Warren Magazine Reading Club! 7 7

[Axe Elf]

I guess "SAUCERIANS" sounds cooler than just "ALIENS" for "EERIE's Monster Gallery," but it was basically carte blanche for Sutton to explore alien creatures.  The art itself was great--he packed a lot onto the page, and the three main panels really have a lot more depth than it appears at first glance--but I thought he could have been a little more imaginative with the aliens; they all appeared pretty similar to me.

Sutton also got a shot at drawing more aliens when he was assigned this issue's "what-did-they-really-find-on-the-moon" story, which wasn't much more than a retread of last week's "Luna" in VAMPIRELLA #5.  "Follow Apollo" was interesting to me in the same historical context as the other moon landing stories, but it's pretty eye-rollingly unoriginal so soon after "Luna."  But Sutton's moon aliens were different from his "saucerians," so that's a plus.

I was surprised by how many writers to "Dear Cousin EERIE" seemed to be mortally offended by the depiction of a monster with a gun on the cover of EERIE #26.  Everybody knows monsters don't use guns, sheesh!  And I smiled at the guy trying to find a copy of EERIE #1--hope he found one!  Cousin Eerie also spills the beans about Ernie Colon being the "David St. Clair" credited as the "Forgotten Kingdom" artist (the spirograph story) in VAMPIRELLA #4.

And just to quickly address the "EERIE Fan Fare" pages, which are quickly becoming my least-favorite feature (except when they spotlight a contributor), the fan art was quite a bit better than the (as usual) pathetic fan fiction.  And now, back to the stuff for which we actually read these books...

I was taking in the Dan Adkins art as much as the story itself when I started out reading "The Hidden Evils," and then I found myself being immersed in the story as well.  It was really very well-drawn and well-written--right up until the end!  Satan himself went through all that just to tell one of his demons that he possessed the wrong person; now go and don't screw it up this time?  There was so much drama building up to that little slap on the wrist; it's almost comical how bad that ending was, given how good the piece was up until that point!

Hey!  You said there would be suffering!  Where's the suffering?

Billy Graham's art for "The Beast in the Swamp" was no letdown after the opener from Adkins, although the facial features of the main barbarian were oddly indistinct most of the time.  The story itself took enough time to breathe and develop the foreign world and its creatures for the twist to have a thought-provoking impact in terms of mankind's exploratory effect on existing ecosystems.  It was a gorgeous journey.

"The Rescue Party" reminded me more of "classic" (Goodwin) Warren stories where the villain is confronted by the dead they have left behind.  In that sense, it wasn't a bad story, but it also felt like it was just different characters in a story I'd read before.  Sparling's art wasn't his best, but it was as good as it needed to be.

The first real let-down of the book (for me) was "Ice Scream."  The Bill DuBay art was kind of puzzling, in that he seemed to spend a lot of effort on intricate backgrounds, but then the characters themselves were at times little more than line drawings.

It was pretty obvious the janitor knew what was going on, but I had hoped he was doing something more interesting with the bodies than just feeding them to his family--so the story seemed kind of slight to me, and a missed opportunity to do something more unique with the cryogenic theme.

"Pit of Evil," though, was really a waste of its Piscopo art--which was pretty credible, for the number of fight sequences required.  To be whisked away to another dimension to fight an intergalactic champion, though, I wanted to see higher stakes--like he was fighting for the survival of the human race or something.  But they were just offering him his own planet to control for a year as the champion and he said, "No thanks," and they said "Ok" and sent him home and none of this really mattered at all...?  Pretty unsatisfying.

I had really been looking forward to the Pat Boyette piece, "The Last Train to Orion," to close it out, and how it would relate to his cover for this issue, but I didn't think this story was nearly up to the standard he set with his "Royal Guest" tale from CREEPY #33.  Most of the space stuff was just gobbledygook--"an atomic sea, spanning the measurable expanse of the universe"??  "An endless mass of atomic matter"???  C'mon, man.

And I didn't really understand how all the various parts of the story worked together...  Everyone was under 40... except the captain, but it was ok, because he wore a mask...  and he wanted to kill everyone for some reason...  and that infected the galaxy with the "humanitis" disease for the next ten million years or something...?  I dunno, it was all just a mess.  Fun to look at, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it was trying to say, and I'm not sure I even care.

At least it brought us back around to the topic of aliens.

[Axe Elf]

VAMPIRELLA #6 - July 1970

According to the Warren Magazine Index...

6. cover: Ken Kelly (July 1970)

1) Vampi’s Feary Tales: The Centaur [Dan Adkins] 1p   [frontis]

2) The Curse Of Circe [Gardner Fox/Jerry Grandenetti] 6p

3) The Brothers Death [Nicola Cuti/Jack Sparling] 7p

4) Darkworth! [Nicola Cuti/Mike Royer] 7p

5) New Girl In Town! [Gardner Fox/Dan Adkins] 4p

6) Victim Of The Vampire! [Vern Bennett/Frank Bolle] 7p

7) Vampi’s Flames: Untitled/The Bat [Ron Fisher & Brian O’Malley/Ron Fisher, Ken Christie, Jerry Conessa, Anthony Kowalik, Jack Becker, Toby Caputi, Chris Haug, Richard Cherron & Ed Shea] 2p   [text stories]

8) One Way Trip [Larry Herndon/Bill Fraccio & Tony Tallarico] 7p

9) The Wolf-Man [Buddy Saunders/Frank Bolle] 7p

Notes: Editor: James Warren.  Ken Kelly debuts his first cover art.  Comic Book Artist has printed layouts for this cover done by Ken’s mentor, Frank Frazetta.  Best story & art belonged to ‘Darkworth!’ with Mike Royer’s best & sexiest renderings!  Story revolved around a stripper—always a good subject for a comic strip!  Frank Bolle also had two good strips here.

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I'm not sure if the Index intentionally overkilled the word "strip" there, but it certainly makes it sound alluring!

It looks like Tom Sutton took a vacation this month, with no appearance in this issue but Dan Adkins stepping in for the Feary Tales and another full story--"New Girl in Town" sounds alluring too!  I didn't mention it in my review of EERIE #28, but one of the letters was from a fan requesting more Jerry Grandenetti, and I was thinking, "Ew, why would you want more Jerry Grandenetti, of all people?" and then here we go, a new piece by Jerry Grandenetti!  I'm interested--and they apparently thought it was good enough to lead off the issue--but careful what you wish for, I guess...

So we're already finishing up the first full year of VAMPIRELLA!  Ken Kelley's first cover art means a lot more to me now than when I was first exposed to the fact; I'm blessed to have a nice copy of it.

[OtherEric]

Vampirella #6 thoughts:

Cover:  Ken Kelly is one of the major Warren cover artists, he makes his debut here with some help from his uncle Frank.

Feary Tales:  It feels more like a Monster Gallery, and I don't particularly care for how Adkins draws the centaur... the torso looks way too long.  I can't claim the art is wrong on a mythological creature, but it's not a take on the design I care for.

The Curse of Circe:  A solid start to the issue from Fox and Grandenetti.  Grandenetti dials back his usual stylist quirks and I'm torn... I'm less impressed by the art, but I actually enjoy it more than usual.  Glad to see this side of Grandenetti's work.

The Brothers Death:  Cuti's ambition exceeded his grasp here at this stage of his career, but it's still decent even if you need to fill in some of the holes.  Great art by Starling.

Darkworth:  Royer's art is definitely getting better, Cuti's -script is less ambitious than his last effort but works better overall.

New Girl in Town:  Feels very much like a late 50's post-code story, honestly.  Nice art by Adkins, and the -script is solid even as I suspect Fox dusted off something he had left over from 12 or so years earlier.

Victim of the Vampire:  A fairly generic story, but well executed by the creators.  GCD has "Vern Bennett" as a pseudonym for Al Hewetson.

One Way Trip:  Larry Herndon is another creator who mostly did work in fan created comics, although he does have a half-dozen credits with Warren.  The story seems to be leaning fairly hard into the "relevant" craze of early 70's comics, the story is decent but rather heavily of its time.

The Wolf-Man:  I'll give Saunders full marks for coming up on an unusual twist on the execution of what has to be one of the most generic titles ever, and Bolle is a solid artist.  But I'm not sure there's quite enough there for the story to get beyond being just good.  Which is something we don't give enough stuff credit for; honestly. Turning out good stories with the occasional great or excellent work is still pretty impressive on an anthology.

Overall, a decent issue, but not as good as the #5. 

[Axe Elf]

On 10/1/2023 at 12:09 AM, OtherEric said:

what has to be one of the most generic titles ever

 I was thinking that as I pasted in the titles; "Oh, THE Wolf-Man, eh?  Like we haven't had a hundred wolf-men already..."  Glad to hear it rises above!

On 10/1/2023 at 12:09 AM, OtherEric said:

Turning out good stories with the occasional great or excellent work is still pretty impressive on an anthology.

I've thought about this quite a bit lately too, as there have been some issues where I've been kind of disappointed with the stories--but I think it's just that I remember the "highlights" from the issues I read as a teen--stories that entertained me like The Rook, or made me think like Moonshadow, or for whatever reason really kindled my imagination, and I want EVERY story to be that good!  And it's just impossible to do that, story after story, seven times an issue, eighteen issues a year at this point.

So I get kind of critical of the writing (and the editing!) at times, but I still love these books, and even when I roll my eyes at a limp twist or a massive plot hole, I almost always still enjoy looking at the art in all but the most rare of occasions.

As always, thanks for your thoughts.

[The Lions Den]

On 10/1/2023 at 1:09 AM, OtherEric said:

Overall, a decent issue, but not as good as the #5. 

I agree.   

[Axe Elf]

I wasn't really thinking about the cover as I was reading "Darkworth," and then, there it was!

"All right ma'am, would you like your stick here, or..."

So that set off a whole "chicken vs the egg" train of thought as to whether the cover or the panel in the story came first.  It's not technically a Frazetta cover, although he apparently had a hand in it, and I know that most of the stories correlated with Frazetta covers were written to fit the cover, rather than the other way around.  Given that this was Ken Kelley's first cover art, though, it would stand to reason that he fashioned the cover after this panel in the story--but then we have the Index referencing published layouts for the cover done by Frazetta, so again I'm not sure which came first.  If the story didn't come first, though, it was an odd way to write in the little troglodyte with a stick as the magician's henchman.

The story itself isn't too bad, although it stretches credulity that the assistant would have been buried in the empty grave the magician had purchased for his escape trick--and that she would have died from having her spine smashed by a stick in the first place.  And I agree with the index that Royer penned the heroine as hawt as any of the other females depicted in this issue--but just about every story had some appearance by one hottie or another.

Grandenetti's opening piece, "The Curse of Circe" was a surprising close second in the hottie contest--surprising because Grandenetti's faces are often pretty harsh and stark, but he manages to draw both of the main female characters and a few supporting actresses with enough charm to make their irresistibility credible.  This is pretty much instantly my favorite Grandenetti work ever.  I was disappointed that both of the main characters died trying to escape, but I guess it wouldn't be a curse if everyone lived happily ever after.

"One Way Trip" was the most thought-provoking story of the issue.  It read a little like the comic book version of "Reefer Madness" in places--"this guy is so drugged, NOTHING may help him!"--but at the heart of it, it had to do with drugs as a means of self-exploration, and in particular, confronting one's own original sin, that "beast" of evil within us all.  And just as our hero's "evil" was ultimately the source of his destruction, so is our own sin the invoice of our death.

I agree with @OtherEric that "The Wolf-Man" rises above the standard fare of the genre with an original twist, and I thought it was ironic that Frank Bolle also drew the other offering from the standard Warren monster catalog--"The Victim of the Vampyre."  The former had a much better -script, though, with the "vampyre" story being more typical--the only real twist being that the vampire was the hero's brother.

I also agree with @OtherEric about the torso of Adkins' centaur for "Vampi's Feary Tales" (which isn't even much of a "tale" this time; this would be more suited to a Monster Gallery).  Usually only the chest and shoulders of the man rise above a transitional abdomen into the body of the horse, but this pictures the man's hips basically transitioning into the horse's neck.  So yeah, kind of a fail all around--especially for an artist as skilled as Adkins.

It seemed obvious that the twist in "New Girl in Town" had to do with the girl's identity, since her face was conspicuously hidden in every frame--but I was expecting her to have vampire teeth or pointy ears or a rabbit's face or something when we finally saw her--but once she got to the cemetery I knew we were dealing with another in the genre of "dead people who don't know they're dead."  As such, it was a fairly light, but entertaining filler piece.

"The Brothers Death" was an interesting concept--that Death is not a single hooded figure, but a family of brothers, but I thought that concept could have been put to better use than a silly love story, in which the balances of life and death are disrupted for the relatively trivial pursuit of a bride.

Nothing much caught my attention in "Vampi's Scarlet Letters," other than a mention of the spirograph designs in VAMPIRELLA #4, but the writer complained that there were 24 spirograph designs in the story and it was a bit too much.  I guess they didn't realize that the spirograph designs represented the story's omnipresent deity, and that's why it was in almost every panel.

Likewise, the fan fiction for "Vampi's Flames" was as nondescript, if not as terrible, as ever--but the fan art continues to maintain my interest to some degree.

I read the book a few days ago, and I have the lingering impression that this was a pretty bad issue in terms of editing and proofreading--one speech balloon was so garbled it was hard to make out what they were trying to say--but going back to the issue now, I can't find where it was.  On the plus side, I'm not so bothered by those little errors in the long run as I once was, and I still have an overall positive impression of this issue--the art was all pretty good, and for the most part, the stories weren't plagued by glaring plot holes (even if they could have been proofread a little more closely).

After the first year of VAMPIRELLA, I'm mostly just still enjoying that it leans a little more toward the risque than the CREEPY or EERIE titles.  The Vampis are FUN, if nothing else!

[The Lions Den]

On 10/6/2023 at 6:54 PM, Axe Elf said:

So that set off a whole "chicken vs the egg" train of thought as to whether the cover or the panel in the story came first. 

I'm pretty sure Warren told Frazetta to do whatever he wanted, and he'd have a story created that went with the cover painting. I'm not sure if he told Kelly the same thing...  

[Axe Elf]

On 10/7/2023 at 12:26 PM, The Lions Den said:

I'm pretty sure Warren told Frazetta to do whatever he wanted, and he'd have a story created that went with the cover painting.

In relation to this cover in particular, or (as I have heard before) in general with Frank's work?

On 10/7/2023 at 12:26 PM, The Lions Den said:

I'm not sure if he told Kelly the same thing...

Yeah, that's kind of my thinking... It seems like a new artist would be asked to create a cover for a story already written, rather than having the honor of having their art written into a story.  But then if Frank did the original layouts for the piece, was he working from scratch, or was he also working from the story as a way of helping out Ken?

We may never know...

[Axe Elf]

CREEPY #34 - August 1970

According to the Warren Magazine Index...

34. cover: Ken Barr (Aug. 1970)

1) Creepy’s Loathsome Lore: The Makara! [Dan Adkins] 1p   [frontis]

2) X-Tra…”X” [R. Michael Rosen/Jack Sparling] 7p

3) Lifeboat! [Bill Parente/Ken Barr] 7p

4) The Creepy Fan Page: The Doomed/The Movie Critic/Lost: A Life/The Search For The Phasimara Plant [Thomas Isenberg, Steven Hart, Anthony Kowalik & John Scorfani/Mondini Gianluigi, Gerald Colucci, Brant Withers, Scot Cassman & Carole MacKinnon] 2p   [text stories]

5) The Cool Jazz Ghoul [Al Hewetson/Ken Kelly] 7p

6) Minanker’s Demons [Buddy Saunders/John G. Fantuccio] 6p

7) Forgotten Prisoner Of Castlemare [R. Michael Rosen/Bill Fraccio & Tony Tallarico] 6p

8) The Swamp In Hell! [Al Hewetson/Don Vaughn] 6p

9) Ando! [R. Michael Rosen/Syd Shores] 6p

10) Easy Way To A Tuff Surfboard! [Archie Goodwin/Frank Frazetta] ½p   reprinted from Eerie #3 (May 1966)

Notes:  Editor: James Warren.  Ken Barr was a Scottish artist who did quite a lot of work for DC’s war comics as well as for Warren over the next several years.  He was a very good cover artist but strangely his best cover work never appeared for Warren.  Instead, his Warren work often appeared muted and was overshadowed by just about everybody else doing covers at the time.  Future underground & ‘Garbage Pail Kids’ artist John Pound appeared on the letters’ page.  Future cover artist Ken Kelly made his professional debut by rendering a rare comic story.  It’s pretty good too!  The ‘Forgotten Prisoner Of Castlemare’ was based on the Aurora model kit of the same name, regularly advertised in the back of each Warren issue.

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Odd that the Index would call this Ken Kelly's "professional debut"--and Kelly himself a "future cover artist"--when we just got done with Ken Kelly's professional debut as a cover artist for VAMPIRELLA #6--clearly dated "July 1970" while this issue of CREEPY is clearly dated "August 1970"--as the Index itself dates them!

So maybe THIS is actually the 8th appearance of the Frazetta Surfboard ad, and the one in EERIE #28 was the 9th...  (Cue the Twilight Zone theme.)

Anyway, the Ken Kelly piece is probably the one I am the most anxious to read, even though he's not necessarily a "new artist" to me now.  But this issue seems to have a lot of "new blood," so to speak, and speaking of which, I've always liked this cover, so I'm interested to see what new artist Ken Barr can do to "flesh" out the full gory... er... story.

The issue closes with a couple of new artists as well--and of course I'm kind of infatuated with the Fantuccio story and how cool it is that some of you have books from his own personal collection!  His art wasn't amazing the first time around, in VAMPIRELLA #5, but it was quite interesting.

These will be our last original stories for some time, in any case, as our next two weeks will be occupied by the 1971 CREEPY and EERIE Annuals.

[OtherEric]

Creepy #34 thoughts

Cover:  I like this one quite a bit, but I get why the index feels it's muted, as well.  And when we're looking at a series in retrospect, it works better than when it's desperately trying to be noticed on the newsstand.

Loathsome Lore:  I was a little harsher on this when I first saw it, but when I actually looked up Makara I discovered that no, that's really pretty much what they look like in classic iconography.  Fun hitting something that I wasn't previously aware of, which I can't recall happening in the lore/ gallery pages before.  (It has happened in the actual stories, with the Vrykolakas.)

"X"-tra..."X":  The -script borders on gibberish, even by the standards of horror/ SF comics.  And that's even if you don't realize they're discussing an actual medical condition:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klinefelter_syndrome

I do consider the black panel/page borders an interesting touch, but I don't see anything in this story that makes this a particularly good candidate for using them.

Lifeboat:  Interesting concept, solid art.  Minus 1/2 point for the last panel on page 2, it looks like it's trying to say "This sort of manacles", only slightly misspelled.  It's absolutely not but it threw me out of the story badly for a moment.

The Cool Jazz Ghoul:  Definitely some holes in the -script, but it's actually a pretty neat twist even if it's imperfectly set up.  Ken Kelly does what I believe is his only full story for Warren, and the art is quite good, in some places looking almost painted- although I think that's just the shading work.  Also, leaving this link here for no particular reason...

 

Minanker's Demons:  A solid little fantasy from Saunders and Fantuccio, but not one I have much to say about.

Forgotten Prisoner of Castlemare:  They took the name and picture of the model kit that they had been hawking in the back of the magazines, and worked backwards from there to create a story around it.  It's actually surprisingly good for something with such an arbitrary starting point, but it's still a glorified ad.

The Swamp in Hell:  This seems to be Don Vaughn's only major art credit at the GCD, although he's listed with a few credits on Marvel UK reprint books as well.  The story is actually quite good, even as it's an obvious riff on Frankenstein... although a different bit of the story than usually gets ripped of.

Ando:  Feels a LOT like a story from an Atlas monster book, and that's not just because of the Syd Shores art.  It's a solid enough example of the type, brought down by having a plot element almost identical to the Forgotten Prisoner story earlier in the issue.

Easy Way to a Tuff Surfboard count: 9

Overall, a good issue; Cool Jazz Ghoul is the highlight.  But it definitely highlights Warren's weakness as his own editor:  It leasds with the weakest story, and since I assume they wouldn't delay the Castlemare ad they should have moved Ando to another issue.

Edited October 8, 2023 by OtherEric

[OtherEric]

On 10/7/2023 at 10:02 PM, OtherEric said:

--script

@CGC Mike:  Do you know why the software insists on adding the - before every use of the word "-script"?  And why it adds another one when you quote the word?  Thank you for your time.

[CGC Mike]

On 10/8/2023 at 1:08 AM, OtherEric said:

@CGC Mike:  Do you know why the software insists on adding the - before every use of the word "-script"?  And why it adds another one when you quote the word?  Thank you for your time.

I am not sure why it was doing this, but it should not do it anymore.  

[The Lions Den]

On 10/7/2023 at 3:39 PM, Axe Elf said:

In relation to this cover in particular, or (as I have heard before) in general with Frank's work?

Yeah, that's kind of my thinking... It seems like a new artist would be asked to create a cover for a story already written, rather than having the honor of having their art written into a story.  But then if Frank did the original layouts for the piece, was he working from scratch, or was he also working from the story as a way of helping out Ken?

We may never know...

I think you're on the right track...

[OtherEric]

On 10/8/2023 at 4:43 AM, CGC Mike said:

I am not sure why it was doing this, but it should not do it anymore.  

Thank you, Mike.  Let's check:

script

It works!

Edited October 8, 2023 by OtherEric
Added comment that it works.

[The Lions Den]

On 10/8/2023 at 1:02 AM, OtherEric said:

The Cool Jazz Ghoul:  Definitely some holes in the -script, but it's actually a pretty neat twist even if it's imperfectly set up.  Ken Kelly does what I believe is his only full story for Warren, and the art is quite good, in some places looking almost painted- although I think that's just the shading work. 

It's a rare treat to see a story drawn entirely by Ken Kelly. It's good stuff, and I wish he'd done more interior work for Warren. And I'm surprised the index doesn't talk more about Al Hewetson. Apparently, this particular story was his favorite work for Warren...

[Axe Elf]

I was doing my usual once-over of the contents page when I noticed that the word "CREEPY" in the indicia appeared to be in bold-face type this time.

I hadn't noticed it being different before, so I went back to look at a few other recent CREEPYs to see if it was a consistent thing--and I hadn't gotten further than the last issue when I found an even MORE egregious error in the indicia--as you can see in the close-up below, the indicia for CREEPY #33 says "EERIE"!

Oops!

As I've said before, I like it best when the cover artist also draws the story associated with the cover--because they know what they were thinking when they drew it.  This issue is no exception, as I had a completely different idea about the "Lifeboat" concept from the cover than I did after reading the story.  The cover led me to believe that the little pods were the "lifeboats," climactically escaping from a valley of long-necked dinosaurs or something, when in fact the cover represents nothing more that a "then they went to" moment early in the story, which utilizes an entirely different concept of a "lifeboat" (and almost completely ignores the long-necked dinosaurs).  It was actually a pretty good story, if you suspend disbelief regarding some of the logistical details, finishing with a weighty moral issue regarding the survival of one race at the expense of another.  One of the better stories in some time.

I also thought "Minanker's Demons" rose above the typical Warren fare to give us a second standout story in this issue, packing a lot of sword and sorcery into 6 short pages, even if the way the pentagram was damaged in the end was a little farfetched.  It might have been better if the hero hadn't lost the magic sword scaling the wall, and then the pentagram could have been damaged in the course of attacking the wizard with it.  But besides a solid story and improved art from Fantuccio, my real delight from this story came from the vocabulary Buddy Saunders displayed in the text.  For instance, I had never heard the word "ensorcelled" before, but it is in fact a real word!  As is "cacodemons," although the term was later somewhat hijacked by the "DOOM!" games.  I thought "cendiaries" might also be a word I hadn't heard before, but it doesn't appear to have any existence outside of the flaming demons that appeared in the story.  Still, with spelling and grammatical errors comprising my biggest pet peeves in Warrendom, this relatively literate tale was a delight to read, and I even learned a thing or two.

I also learned something new from "CREEPY's Monster Gallery... er... Loathsome Lore" this week; I had never heard of the "makara" before.  At first I thought the makara was that Submariner-looking fellow riding a Dumbo submersible, but as I read on and Googled "makara" I realized it was the Dumbo submersible itself that was a makara.  Not really Adkins' best work, in my opinion, but at least it was kind of unusual.

The "Mail" page (I hadn't noticed that it stopped being "Dear Uncle CREEPY"; it looks like the transition happened in CREEPY #30) was dominated by praise for CREEPY #32 and the "Rock God" story.  Longtime letterer Ben Oda got a shout-out too.

Quite surprisingly, there was actually some good fan fiction in the "CREEPY Fan Club" this time, to match the quality of the fan art.  I was pleasantly surprised, as I can usually hardly stomach reading those.

But for all those highlights and pleasant surprises, the absolute pinnacle attraction of the issue still has to be seeing Ken Kelley's work on "The Cool Jazz Ghoul."  The shading/wash work was pretty mesmerizing.  I'm just not sure if the ending suggested that the devil was coming for our hero again, either as that girl, or as the bespectacled gent turning to face us--or if our hero literally got away with his life after besting the devil--that would certainly make him "cool," if not necessarily a "ghoul."

"Soul" music, heh.

"X-Tra "X"" was another turn of the "this town isn't big enough for two monsters" tale, couched in some scientific nonsense.  It was passable for an opening piece, if you could ignore some of the medical technobabble, but while Klinefelter Syndrome (an extra X chromosome) is in fact a real medical condition, it is usually manifest through "feminizing" otherwise male children, rather than turning them into lycanthropes--and chromosomes sure don't give off a fluid because of the moon's gravity.  He should have just identified an entirely new gene--the Z gene or something--to be the culprit.

I wasn't as turned off by "The Forgotten Prisoner of Castlemare" as I thought I might be, given that it was inspired by a toy advertisement, but it actually wasn't horrible.  It even had some elements that reminded me of Poe's "A Cask of Amontillado."  However, I thought Reed Crandall did a much better job of illustrating the adaptation of that story than "Williamsune" did with this one--and the piece ended on a sour note with the misspelling of "Castelmare" [sic].

I was just thinking the other day that we haven't seen any adaptations of classic horror literature in the Warren mags lately.  I wonder if that was a function of the "dark ages" limited funds that didn't extend to purchasing copyright licenses?

The fly in this issue's ointment is "The Swamp in Hell."  After reading @OtherEric's analogy to the Frankenstein story, I can see that, and I'm a little less damning of it in that regard--but given that "love" somehow destroyed the monster at the end, I don't see how the kindness of the old blind man wouldn't at least have made the monster a little uncomfortable--but it seemed to be mollified by his kindness.  And the idea that the monster spawned from the sewage of London piling up along the banks of the Thames in the first place is just too ridiculous to entertain.  Oh well, they can't all be gems.

I didn't even like new artist Don Vaughn's art for that one as much as I enjoyed new artist Syd Shores' art for the final entry this month, "Ando." It was also a pretty good script--it almost seemed like it could have been the origin story for an "Ando" continuing character series--but then they basically killed him off as an aside in the outro, killing any chance of a reprise with it.  They also did this story a disservice by including it in the same issue--and so soon after--the "Castlemare" story, as both tales had their foundation in cruel robber barons terrorizing the countryside.  It also doesn't seem that it was originally penned to be the final story of this issue (or any issue), as the Uncle Creepy outro suggests another tale to follow.

Maybe so, but we're going to have to wait until the next issue.  I hope it is as good as this one was.

[Jayman]

On 10/13/2023 at 6:14 PM, Axe Elf said:

-and the piece ended on a sour note with the misspelling of "Castelmare" [sic].

That is how Aurora originally spelled it. 

[Axe Elf]

On 10/13/2023 at 6:32 PM, Jayman said:

That is how Aurora originally spelled it. 

Yeah, I assumed that was a cut and paste from the original ad.  I guess you can take your pick on which was misspelled then--the ad, or the title of the story.

[Axe Elf]

Was just browsing someone's sales thread and saw the back of Famous Monsters of Filmland #46, which also uses the traditional spelling of "castle" in "Castlemare."

If it's an Aurora toy, then I'd have to defer to Aurora's ad for the "correct" spelling, but it appears that the Warren publications are at least consistent in their misspelling of it.

[Axe Elf]

CREEPY 1971 Annual - August 1970

According to the Warren Magazine Index...

4. cover: Kenneth Smith (1970)

1) Beast Man! [Archie Goodwin/Steve Ditko] 8p   reprinted from Creepy #11 (Oct. 1966)

2) A Curse Of Claws! [Archie Goodwin/Neal Adams] 6p   reprinted from Creepy #16 (Aug. 1967)

3) The Mountain [Johnny Craig] 6p   reprinted from Creepy #8 (Apr. 1966)

4) Grave Undertaking [Archie Goodwin/Alex Toth] 6p   reprinted from Creepy #5 (Oct. 1965)

5) Castle Carrion! [Archie Goodwin/Reed Crandall] 8p   reprinted from Creepy #14 (Apr. 1967)

6) Image In Wax! [Archie Goodwin/Tom Sutton] 6p   reprinted from Creepy #17 (Oct. 1967)

7) The Rescue Of The Morning Maid! [Raymond Marais/Pat Boyette & Rocke Mastroserio] 10p  reprinted from Creepy #18 (Jan. 1968)

8) Skeleton Crew! [Archie Goodwin/Angelo Torres] 7p   reprinted from Creepy #11 (Oct. 1966)

Notes: Editor: James Warren.  The title was changed to Creepy 1971 Annual.  $.60 for 64 pages.

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Hello again, reprints!  We thought we ditched you after LAST year's Yearbooks!

But now it's almost like we're getting a two-week vacation, with the CREEPY and EERIE Annuals on tap for our next two issues.  And they really dove into the Wayback Machine for these reprints, going as far back as the fifth issue to harvest reprints for this year's annual.  Someone will need to explain to me how that makes any sense at all (I would prefer the Annual to be primarily a review of the best that the past year had to offer), but I'm actually kind of looking forward to looking back on some of these classic artists--Ditko, Adams, Crandall, Toth, Mastroserio, Craig, Torres, and even a dash of the more contemporary Sutton.  The list of artists in this issue certainly deserve to be featured in an Annual, just maybe not in 1970.  Anyway, we have now officially transitioned from "Yearbooks" to "Annuals" for some reason.

I don't recognize the cover artist's name from any previous issues, but I think this is my favorite cover of the Yearbooks/Annuals overall (although the EERIE 1972 Annual is a close second).  There's kind of a big fish/little fish sense to it, only it's a big demon/little demon in this case, with the poor human souls at the bottom just watching helplessly.

The Index didn't have much to offer in the way of new information, but it will be interesting to hear if anyone here has any new thoughts about the classic strips.  So if it's your intention to provide introspection on your retrospection, leave it here for our inspection.

Edited March 30 by Axe Elf