Warren Magazine Reading Club! 7 7

[Axe Elf]

On 7/31/2023 at 4:07 PM, The Lions Den said:

Another odd anomaly for those interested in such things...  

Is it an anomaly, or are they all like that?

Are there any with a uniform green background?  I just assumed it was printed that way, with the gradation intended.

Quick image search found this none-too-high-res pic of a CGC 9.8 which also appears to have the color gradation--so I would assume it's normal?

[The Lions Den]

On 7/31/2023 at 5:26 PM, Axe Elf said:

Is it an anomaly, or are they all like that?

Are there any with a uniform green background?  I just assumed it was printed that way, with the gradation intended.

Quick image search found this none-too-high-res pic of a CGC 9.8 which also appears to have the color gradation--so I would assume it's normal?

Here's a picture of what I think a "normal" copy should look like. 

Many copies don't look this way, but that doesn't mean they can't still be super high grade. CGC doesn't appear to downgrade for it, which I find interesting...   

 

 

[Jayman]

Mines more bluish…

[The Lions Den]

On 7/31/2023 at 6:53 PM, Jayman said:

Mines more bluish…

That's really cool...incredibly vibrant colors!   

[Jayman]

On 7/31/2023 at 6:58 PM, The Lions Den said:

That's really cool...incredibly vibrant colors!   

Bought years ago from Doug Sulipa.

[The Lions Den]

On 7/31/2023 at 7:01 PM, Jayman said:

Bought years ago from Doug Sulipa.

Manitoba copy?  

[Jayman]

On 7/31/2023 at 7:04 PM, The Lions Den said:

Manitoba copy?  

Yes. My 1 and 3 are Manitobas. 

[The Lions Den]

On 7/31/2023 at 7:06 PM, Jayman said:

Yes. My 1 and 3 are Manitobas. 

[Axe Elf]

On 7/31/2023 at 5:51 PM, The Lions Den said:

Here's a picture of what I think a "normal" copy should look like. 

Many copies don't look this way, but that doesn't mean they can't still be super high grade. CGC doesn't appear to downgrade for it, which I find interesting...   

 

 

The "green" side of that one looks about the same, but the "blue" side looks like a deeper blue.

@Jayman's is REALLY blue!

[The Lions Den]

On 7/31/2023 at 8:25 PM, Axe Elf said:

The "green" side of that one looks about the same, but the "blue" side looks like a deeper blue.

@Jayman's is REALLY blue!

Very impressive color strike on Jayman's copy...an incredible book.  

[Axe Elf]

On 7/7/2023 at 5:20 PM, OtherEric said:

The Sikhs I know pronounce it "Sick", not "Seek", although it appears both pronunciations are correct.

In another Warren Magazine Reading Club coincidence, not necessarily related to this week's issue, but to the last CREEPY we read (CREEPY #30), the debut of CBS' Big Brother Season 25 tonight featured a Sikh houseguest for the first time ever--Jag Bains.

(Parenthetically, he pronounced it "seek" as well; must be a regional difference or something.)

[Axe Elf]

I agree that the cover of VAMPIRELLA #3 was probably modeled after "Blast Off to a Nightmare," rather than the other way around.  It's a pretty unrelated image to have inspired this whole story around it, if it wasn't.  Appropriately enough for its cover-worthiness (and despite the lack of love from the Warren Magazine Index), I feel like this was one of the better-scripted stories of the issue.  I enjoyed the art quite a bit too, although it probably wasn't the issue's best--but Sparling did give us a magnificent full pager loaded with scantily-clad women and tentacles.

My only quibble with the plot was that the "overlords" appeared to be interested in nothing but slaughtering the earthlings--and if that was the case, why not just slaughter them on Earth (or make the spaceship blow up on ignition); why go to all the trouble and expense to send them all the way to another planet just to kill them?  If they were going to farm the earthlings, or use them for slaves or something, that would be more realistic, but to send them across the galaxy just to massacre them?  That doesn't make much sense.

The black print on the red background used for "Vampi's Feary Tales" didn't scan very well, and I had a hard time reading the text on my digital copy.  It didn't seem to be a very compelling story, though; so I can't imagine that the movie upon which it is based would be much better.

So "Vampi's Scarlet Letters" debuted this issue after all (again, despite no indication from the Warren Magazine Index)!  Most notable was the public apology for miscrediting "Montezuma's Monster" in VAMPIRELLA #2 to Don Glut instead of Robert Rosen--who wrote in to complain!  Lots of reviews for VAMPIRELLA #1 though, and as a collector, I found this letter kind of amusing.

An "outrageous" $2.50!  Blazing Combat "unattainable"!!  Buying two issues of VAMPIRELLA #1 and hoping to make back the full dollar in a year!!!  LOL!

I found the Evily story "Wicked Is Who Wicked Does" to be hard to follow, --script-wise, but the Tom Sutton art is over the top--some of his best-ever in my opinion.  I could post two or three magnificently-drawn panels, but the little "creature" touches in otherwise forgotten areas of the page really delighted me.

I appreciate the background info from @OtherEric regarding "Eleven Steps to Lucy Fuhr."  It makes a lot more sense as a parody of "Seven Footprints to Satan," what with the "Merritt" character being Satan himself in this version, and the thinly veiled "Lucy Fuhr" (Lucifer) reference.  I don't think it was the best story in the issue--although it was about as close as we have come to actual illustrated nudity in a Warren mag--but it was better than the stories that came after it...

Don't get me wrong, the Billy Graham art in both "I Wake Up... Screaming" and "Didn't I See You On Television" was incredibly striking and a worthy follow-up effort to last issue's "Rhapsody in Red"--but the stories were kind of hard to read and not particularly coherent.  In the former, a vampire (?) falls to Earth from a spaceship?  In the latter, a vampire is trapped in a network studio camera by a witch?  Just not very strong stories.  But the art...

I didn't know what "The Caliegia" was before reading this--and I don't know afterwards, either.  I tried looking it up (like "Vrykolakas"), but apparently it's not an actual word.  I guess it's just the "guardian(s) of the forest"?  Or it's the centaur-like creatures that the Caliegia and our hero became?  I dunno; just another lightweight fantasy tale.

"A Slimy Situation" was probably the best offering of the second half of the issue, but that's not saying much.  It at least has a coherent plot, even if it's not a particularly thought-provoking one.  I wasn't really counting the typos in this issue, as @OtherEric suggested, as I've kind of come to terms with the fact that they are just going to be there and there's no point in obsessing over them--but there was one pretty blatant copy error in this last story.  In one panel, the man says, "Besides, I'm interested in money," and in the next panel, the woman says, "Well I AM!" so it's pretty clear that he was supposed to say, "I'm NOT interested in money," which is kind of a big change in meaning.

So yeah, for the most part, I didn't really enjoy this issue that much, other than the Graham and Sutton art (which the Warren Magazine Index did get right as the highlights of the issue's illustrators).  It's nice that there are still no reprints in VAMPIRELLA, but I'd almost rather see a good Ditko or Crandall reprint than a crappy new story.  At least most of the art continues to be at a pretty high level.

And this is the first time I remember seeing a subscription ad for all four pillars of the Warren Empire together at once (though admittedly I wasn't really looking for them in the first two Vampi issues).  That's kind of a landmark to me.

 

Edited August 4, 2023 by Axe Elf

[Axe Elf]

CREEPY #31 - February 1970

According to the Warren Magazine Index...

31. cover: Vaughn Bode & Larry Todd (Feb. 1970)

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

2) In The Face Of Death [Al Hewetson/Bill Fraccio & Tony Tallarico] 4p 

3) Telephoto Troll! [R. Michael Rosen/Roger Brand] 6p

4) A Night’s Lodging! [Rhea Dunne/Maurice Whitman] 7p   reprinted from Creepy #17 (Oct. 1967)

5) Snowmen! [Tom Sutton] 8p

6) The Creepy Fan Page: The Master [Marc Rendleman] 1p   [text story]

7) A Wooden Stake For Your Heart! [Don Glut/Bill Black] 6p

8) Death Of A Stranger [T. Casey Brennan/Ernie Colon] 6p

9) Laughing Liquid [Kevin Pagan/William Barry] 8p

Notes: Underground artists Vaughn Bode & Larry Todd would do a number of covers for Warren over the next couple of years.  This one depicts an odd chicken-like alien, who’s apparently just ripped in half a very human looking robot.  The original version of this cover was too bloody, with too many entails {making one suspect the gentleman torn in half was originally intended to be an actual human}, so before publication the original painting was amended by the Warren production department.  Reprints begin to be eased out, probably in response to the advent of Web Of Horror, a rival B&W magazine from Major Publications which featured all original stories.  Major Publications were also the publishers of the humor magazine Cracked at the time.  Both Eerie Publications and Stanley Publications had copied Warren’s lead in publishing B&W magazines in the mid 1960s but Warren, quite rightly, never considered them a threat as those magazines were mostly composed of pretty lousy retouched 1950s horror reprints.  Web Of Horror wouldn’t last long {only three issues} but clearly their use of former Warren writers (Otto Binder & Clark Dimond) and artists {Bill Fraccio & Tony Tallarico {with a new penname}, Jeff Jones, Donald Norman, Roger Brand and more}, along with the brightest young turks from the fanzines {Berni Wrightson, Michael Kaluta, Bruce Jones, Ralph Reese, Frank Brunner, etc.} had an effect on Warren.  In fact, a letter by one-time Warren editor J. R. Cocharan, that appeared in Canar #21-22 (May-June 1974), stated clearly that Warren’s infamous “war letter” to writers & artists which basically declared that one could either work for the B&W competition or one could work for Warren but you couldn’t work for both, was a direct result of the existence of Web Of Horror.  Along with a story in the Jan. issue of Vampirella, this was future Skywald editor Al Hewetson’s professional writing debut.  ‘Snowmen!’ by Tom Sutton was quite good and would win the first Warren award for best story.  After several appearances on the fan pages, Bill Black made his professional art debut on ‘A Wooden Stake For Your Heart!’  Kevin Pagan also made his professional writing debut.

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The Index is mostly silent for the last month or so, and now it gives us all this to chew on!

It seems like it's been ages since we read that last crappy CREEPY; here's hoping this will be an improvement.

Looks like Bode & Todd (and especially Bode) are going to be with us for the covers of the next couple of EERIEs and the next VAMPIRELLA, too.  It won't be long until they are challenging Prezio and Frazetta for cover dominance!

I never would have thought to call the creature on the cover a "chicken," though.  It looks more like a dinosaur with some feathers or something (and this was back before the dinosaur-bird ancestry had been fully traced out).

After the description of the original cover being too gruesome to publish (assuming that "too many entails" is supposed to be "too many entrails"), of course now I'm curious to see it.  Does anyone have any intel on where to find the original cover art?

It's kind of cool to see Berni Wrightson called a "bright young turk from the fanzines" here, after seeing his print debut as a letter-writer back in CREEPY #5.

Also cool to see Sutton illustrating more and more of his own scripts--pretty talented guy to be able to draw AND write--and it must be an advantage to illustrate something that was first visualized inside of your own head!

And finally, REALLY cool to see only ONE reprint in this issue, and I believe the next issues of both CREEPY and EERIE are once again completely reprint-free!  So hopefully all-new material from now until the 1971 Annuals!

Edited August 6, 2023 by Axe Elf

[OtherEric]

Creepy #31 thoughts:

Cover: Another great piece by Bode and Todd.  Although I'm sufficiently a fan of Bode that I'm probably going to call everything he does great... his work is stuff I would normally expect to not care for, in many ways, but I always find it incredibly compelling.  I have no idea where to find the original art, or even if any record still exists other than the report that it was changed.

Loathsome Lore:  A so-so page.  It gets points for actually being a Lore page, rather than a Feary Tale or a Monster Gallery with the wrong name.  But they get the Lore they're presenting wrong... no witches were actually burnt in the Salem trials.  Not sure how accurate any of the rest is.

In the Face of Death:  I've read it twice and I can't figure out what the point is.  At least it's short.

Telephoto Troll:  At least I get what this story is trying to say; I just don't think it's particularly effective.

A Night's Loding:  Still a solid story.  Pity they didn't correct the title, at least.

Snowmen:  After a couple underwhelming pieces and a reprint, Sutton turns in a very good tale, although I felt the twist was pretty predictable.

A Wooden Stake for your Heart:  A very well done story by Glut, with a perfectly played twist that wasn't the one I expected.  The art by Black is decent, although I bet an expert could look through back issues of Famous Monsters and find all the stills where he swiped Christopher Lee's likeness if they felt so inclined.

Death of a Stranger:  A very strong, moody story by Brennan and Colon, although I feel the tone of Uncle Creepy's comments are the exact wrong choice for the tone of the rest of the story.

Laughing Liquid:  Kevin Pagan wasn't a name I recognized, he winds up doing quite a few stories for Warren, but this is his only one for a while yet.  A reasonably neat idea for a story, but the execution is so-so at best.

I think I was a bit grumpy reading this issue; but after the first couple stories this is a very solid issue; even if I have some gripes it's a pretty good package overall, although I didn't like it as much as last week's Vampirella #3.  Then again, @Axe Elf didn't like that issue nearly as much as I did, so we'll see how others react to this one.

 

[Axe Elf]

On 8/6/2023 at 12:18 AM, OtherEric said:

But they get the Lore they're presenting wrong... no witches were actually burnt in the Salem trials.  Not sure how accurate any of the rest is.

Trying to fact-check these Lores is probably not a good idea!    Not sure how accurate any of the rest of them are!

[OtherEric]

On 8/5/2023 at 10:28 PM, Axe Elf said:

Trying to fact-check these Lores is probably not a good idea!    Not sure how accurate any of the rest of them are!

Fair enough in general, although this one is dealing with documented history, so it's a bit of a different category.

[Axe Elf]

Looks like this is one of the rare issues where the android/chicken cover had nothing to do with any of the stories inside.

And as I mentioned before, I'm ok with "Loathsome Lore" being factually incorrect about burning witches at Salem; it is "lore" after all.  Lore isn't necessarily factual.

"Dear Uncle Creepy" looks a little different this issue, now being titled simply "Mail" and adding little headlines to each letter (possibly to help fill extra space now that the feature has expanded to a page and a half).  Love the guy who thought Ditko was among the artists ruining the CREEPY reputation--and a letter from "Peter Brady" himself!  (Yes, the Brady Bunch was still airing on ABC at this time.)

And then we kick off the issue proper with a little 4-pager called "In the Face of Death" that left me wondering wtf?  I'm glad @OtherEric didn't understand it either, so I don't feel so alone.  It's like they drew in a sketch of where the figure would be in the last panel, and then forgot to finish the illustration--so it looks like a thumb, rather than an elderly and withered face as the text would suggest it might--and leaves us all wondering what just happened.

"Telephoto Troll" at least appeared to be executed properly, even if the idea of a developing photo manifesting whatever is pictured into reality is kind of a dumb one.  Like why was just a whiff of ozone gas manifested when they took a picture of the whole planet--why wasn't the planet itself manifested in their lab?

It's kind of sad when the reprint--with a screaming typo in its title--is the best story of the issue, but that may in fact be the case here with "A Night's Loding" [sic].

I had a hard time following "Snowmen" as well--just trying to keep all the characters straight--but I kind of pieced it together once I got to the end and could go back to see how all the pieces fit.  But weren't there only two kids that went missing--and three "snowmen"?

The "Fan Club" entry was basically a single story and illustration about going to hell; not as bad as some of the fan contributions have been.

"A Wooden Stake for Your Heart" might be the best of the new stories, but yeah, the artist did seem to go out of his way to make the main character as stereotypically "vampire" as he could--some of them do almost seem like movie stills.  I did think the real vampire would be in the locked room, but I didn't expect it to be a whole monster zoo in there!

And then I'm back to being stumped by "Death of a Stranger."  It seems to be kind of a drawn out psychedelic "Jacob's Ladder" trip of one man's descent into death.  The art's kinda trippy, but I just don't get the point.

The idea of microscopic aliens infecting the Earth's water supply, as in "Laughing Liquid," is an intriguing one, but the execution here seems inappropriately cartoonish (I know, I know, it's a comic book) when it could have had a real "War of the Worlds" feel to it.

@OtherEric said he was grumpy when he read this issue, and I was grumpy after I had read the issue.  Despite his gripes, @OtherEric seems to have enjoyed the issue more than I did--I was really put off by the dumb and sometimes unfathomable writing.  I guess I'm really starting to miss Archie Goodwin.  As dumb as his twists could be sometimes, at least you knew what he was trying to say.

I'm starting to think we should paraphrase another popular saying from the 70s--"Don't trust any CREEPY issue over 30."  So far #30 and #31 have been disappointing.

[The Lions Den]

On 8/11/2023 at 6:32 PM, Axe Elf said:

@OtherEric said he was grumpy when he read this issue, and I was grumpy after I had read the issue.  Despite his gripes, @OtherEric seems to have enjoyed the issue more than I did--I was really put off by the dumb and sometimes unfathomable writing.  I guess I'm really starting to miss Archie Goodwin.  As dumb as his twists could be sometimes, at least you knew what he was trying to say.

I'm starting to think we should paraphrase another popular saying from the 70s--"Don't trust any CREEPY issue over 30."  So far #30 and #31 have been disappointing.

I agree. It's almost like Warren wasn't sure which direction to go at this point. Thankfully, he eventually figured it out...

[Axe Elf]

EERIE #26 - March 1970

According to the Warren Magazine Index...

26. cover: Basil Gogos & Vaughn Bode (Mar. 1970)

1) Eerie’s Monster Gallery: The Body Snatchers! [Tom Sutton] 1p   [frontis]

2) I Wouldn’t Want To Live There! [Bill Parente/Jack Sparling] 7p

3) Southern Exposure, part 2 [Bill Parente/Tom Sutton] 7p

4) In The Neck Of Time [Al Hewetson/Bill Fraccio & Tony Tallarico] 8p

5) Eerie Fanfare: Al Hewetson Profile/Death After Dark/Three Feet From Exit Four/Traitor’s Reward [Al Hewetson, Mark Aubry, Mark Hatfield & Dennis Goza/Ernie Colon & Steven Muhmel] 2p   [text stories w/photo]

6) Spiders Are Revolting! [Bill Warren/Tom Sutton] 9p

7) The Scarecrow [Nicola Cuti/Frank Bolle] 7p

8) Tuned In! [Ken Dixon/MR. Piscopo] 7p

9) Cyked-Out! [Ken Dixon/Jack Sparling] 8p

Notes: This was the first issue since #10 to have all-original stories.  The cover was quite ugly, yet strangely, was selected to be reprinted in the early 1980s!  Future artist Ronn Sutton sent in a letter.  Best story and art belonged to the Warren/Sutton story ‘Spiders Are Revolting!’

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Despite the Index's condemnation, I thought this cover was quite beautiful when I got it, as it was one of the first issues on which I cut an individual deal, buying six different issues from the same seller and getting about a 20% discount off their asking price on all six--but I still spent SIXTEEN DOLLARS on this one issue alone in that purchase, and it was worth it, as it was one of the first issues in my collection that I could legitimately call an 8.0 (possibly even an 8.5).

(Parenthetically and coincidentally, I believe I also paid $16 for the reprint, EERIE #121, in the same order from the same seller, but it wasn't quite up to the same standard.)

Now with some experience of the two artists responsible for this cover, I find them to be kind of strange bedfellows, or at least interesting collaborators.  I see pieces of each of them in it, and I can kind of understand why it would be reprinted, given their relative importance in both Warren and underground art.

And NO REPRINTS!!!

How awesome is that!

Well, I guess it will be awesome, if all the new stuff doesn't suck--but I know that the "Spiders Are Revolting" story gets reprinted a few times, so it must have some merit.  Reminds me of a friend I used to have in elementary school who thought "the natives are revolting!" was such a great phrase because of its double entendre (I think he read it in a MAD magazine, come to think of it).

And oh yeah!  I almost forgot we were due for the second half of "Southern Exposure" this issue--hopefully the art will look a little more finished now...

...But "In the NECK of Time"?  Don't tell me it's another vampire-heavy issue!  Sounds like a time-traveling vampire this time or something.

Kinda looking forward to more Piscopo art, too!

[OtherEric]

Eerie #26 thoughts:

Cover:  Bode has a different collaborator on this cover, Basil Gogos.  I must respectfully disagree with the indexer calling it "ugly", although I'll agree it's not Bode's best cover for the Warrens.  You can see another Bode-Gogos cover on the previous page of this thread.

Monster Gallery:  At least this qualifies as a Monster Gallery, although the monster is a very human one this time.

I Wouldn't Want to Live There:  Probably the best story from Parente yet.  Despite their alien appearance, the protagonists are very relatable in their actions and despair.  The cover fits the story perfectly, and the twist is one of the best I've encountered yet in a Warren.  An incredible start to the issue.

Southern Exposure, Part 2:  Nice art by Sutton, but it really didn't deserve the two-part treatment, and the two parts don't match up that well, honestly.  Partly redeemed by very nice execution of the otherwise underwhelming twist, though.  I would rank it higher if it had been a single chapter, I think.

In the Neck of Time:  A so-so story that probably should have been at least two pages shorter, with a meaningless double twist at the end.  Very nice "Williamsune" art, though.  I particularly like the last page with Cousin Eerie sitting and admiring the devastation.  No need to keep you hanging in suspense, @Axe Elf:  It's NOT a vampire story.

Spiders are Revolting:  Bill Warren does about ten stories for the Warren magazines, I have no idea if he's related to James Warren or not.  This story is a bit of a change from what we've seen from Warren (the publisher) so far, going a bit deeper into body horror and gross-out imagery.  Not normally my cup of tea, but it's definitely done very well here.  Still one I give a far higher technical score to than my own personal enjoyment, though.

The Scarecrow:  I think this is the first story we've seen Frank Bolle do for the magazine originally, although we had reprints from the Christopher Lee book by him.  A decent story, it feels to me like it was very loosely inspired by "Four-Sided Triangle" in Shock Suspenstories #17, although it definitely went in very different directions.  I almost wonder if a page was accidentally dropped before publication, there seems to be something missing between pages 48 and 49.  I'm not sure it's a whole page worth of story, though.

Tuned In:  Ken Dixon only does three stories for Warren (or comics altogether, for that matter), two of them in this issue.  This one has a nice underlying idea, but getting music to work in a comic is always a challenge.  At the very least, a more experienced artist than Piscopo was needed.  Still, I'll give them a couple points for trying something interesting, at least.

Cyked-Out:  Dixon's other story works much better, it's over the top but in a good (but not great) way.  Fun but minor; I think the idea would have been better served by having the twist at the end of the story come around page three and then giving us several pages of the gloriously ludicrous concept we get there playing out.

Another very good issue, no reprints helps and even if not everything is to my taste I appreciate the variety of material here.  This is what the book should be like at the moment, at least until they figure out how to give the three magazines distinct voices.  And that evolution is still a ways off.