that it's there, but I'm pretty stoked about buying the album anyway.

It's kind of ironic that the best new story (according to the Index) is called "The Worm is Turning," if this is indeed the issue to bridge the gap from the Dark Ages into the rebuilding of Warren.  The price went up again, I guess the worm is indeed turning.

And then there's a double dose of irony, with the very NEXT piece being "Grub"!

Between those creepy crawlies and the CREEPY Cauldron Contest winner, I'm just SQUIRMING with anticipation!  This HAS to be a good issue... Doesn't it??

[OtherEric]

Creepy #28 thoughts:

Cover:  The pink/ purple is an unusual choice, but I think very effective here.  This one must have really popped on the stands.

Loathsome Lore: One of the better written ones of these we've seen in a while.  It uses a deliberately archaic cadence to good effect.

Madness in the Method:  Mastroserio really was a good artist who I never properly appreciated before the reading club.  It's a tragedy he died so young.

In the Subway:  Reuben Reid, the winner of the Cauldron Contest, has no other comic credits.  But his story is pretty solid, at least relative to Parente's work.  Not a masterpiece, but not a case of "You couldn't find anything better among the submissions", either.

The Worm Turns: Kim Ball has Reid beat... they get TWO total credits, not just one.  I wonder if it's a pseudonym.  The story isn't particularly good, with Colon resorting to symbolic pictures of monsters on the side of pages to liven things up.  But I'm glad to see new names in the credits as a good sign.

Grub:  Nicola Cuti is a massively prolific creator getting his start here, a credits search at the GCD gives over 4600 hits.  He's possibly best known as the co-creator of E-Man for Charlton, but he did lots of writing and editing and drawing all over the place, with his last work before his death being for the Warrant mags.  Here he turns in a very EC-esque tale that, while not spectacular, has a solid twist and shows a good grasp of craft even at the start of his long career.  A decent beginning for a major Warren contributor, and another sign that we're into the rebuilding stage.  Possibly even the biggest sign so far.

Valley of the Vampires:  A new writer who only gets a couple credits, the art is decent but a bit stiff.  A hilarious twist at the end of the story, though.

The Doorway/ The German Student:  A couple solid reprints, even if I'm still not a fan of Grandenetti I get why others like his stuff.

The ad at the end is clearly a follow-up to the ad in Eerie #22, but they also seem to have realized it doesn't really match the Vampirella we actually get so they've changed the text at the bottom to a next issue ad.

A quite solid issue here, with the debut of Cuti being the major news. I still maintain we're out of the Dark Ages proper, even if we're not quite to the full glory of the rebuilding era yet.

[Axe Elf]

Whoa!  @OtherEric wasn't kidding about the (NEW!) "Creepy's Loathsome Lore" being especially well-written!  Editorially, it managed to avoid numerous potential proofreading pitfalls, safely navigating words like "unreproached."  But even Uncle Creepy's intro is actually clever this time.  The last few issues I've been tempted to comment on how the supernaturally sheer nasty number of ailing alliterations they torturously try to shoehorn spasmically into every stinking sentence are getting to be totally tiresome--but phrases like "ouch couch" and "an illusion of confusion from the profusion of Creepy's Loathsome Lore!" had me grinning (the latter reminding me of a "Wolfman Jack" kind of delivery, which in itself is entirely appropriate).  I really enjoyed reading this one, especially the part where the fakir ascends the rope to vanish in the abyss (wait, I thought abysses went down... never mind) of the other world... where apparently they have cats for pets and still wear COVID masks.

Really nice to see a list of six (6!) writers credited on the "Contents" page.  That is definitely a suggestion that we are leaving the Dark Ages behind.

"Dear Uncle Creepy" offers some unusual advice...

...and later provides the equipment...

...and one reader suggests that CREEPY is better than the old E.C. line.

Here in the Warren Magazine Reading Club, with the benefit of retrospect and the Warren Magazine Index, we KNOW going in that we are going to see reprints, which stories are reprints, and even when we saw them first.  Some reprints I would recognize immediately as having been outstanding the first time I read them, and "The Doorway" falls into that category.  The Adkins art is fantastic, both literally and comparatively--and I immediately recognized his otherworldly creature on the cover of this issue way back when we read CREEPY #11.  Other reprints I might not recognize by title, but I would recognize the outstanding art once I saw it, and "The Adventure of the German Student" falls into that category.  That girl's hair still gets me.

But "Madness in the Method" illustrates the thing that would have bothered me the most about reprints, if I were reading these issues as they came out.  When the reprinted stories aren't so memorable that I would recognize them by title or by sight, I would probably get a page or two into a story like this one before I would even become aware that it WAS a reprint, and then that recognition would leave me feeling a little flat as I moved on to the next story.  That feeling would be all the more disappointing for an excited new owner of the latest copy when it happened to them in the first story of a book.  So if they are going to lead off an issue with a reprint, they should be darn sure to make it a really strong reprint--and I would probably advise against the practice at all.  Lead off with the strongest new material, and then weave in the reprints later.

Anyway, I appreciate the sentiment of all those fans who write in expressing some version of that disappointment, and how much luckier we are to know which stories are reprints in advance, both to avoid that let-down feeling, but also to not constantly be thinking, "Hey, that sounds familiar..." and having to dig through back issues to figure out where we've seen it before.

But that's kind of a moot point now, so out with the old, and in with the new...

Given the announcement of the Cauldron Contest winner was the featured material for the two-page "CREEPY Fan Club" this month, I was a little surprised that they bothered to include a "G" entry for their "demonictionary" this month as well.  I think the Index said they only went through "G" (or maybe "H") anyway.  At least it was a credible entry--G stands for Ghoul!

It also turns out that the Cauldron Contest winner is actually only the first winner; three more are apparently on tap--and this is only the first ANNUAL Cauldron Contest!  So there will be like one winner per issue from now on...?

The winning story itself, "In the Subway," was the first new story in this issue.  It was a little hard for me to follow at first--so much so that at the first turn of a page I thought my scan had the pages out of order or something--but once I got through it I could grasp the overall concept of there always being a bigger fish.  It's an ok story, but I do kind of feel sorry for the editors for the amount of sheer rubbish they must have had to slog through in judging the entries--and I can't imagine they would want to do it again on an annual basis!

On the other hand, it must have really been a thrill for the winner to see his story illustrated by what had become regular Warren illustrators at that point, so congrats to him, and to the others to come, for that thrill of a lifetime.

I was really enjoying "The Worm is Turning," until I got to the end--and then I had to re-think the whole story.  I guess they all got tapeworms from the pig they feasted on when they found Snell's body?  I could buy the margin monsters--I found it symbolic of the surreptitious operation of the "underworld" unknown to us in the real world--but in the end, a lot of it just doesn't make sense.  First of all, I find it disturbing that someone could just offer up five other people in exchange for his own immortality, without any kind of consent on their part.  Secondly, immortality will prove to be a bad wish once our sun goes supernova and you're left floating through space for eternity with nothing to do.  And third, the whole immortality wish that seemed to form the basis for this whole story in the first place never really played out--the five doomed men died of tapeworms, but Snell was still dead too, wasn't he?  Is that the moral, fool around with demons and everyone loses?  Meh.  I was expecting the deaths of the five men to somehow be tied into Snell's resurrection or something, but nothing masterful like that ever quite materialized.

@OtherEric did a good job of introducing Nicola Cuti for "Grub," whose name I do recognize (maybe from later Warrens?), but I wouldn't have been able to name anything he did.  He shows himself to be more than adequate in this debut, illustrating into existence horrifying "grubs"...

...and exhibiting a particular talent for bringing to life what I shall henceforth be calling "Cuti's Cuties":

The interstellar-traveling Grub had a good plan, to feed off the progeny of the captain and the token hot chick of the party, but I fear that poor old Grub may have underestimated the ability of oral sex to mutually satisfy his captives--and thus humanity prevails in the end as Grub's plan is... blown.

"Valley of the Vampires" starts out with the faux pas of "jungle guide" Forbes proclaiming that a man was killed by a python (a constrictor) because of the fang marks on his neck (facepalm).  But other than that, I really enjoyed it!  The art by new artist Bhob (?) Stewart was engaging, as was the story itself, and as the twist hit home, the wry look of pyrrhic victory on Forbes' "toldja" face was priceless.

This was a pretty hefty issue, with FOUR new stories, THREE old reprints, a NEW Loathsome Lore, TWO Fan Club pages, AND a "VAMPIRELLA" teaser that was at least more entertaining than the first one, if not any more informative.  After all these more sparse issues dominated by reprints, I feel like I really put in some work this week, after several months of basically reviewing half and issue (or less) each week.

That in itself tells me the Dark Ages are over!

Now we get to enjoy our Memorial Day Weekend and the next couple of weeks as our last sort of "vacation" as we lightly review the retrospective CREEPY and EERIE 1970 Yearbooks...

...and then they are here...

CREEPY #29...

EERIE #23...

...and VAMPIRELLA #1 to bring fireworks for the Fourth of July (almost)!

Enjoy the summer, Warren Magazine Reading Club!!!

[OtherEric]

On 5/26/2023 at 4:01 PM, Axe Elf said:

"Valley of the Vampires" starts out with the faux pas of "jungle guide" Forbes proclaiming that a man was killed by a python (a constrictor) because of the fang marks on his neck (facepalm).  But other than that, I really enjoyed it!  The art by new artist Bhob (?) Stewart was engaging, as was the story itself, and as the twist hit home, the wry look of pyrrhic victory on Forbes' "toldja" face was priceless.

 

We met Bhob back in Creepy #13, with "Scream Test".  But there he had a writer credit.

Bhob is his preferred spelling.

[Axe Elf]

On 5/26/2023 at 7:14 PM, OtherEric said:

We met Bhob back in Creepy #13, with "Scream Test".  But there he had a writer credit.

Bhob is his preferred spelling.

I had to go check, but yep, that was the one I liked so much for incorporating so many actual stills in the artwork--but I wasn't so impressed with the story.  So I think I like his work here as an artist better than his work there as a writer, and I look forward to his further development.

[Axe Elf]

CREEPY 1970 Yearbook - August 1969

According to the Warren Magazine Index...

3. cover: montage of previous covers (1969)

1) The Body-Snatcher! [Archie Goodwin/Reed Crandall] 8p   from the story by Robert Louis Stevenson, reprinted from Creepy #7 (Feb. 1966)

2) Blood Of The Werewolf! [Archie Goodwin/Steve Ditko] 8p   reprinted from Creepy #12 (Dec. 1966)

3) Where Sorcery Lives! [Archie Goodwin/Steve Ditko] 8p   reprinted from Creepy #14 (Apr. 1967)

4) The Terror Beyond Time! [Archie Goodwin/Neal Adams] 16p   reprinted from Creepy #15 (June 1967)

5) Revenge Of The Beast! [Archie Goodwin/Gray Morrow] 7p   reprinted from Creepy #5 (Oct. 1965)

6) The Invitation [Larry Englehart, Russ Jones & Maurice Whitman/Manny Stallman] 7p   reprinted from Creepy #8 (Apr. 1966)

7) Blood Of Krylon! [Archie Goodwin/Gray Morrow] 6p   reprinted from Creepy #7 (Feb. 1966)

Notes: $.60 cover price for 72 pages.  The Creepy 1970 Yearbook.

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If I say much of anything here, I won't have anything left to say for my official review, so I will just kick off the week with my wishes for a memorable Memorial Day weekend for everyone!

Welcome to summer, and to another CREEPY Yearbook!

[OtherEric]

Creepy 1970 Yearbook thoughts:

Cover:  The box of earlier covers is a somewhat 'meh' design, although I like it better than the original art we got on the 1969 Yearbook.  The fact all four covers are Frazetta brings a nice consistency to the design, and I appreciate that they reworked the 16 to get rid of the black border, so the art was not even smaller.  With all that said, points off for only one of the issues actually having a reprint in the annual.

Inside Front Cover:  This is actually a pretty well done ad for the issue, for somebody picking it up and flipping through it at the newsstand, actually.  A selection of diverse and exciting images from the stories.

The Body Snatchers:  Same problem as the original encounter:  I hit the name "Toddy MacFarlane" at the top of page one and I'm snickering too hard to properly assess.  But as near as I can tell through the unintentional comedy, it's a good adaptation by Goodwin & Crandall.

Blood of the Werewolf:  Goodwin/ Ditko is always excellent, even if this particular story is one of their less excellent ones.

Where Sorcery Lives:  I stand by my initial assessment of magnificent; the better of the two Goodwin/ Ditko pieces in the issue.

The Terror Beyond Time:  Probably the highlight of the annual for a lot of people.  Neal Adams' profile had risen precipitously in the couple years since the story originally appeared.

Revenge of the Beast:  A reminder of how good Morrow's work for Warren was.  I think we only have one more new story by him, in the far distant future of 1977.

The Invitation:  I think this is our first multiply reprinted story.  But most people wouldn't have seen the Eerie #1.  They missed that this one wasn't Goodwin when they did the credits at the front of the Yearbook.

Blood of Krylon:  Still marvelous Morrow artwork here.

Overall, this issue seems like a very solid package, but it's also a bit more backwards-looking than we might hope at this point.  It shows what the magazine was like two years ago, not what it is now nor what it will be very soon.  Still, I think it would be a decent expenditure of 60 cents back in 1969.

 

[Axe Elf]

I do like that the all-Frazetta cover harkens back to the golden years of CREEPY (and cool that they reworked the CREEPY #16 cover as @OtherEric mentioned)—but I guess I just don’t get the idea of a “Yearbook” that goes back two or three years.  I would have hoped that each Yearbook would have served as a retrospective of the best stories of the past year, but it seems like any previous material is fair game.  Granted in a year where half or more of the stories published were reprints, there wasn’t much new material to spotlight, but it still would have been nice if each Yearbook stood for an actual year.

That said, the reprints are pretty representative of the top artists of those early years—the Frazetta covers, two pieces by Morrow, two pieces by Ditko, a Crandall and a Neal Adams—all of which were penned by the original Archie Goodwin.  So you couldn’t really ask for more in terms of the quality of the material included.

And then we get to the ugly duckling, the “one of these things is not like the others” story—the only story not written by Goodwin, with art by Manny Stallman, who has consistently received lukewarm-at-best reviews here in the Warren Magazine Reading Club—“The Invitation.”  This story didn’t even originally appear in CREEPY; it was first printed in the EERIE #1 ashcan edition before later appearing in CREEPY #8.  So what the heck, people??  If they were going to reprint this story at all, they should have reprinted it in the first EERIE Yearbook, coming up next week—that's where it really belongs.

Ironically, "The Invitation" was probably the story that I remembered the best--maybe because we've already seen it twice before (and at least we get the full bald-headed man in this printing).  Most of the others fall into the category that I talked about last week, where it takes me a minute of reviewing the story before I get that, "Oh yeah, that was the one where..." feeling.  But I don't have a lot to say about any of them the second time around, other than that “Blood of Krylon” still makes me think of crimson spray paint.

I also liked the collage of panels from the stories inside the front cover, but it kind of made up for the fact that there were no panels from the stories on the "Contents" page as there usually are--so it basically just turned the Contents page into a two-page spread.

[Axe Elf]

EERIE 1970 Yearbook - August 1969

(One of the original "Po' Boy EERIE Collection" copies that hasn't been upgraded--yet...)

According to the Warren Magazine Index...

1. cover: montage of previous covers (1969)

1) Cousin Eerie’s Welcome [Jack Davis] 1p   reprinted from ?

2) Soul Of Horror [Archie Goodwin/Angelo Torres] 8p   reprinted from Eerie #3 (May 1966)

3) Shrieking Man! [Archie Goodwin/Steve Ditko] 7p   reprinted from Eerie #4 (July 1966)

4) The Masque Of The Red Death [Tom Sutton] 6p   from the story by Edgar Allan Poe, reprinted from Eerie #12 (Nov. 1967)

5) The Wanderer! [Archie Goodwin/Dan Adkins] 8p   reprinted from Eerie #9 (May 1967)

6) A Matter Of Routine [Archie Goodwin/Gene Colan] 8p   reprinted from Eerie #5 (Sept. 1966)

7) The Quest [Archie Goodwin/Donald Norman] 6p   reprinted from Eerie #7 (Jan. 1967)

8) One For De-Money [E. Nelson Bridwell/Angelo Torres] 7p   reprinted from Eerie #2 (Mar. 1966)

9) Terror In The Tomb [Archie Goodwin/Rocke Mastroserio] 7p   reprinted from Eerie #9 (May 1967)

10) Easy Way To A Tuff Surfboard! [Archie Goodwin/Frank Frazetta] ½p   reprinted from Eerie #2 (May 1966)

Notes: Publisher: James Warren.  Editor: Bill Parente.  $.60 for 72 pages.

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As with last week's Yearbook, I can't say too much here or I won't have anything to write about in my review.

It does appear, though, that the "Cousin Eerie's Welcome" is not a reprint at all, but an original introduction to this 1970 EERIE Yearbook.  The original introduction to Cousin Eerie was printed back in EERIE #2, but this isn't that.

One more relaxing week of retrospection before we burst out of the Dark Ages with what is probably the hottest consecutive trio of releases in the entire Warren catalog--CREEPY #29, EERIE #23, and VAMPIRELLA #1!

June is going to be fun!

[OtherEric]

Eerie 1970 Yearbook thoughts:

Cover:  I actually think whoever created the collage of previous Frazetta covers did a really good job.  It's not flawless, but it works as a composition reasonably well, and is a lot more interesting than the Creepy 1970 yearbook cover.  I also want to note the back cover here:  Moving the ad for the book from the inside front cover to the back cover, unlike the Creepy 1970, makes much more sense as far as selling the book to somebody looking at it on the newsstand goes.

Inside front cover:  A very nice Jack Davis piece that I assume was probably originally used in Famous Monsters, or possibly found in a drawer somewhere.  I'm certain it was several years old at this point, Warren couldn't afford Davis at this point and wouldn't waste him on an IFC if they could.  But it's new to us and it's a fun bonus.

I don't see much point in going story by story through this issue; writing my notes on the Creepy 1970 felt like I was mostly repeating myself.  But my overall reaction is similar:  This is a solid package, but it's backward-looking in a way that feels odd as we're approaching the rebuilding era.

A final thought:  Why, given the known demand for the book, didn't they reprint Eerie #1 at magazine size as part of the contents of this issue?  They could have typed up an intro page explaining the overall situation, and then had the Eerie #1 at full size as the next 24 pages of the book.  I think it would have gone over well, and perhaps gotten people off Warren's back over the #1 (which, to greater or lesser degree, is going to be a frustration pretty much until the end of the Warren magazines, and even until today.)

I almost forgot the most important detail!  Easy Way to a Tuff Surfboard count: 5

 

[Axe Elf]

On 6/4/2023 at 12:03 AM, OtherEric said:

A final thought:  Why, given the known demand for the book, didn't they reprint Eerie #1 at magazine size as part of the contents of this issue?  They could have typed up an intro page explaining the overall situation, and then had the Eerie #1 at full size as the next 24 pages of the book.

That's a good idea too, but as I said last week, if they were going to reprint "The Invitation" at all, it should have been in the EERIE Yearbook, and not the CREEPY one.

On 6/4/2023 at 12:03 AM, OtherEric said:

I almost forgot the most important detail!  Easy Way to a Tuff Surfboard count: 5

I was hoping you'd have the accurate count!

[OtherEric]

On 6/3/2023 at 10:18 PM, Axe Elf said:

I was hoping you'd have the accurate count!

Accurate for the reading club, at least.  It showed up in Teen Love Stories #1 & 2 under a different title, and I have no idea if it was ever used in Famous Monsters.

[Axe Elf]

On 6/4/2023 at 12:28 AM, OtherEric said:

It showed up in Teen Love Stories #1 & 2 under a different title

[Jayman]

On 6/4/2023 at 1:03 AM, OtherEric said:

Cover:  I actually think whoever created the collage of previous Frazetta covers did a really good job.

Some of my VERY first comics/mags were Creepys and Eeries. I had Eerie 3 and this Yearbook originally bought for me by my grandmother. I would’ve been only 6 yrs old in 1970, but these two issues were special to me because of Frazetta’s monster on the cover. It looked a lot like my favorite Colorform Alien, Colossus Rex. This run of toys are ultra expensive now and I had them all as a kid. Alas no more…

Edited June 4, 2023 by Jayman

[Axe Elf]

On 6/4/2023 at 11:06 AM, Jayman said:

Some of my VERY first comics/mags were Creepys and Eeries. I had Eerie 3 and this Yearbook originally bought for me by my grandmother. I would’ve been only 6 yrs old in 1970, but these two issues were special to me because of Frazetta’s monster on the cover. It looked a lot like my favorite Colorform Alien, Colossus Rex. This run of toys are ultra expensive now and I had them all as a kid. Alas no more…

That's awesome!  Love hearing those memories of first Warren experiences!  Cool grandmother!

[The Lions Den]

On 6/4/2023 at 1:28 AM, OtherEric said:

Accurate for the reading club, at least.  It showed up in Teen Love Stories #1 & 2 under a different title, and I have no idea if it was ever used in Famous Monsters.

I believe it's on the back cover of FM #69...