Warren Magazine Reading Club! 7 7

[OtherEric]

Creepy #39 thoughts:

This one is cover dated the month I was born, which may only be interesting to me.

Cover:  Probably my favorite of the Gogos solo covers for the Warren comics.  His style is great for Famous Monsters but never translated to the comics as well as one might expect.

Loathsome Lore:  This seems to be Charles Richard Grose's only comic credit at all.  It's a fairly dull lore page as these things go, honestly.

Where Satan Dwells:  I'm giving this story massively more points for concept than execution, and it's not something I would like to see often.  But any story that gives us an intro page of Uncle Creepy lounging around in an comfy sweater is going to fall on the win side of the equation.

C.O.D.- Collects on Death:  This is the only Warren story by Dave Wood, but he's got over a thousand credits at the GCD, dating back to the early 50's.  One of those workhorse writers who never really broke out but did a lot of stuff over the years.  Moving on to the second Dave making their Warren Debut, Dave Cockrum turns in his first pro story here.  He's got just under 3000 credits at the GCD, although I'm sure a lot of that is reprints... he was the original artist on the New X-Men, meaning his stuff has been reprinted an incredible number of times.  He does about a half dozen stories for Warren.  As to the story itself, it's an interesting conceit with a couple clever twists.  The art is very good for a pro debut, although at places it looks like the characters and the backgrounds don't quite match.

The Water World:  Pablo Marcos makes his Warren debut, he does a couple dozen stories for Warren.  He's got over 2500 credits at the GCD, so yet another super prolific creator.  The story by Saunders gets more points for clever than for effective, but it's not bad and the art is quite good.  I'm not positive, but this might be the earliest Warren story we've seen where both creators are still with us?  

Death of the Wizard:  Excellent work by Boyette in both script and art.  Boyette is another one of those artists that I'm only learning to appreciate during the reading club.

Harvest of Horror:  This is Phil Seuling's only Warren script, and one of only a handful of scripts total.  He's best known today for having created the direct sales market for comic books.  Beautiful art by Brunner, but even more than the Saunders story this one gets the points for clever rather than effective.  The idea of showing multiple endings as if the earlier ones are too predictable is really impressive, but it's all about that idea and the actual story gets lost.

The Dragon-Prow:  Bassford is another of Wally Wood's former assistants, he did some work on the Tower Comics line in the 60's.  This is his only full story for Warren.  The art here has some very nice touches along with some of the usual "early work" flaws.

Puzzling Monsters:  A neat idea, but not much to say beyond that.

Mad Jack's Girl:  Gary Kaufman has a half dozen credits for Warren and one credit in an Underground I had never heard of before (Austin Stone) and that's it.  The story and art are both pretty decent for a debut effort, but nothing spectacular.

This issue was impressive in the amount of new talent, and how good most of the new talent was considering it was very early in their respective careers.  But it's still mostly new creators, so it's a definite step down from the quality of the last few issues.  To be fair, at least in my opinion we had been on a very hot streak of good issues recently, so this one comes off less well than it might.

[Axe Elf]

On 1/21/2024 at 12:06 AM, OtherEric said:

Creepy #39 thoughts:

This one is cover dated the month I was born, which may only be interesting to me.

Cover:  Probably my favorite of the Gogos solo covers for the Warren comics.  His style is great for Famous Monsters but never translated to the comics as well as one might expect.

Loathsome Lore:  This seems to be Charles Richard Grose's only comic credit at all.  It's a fairly dull lore page as these things go, honestly.

Where Satan Dwells:  I'm giving this story massively more points for concept than execution, and it's not something I would like to see often.  But any story that gives us an intro page of Uncle Creepy lounging around in an comfy sweater is going to fall on the win side of the equation.

C.O.D.- Collects on Death:  This is the only Warren story by Dave Wood, but he's got over a thousand credits at the GCD, dating back to the early 50's.  One of those workhorse writers who never really broke out but did a lot of stuff over the years.  Moving on to the second Dave making their Warren Debut, Dave Cockrum turns in his first pro story here.  He's got just under 3000 credits at the GCD, although I'm sure a lot of that is reprints... he was the original artist on the New X-Men, meaning his stuff has been reprinted an incredible number of times.  He does about a half dozen stories for Warren.  As to the story itself, it's an interesting conceit with a couple clever twists.  The art is very good for a pro debut, although at places it looks like the characters and the backgrounds don't quite match.

The Water World:  Pablo Marcos makes his Warren debut, he does a couple dozen stories for Warren.  He's got over 2500 credits at the GCD, so yet another super prolific creator.  The story by Saunders gets more points for clever than for effective, but it's not bad and the art is quite good.  I'm not positive, but this might be the earliest Warren story we've seen where both creators are still with us?  

Death of the Wizard:  Excellent work by Boyette in both script and art.  Boyette is another one of those artists that I'm only learning to appreciate during the reading club.

Harvest of Horror:  This is Phil Seuling's only Warren script, and one of only a handful of scripts total.  He's best known today for having created the direct sales market for comic books.  Beautiful art by Brunner, but even more than the Saunders story this one gets the points for clever rather than effective.  The idea of showing multiple endings as if the earlier ones are too predictable is really impressive, but it's all about that idea and the actual story gets lost.

The Dragon-Prow:  Bassford is another of Wally Wood's former assistants, he did some work on the Tower Comics line in the 60's.  This is his only full story for Warren.  The art here has some very nice touches along with some of the usual "early work" flaws.

Puzzling Monsters:  A neat idea, but not much to say beyond that.

Mad Jack's Girl:  Gary Kaufman has a half dozen credits for Warren and one credit in an Underground I had never heard of before (Austin Stone) and that's it.  The story and art are both pretty decent for a debut effort, but nothing spectacular.

This issue was impressive in the amount of new talent, and how good most of the new talent was considering it was very early in their respective careers.  But it's still mostly new creators, so it's a definite step down from the quality of the last few issues.  To be fair, at least in my opinion we had been on a very hot streak of good issues recently, so this one comes off less well than it might.

I love all the background info you give on the artists, and with an issue like this where more than half of it is from fairly unfamiliar contributors, that's a big contributiion!

[Axe Elf]

I didn't do as well in the "Puzzling Monsters" contest as I thought I might; partially because they didn't give a list of artists to choose from in matching the sketches--and I wasn't very good at just pulling names out of the air.  The only two I got were Jack Davis (because it was from the cover of EERIE #1) and Jerry Grandenetti (because of his stark contrasts and odd sense of proportion)--but in retrospect, I probably should have gotten Jim Warren's as the most simplistic doodle of the bunch.  Having two sketches from the "Williamsune" team was kind of cheating, too.

I was going to say that there was finally some fan fiction in the "CREEPY Fan Club" section that wasn't horrible ("The Lesson"), but then when I got around to reading the author's letter in the "Mail" pages, I see that Uncle Creepy said that they edited his story for printing--so it probably didn't read as well upon first submission as it did in the magazine.  There was another letter connected to fan fiction too, but neither the letter nor the fiction were remarkable.  The thing that stuck with me the most from the letters was the not one but two people who thought that the Mail and Fan Club features were the best parts of the magazines!  Seriously??

Clif Jackson continued capably illustrating the "Loathsome Lore" frontis, but this time he didn't write the piece--and it may have suffered from that.  There's really a whole lot more to the "evil eye" mythos than was touched on here, some of it even springing from Jewish mysticism.  So kinda bland, but Medusa becomes a continuing character.

Despite the fun of having Uncle Creepy (and Cousin Eerie) appearing as characters in "Where Satan Dwells" (and the cameos by EERIE #26, CREEPY #20, and VAMPIRELLA #1), it didn't really seem so much like an "Uncle Creepy story" per se, it was just a run-of-the-mill Warren story with Uncle Creepy shoehorned in as the main character--but it could have been anyone, really.  I had a lot more fun with Uncle Creepy's origin story back in "Monster Rally" from CREEPY #4.  I also thought it was weird that the book in "Where Satan Dwells" is called "Where Dwells Satan"--and then it really didn't have anything to do with Satan; it should have been "Where Dwells Groton" instead.  What really could have been a highlight lead-off story ended up kind of a mess--but still fun.

"Collect on Death" was a solid premise, but I'm not sure the ending is entirely clean.  Our antihero was supposedly lured out to the middle of the desert by his girlfriend's brother--more than a day's walk to anywhere--on the same evening that he killed his girlfriend.  So how did the brother get more than a day's walk into the desert in just a few hours?  I suppose someone could have dropped him off, but that would have involved another person who would have agreed to drop him off to his death in the desert, and who knows what other complications.  It seems likely that the brother would have acted alone, and in that case, the timeline just doesn't work.

Last minute thought:  I guess the brother could have driven himself into the desert and then disabled his own car, but we don't see anything to that effect.

"The Water World" is marginally more plausible, although the water doesn't really LOOK so "chrystal" [sic] clear as to mistake hundreds of feet for a few feet of depth--but ok, whatever.

I was not disappointed by Boyette's art for "Death of the Wizard," it fell nicely into his area of medieval expertise, but the story itself seemed awfully slight for the death of Merlin.  Is Merlin being turned into a tree part of the existing Arthurian legend, or just Boyette's embellishment?  I would expect something more epic, more tragic, more spectacular than that Merlin just allowed himself to be turned into a tree because he was sad about Arthur.

"Harvest of Horror" wasn't a particularly weighty tale either, but having three alternate endings was kind of a fun twist in and of itself--and Frank Brunner's art put this one over the top as the highlight of the issue for me.

"The Dragon Prow" had a pretty good plot--I tend to like "don't know they are dead" stories--and this one turned that trope into a twist that made a typical revenge tale into an anticlimactic disappointment.  The writing was kind of stilted though, with annoyingly persistent use of the past perfect tense--I did grow tired of reading what he did write.

Although there were a lot of competent new artists showcased in this issue, Gary Kaufman's art for "Mad Jack's Girl" is probably my favorite of all the new artists.  Some of it was marked by extreme contrasts, and he spent little time filling in unnecessary background details--so much so that some of the artistic elements appeared to be just hanging in space, suspended by nothing.

The story itself was more psychological than supernatural in its horror, ranging from sociopathic to psychopathic, but that makes it all the more possible.

Overall, this probably isn't an issue I would give to someone experiencing Warren magazines for the first time, but it's not terrible and it features a LOT of new contributors--so it has that going for it.  I wouldn't expect an issue with so much newness to be spectacular--and it's really not bad for the influx of talent it represents.

[OtherEric]

On 1/26/2024 at 3:39 PM, Axe Elf said:

I was not disappointed by Boyette's art for "Death of the Wizard," it fell nicely into his area of medieval expertise, but the story itself seemed awfully slight for the death of Merlin.  Is Merlin being turned into a tree part of the existing Arthurian legend, or just Boyette's embellishment?  I would expect something more epic, more tragic, more spectacular than that Merlin just allowed himself to be turned into a tree because he was sad about Arthur.

Merlin being imprisoned in a tree is definitely one of (several) classic fates attributed to Merlin.  I recognized it, at least.

[Axe Elf]

On 1/26/2024 at 5:52 PM, OtherEric said:

Merlin being imprisoned in a tree is definitely one of (several) classic fates attributed to Merlin.  I recognized it, at least.

Well, I'm glad it is at least traditionally lame. 

[Axe Elf]

On 1/21/2024 at 12:06 AM, OtherEric said:

This one is cover dated the month I was born, which may only be interesting to me.

By the way, I forgot to mention--Happy Club Birthday!

I know I'm always more interested in the March issues myself for that reason--"I was 7 when this came out!"  heh

[Axe Elf]

EERIE #33 - May 1971

According to the Warren Magazine Index...

33. cover: Larry Todd (May 1971)

1) Eerie’s Monster Gallery: The Minotaur [Clif Jackson] 1p   [frontis]

2) A Trip In Time! [Steve Skeates/Jack Sparling] 6p

3) 243 Blank Pages! [Steve Skeates/George Roussos] 7p

4) Whom The Gods Would Destroy [Marv Wolfman/Ken Barr] 11p

5) Escape Into Chaos [Steve Skeates/Ernie Colon] 7p

6) Starvisions [Larry Todd] 6p

7) The Pest! [Al Hewetson/Richard Corben] 8p

8) Eerie Fanfare: Dave Cockrum Profile/The Vampire/Wolf Star/From Beyond The Grave

[Dave Cockrum, David Nowicki, Jack L. Bannow & Harry Feinzig/Mike Roberts, R. Goodwin, Pat Broderick, Gerald Colucci, Mark Wallace & Rick Bryant] 2p   [text stories/poem w/photo]

9) The Painting In The Tower! [Gardner Fox/Pat Boyette] 7p

Notes: ‘The Pest!’ by Hewetson & Corben was the best story although Ernie Colon’s experimental art and Pat Boyette’s efforts were also worthy of note.  Future artists Pat Broderick and Rick Bryant appeared on the fan page.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I thought this was going to be the biggest issue ever, but then I see it has 243 Blank Pages...

It seemed like we've had a "Minotaur" Monster Gallery before, so I went back and looked, and sure enough, the Monster Gallery in EERIE #11 was the Minotaur.  It was reprinted in EERIE #22.  Really?  EERIE #11, #22, and #33?  I had to go look and see, but no, there is no Minotaur Monster Gallery in EERIE #44.  I thought I'd cracked the hidden Minotaur code or something.  At least this one isn't a reprint.

Looks like we're getting a bigger helping of established artists this time--and more Corben!

[OtherEric]

Eerie #33 thoughts:

Cover:  We've seen Larry Todd's work before, with Vaughn Bode, and he's using a similar style in his solo cover here.  I do like this cover, it manages to create an ambiguity between are we looking at a ship, or at an alien, and narrowly but successfully avoids looking ridiculous doing it.

Monster Gallery:  Apparently, there's some rule stating that every 11th issue of Eerie has to have The Minotaur as the Monster Gallery.  Neal Adams' version appeared in #11 and was reprinted in #22.  (I wrote that before I saw @Axe Elf commenting on the same thing in the intro.)  Clif Jackson does a decent version here, although the female human looks rather odd compared to the rest of the illustration, at least to me.

A Trip in Time:  A fairly neat conceit for avoiding a paradox in a time travel story; but the actual script was pretty ludicrous. The concept of a scientist threatening to have another scientist arrested for talking about creating a time machine is absurd, even if he was just trying to make a point.

243 Blank Pages:  This is actually a fairly clever idea for a story, but the punchline just falls completely flat for me and, I strongly suspect, the rest of us here.  Who among us would even dream of writing our name in the front of a collectable book and reducing the value?  (Yes, I'm aware that this was a much more common practice in the not too distant past.)

Whom the Gods Would Destroy:  While some of these are certainly reprints, the GCD lists 34 stories with the title "Whom the gods would destroy".  It's beyond a cliche.  It's not even the only time Marv Wolfman has used the title.  Speaking of Marv Wolfman, he only does a couple stories for Warren, although the index says he was a story editor for a bit as well.  He has over 6000 credits at the GCD, but is probably best known for his work on The New Teen Titans and Crisis on Infinite Earths.  He's also responsible for DC having creator credits more consistently. An intro page in one of DC's mystery books had the host introducing a story as something the Wolfman brought.  The comics code objected until DC told them it was the real name of the writer, and they started adding credits so the code would allow the joke to go through.  The story isn't particularly to my taste, it's a bit too heavy on message at the cost of the story and too long for the premise.  This was at the height of the relevance trend in comics; so it's not surprising to see something like this in Warren magazines at some point.  It's just not a particularly good example of the trend.

Escape into Chaos:  A fairly flimsy story, but it works perfectly as a frame for Colon to draw some beautiful artwork.  I may have already said this, but Colon is another one of the artists who is just a revelation going through the reading club... I've definitely stopped thinking of him as primarily a Richie Rich artist, that's for sure!

Starvisions:  A very offbeat story by Larry Todd, this feels very much like something from an Underground Comic.  A excellent change of pace from what we might normally expect from Warren.

The Pest:  Another slight story; but Corben knocks the art out of the park.  It's not as good as his stuff will get, but it's fascinating to watch his style develop.  I wonder how this looked to people reading it when it came out, it's one of those stories where a high point for me is based on what I know about Corben's future work and seeing the development.

Fan Page:  I don't believe Rick Bryant or Pat Broderick ever have any Warren credits other than the fan page.  But Bryant has over 300 credits at the GCD and Broderick over 1200, so they're definitely worthy of note, at least.

The Painting in the Tower:  Not the best art we've seen from Boyette, but pretty good.  The tone of the story felt a bit off, though; either way too grim, or not grim enough if they were trying for a particularly dark piece, or possibly too serious without some dark humor to balance it.  Lots of ways this could be made to work but I don't think they quite hit any of them.

So, not a spectacular issue; but enough good stuff that I can't call it a bad issue either.  Just somewhat average; the sort that would happily have gotten my 60 cents if I was a regular reader but not a lot to make it stand out either.  But as I've suggested before, good enough so you don't feel you're wasting your money on the lesser issues so you can get the occasional masterpiece is really a pretty good baseline for a book.

 

[Axe Elf]

On 1/28/2024 at 8:53 AM, OtherEric said:

Monster Gallery:  Apparently, there's some rule stating that every 11th issue of Eerie has to have The Minotaur as the Monster Gallery.  Neal Adams' version appeared in #11 and was reprinted in #22.  (I wrote that before I saw @Axe Elf commenting on the same thing in the intro.)  Clif Jackson does a decent version here, although the female human looks rather odd compared to the rest of the illustration, at least to me.

Funny that we both noticed that!

On 1/28/2024 at 8:53 AM, OtherEric said:

Whom the Gods Would Destroy:  While some of these are certainly reprints, the GCD lists 34 stories with the title "Whom the gods would destroy".  It's beyond a cliche.  It's not even the only time Marv Wolfman has used the title.  Speaking of Marv Wolfman, he only does a couple stories for Warren, although the index says he was a story editor for a bit as well.  He has over 6000 credits at the GCD, but is probably best known for his work on The New Teen Titans and Crisis on Infinite Earths.  He's also responsible for DC having creator credits more consistently. An intro page in one of DC's mystery books had the host introducing a story as something the Wolfman brought.  The comics code objected until DC told them it was the real name of the writer, and they started adding credits so the code would allow the joke to go through.

More great background info!

[Axe Elf]

We finally have a 1971 copyright on the "Contents" page; I don't know if that means this is the first issue that was actually published in 1971, or if nobody had bothered to change it in the footer for a couple of months, but here we are, officially in 1971.

One of the "Dear Cousin Eerie" letters mentioned an interesting detail--"Made in Japan" being visible on the sword on page 23 of EERIE #31.  I went back to look, but the scan of my digital copy didn't have the resolution needed to make out the words on the sword.

So I pulled my physical copy out of the bag, and sure enough, even though it's really hard to read, it's there if you magnify it enough (I just used my phone to snap a photo and blew it up).

The feature on new staff artist Dave Cockrum was the best part of "EERIE Fan Fare," as staff features usually are--but the fan fiction wasn't as bad as it often is, either.

I hadn't remembered that the first Minotaur "Monster Gallery" was done by Neal Adams; good note by @OtherEric.  With the benefit of retrospect, Clif Jackson won't ever reach the level of popularity that Adams did, but he can say that they both did minotaurs for EERIE.

I also agree with @OtherEric about the ambiguity of the cover; I've wondered since I first saw it if I was looking at a spacecraft, a living alien being, or just a piece of debris.  The associated story, "StarVisions," cleared up that ambiguity, but I was a little disappointed by the story itself.  It all seemed kind of pointless; but maybe that WAS the point, with the horror being largely the psychological horror of loneliness (and it reminded me in that respect of "On the Wings of a Bird" from CREEPY #36).  I just thought that Arkhorn's self-described creative powers might come into play at some point--a being with godlike powers suffering from loneliness-induced madness?  That could go just about anywhere--but it just went... nowhere.

It did kind of make me laugh, however, after @OtherEric's observation on how ubiquitous the phrase "Whom the Gods Would Destroy" had become--and then the phrase appeared in "StarVisions"--as well as being the title of another story in this issue.

I found titular story itself to be a lot more contemporary than one would think a 50 year old piece would be--but our current world seems to be more sensitive than ever to divisions and reasons to hate other groups of people.  It was still kind of jarring when they blamed "the blacks" for starting it all, but we hear the same kind of vitriol today about various groups of people.  One would hope that things wouldn't get so far as the destruction of the last two people on Earth if the hate were to snowball in real life, but then I guess that's where the horror lies--in not knowing if we would have the sense (or humanity?) to stop it.

In my opinion, the twist to "A Trip in Time" isn't as clean as it would like to be, but we all have our own opinions about how time works, and hey, who doesn't love a good time travel story?  I think if I was testing out a time machine, I might be inclined, for my first trip, to go back maybe a minute in time?  An hour?  At MOST a day!--I don't think I would go straight for the Cretaceous period, though.  Having the cavemen living with the dinosaurs was kind of a facepalm too, as the dinosaurs didn't really HAVE to be there, but hey, who doesn't love a good dinosaur splash?  Rising above its own silliness, though, it was an entertaining read with Sparling's art standing on its own.

It's kind of funny that @OtherEric and I both had the same reaction to "243 Blank Pages"--but for different reasons.  As a collector, @OtherEric wouldn't write his name in the book so as not to reduce its value.  As the owner of a book that could destroy anything that was written in it, I think that in and of itself would be enough to keep me from writing my name in it!  Seems like kind of a bonehead move in either case.  Still, I had a little smile thinking about this guy visiting all the out of the way book shops and curio stores... "Excuse me, do you happen to stock "The Book of Demonic Destruction"?  It's on back order?  No, I'll just try somewhere else, thanks..."

"Escape into Chaos" is both the best story in the issue--for the psychedelic Ernie Colon art--and the worst story in the issue--for the exceptionally weak plot--a guy kills someone and then escapes through the insanity door to another universe where crabs eat him and he reappears in our universe only to go through the door again... and again... and again.  Yeah, ok.  But the art!  It's unlike virtually anything we've seen in Warren before, so high marks for that!

"The Pest" is an ok story, but obviously most interesting for its fledgling Corben art.  Somehow, this one doesn't quite strike me as one of Corben's best efforts, but it's still enjoyable to read.  It's kinda fun seeing Corben draw Cousin Eerie, too.

Pat Boyette is in his wheelhouse with the genre of "The Painting in the Tower," although this one doesn't strike me as one of his best efforts, either--even if I can't exactly say why.  The story is coherent enough to be a credible closer for the issue, and in effect, it is kind of a microcosm of the issue as a whole--good, but maybe not quite hitting on all cylinders?

Or maybe I'm just being a little too critical; after being treated to a couple of really stellar issues, we've had a couple more ordinary issues that may look worse in comparison than they would in a vacuum.  I'm still enjoying the journey, though!

[Axe Elf]

VAMPIRELLA #11 - May 1971

According to the Warren Magazine Index...

11. cover: Frank Frazetta (May 1971)

1) Vampi’s Feary Tales: The Devil’s Daughter! [Tom Sutton] 1p   [frontis]

2) Vampirella: Carnival Of The Damned! [Archie Goodwin/Tom Sutton] 14p

3) The Escape! [Larry Herndon/L. M. Roca] 6p

4) Prisoner In The Pool! [Buddy Saunders/Dave Cockrum] 6p

5) She’ll Never Learn! [Steve Skeates/Ken Barr] 7p

6) The Green Plague [Nicola Cuti/Jerry Grandenetti] 8p

7) Vampi’s Flames: The Deep/The Elevator [Stephen Darner & ?/Anthony Kowalik, Dave Manak, Pam Presnell, Richard Bassford, Ed Romer & R. Charron] 2p   [text stories]

8) Dragon Woman [Sanho Kim] 9p

Notes: Frazetta’s cover ‘Woman With Scythe’ was one of his most popular.  Vampirella returned, and from here on out, would appear in every issue.  Richard Bassford’s art on the fan page was a preview for an upcoming six page story that never appeared.  Sanho Kim’s art & story were particularly impressive.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's kind of ironic to me that of Warren's "Big 3" comic magazine titles, the one I thought I wanted the least (VAMPIRELLA) is becoming the one I most look forward to every few weeks here in the Reading Club.  I don't know if Warren was intentionally funneling their best artists' best work into their newest title to help boost it along through these first few issues--or if it just worked out that way--but it seems like most of the last few VAMPIRELLAs have been pretty outstanding.

Maybe it's just all the hawt chicks...

[OtherEric]

Vampirella #11 thoughts:

Cover:  A legendary Frazetta piece, I really have nothing to add on this one.

Feary Tales:  A nice opener to the issue by Sutton, cramming quite a bit of storytelling into one page.

Letters:  Have we seen the Frazetta illo of Vampi used here before?  

Carnival of the Damned:  It's hard to see what caused the delay on the story, but it's a solid one with a particularly spectacular splash page by Sutton.  We meet Pendragon, who winds up being a major supporting cast member during the Warren era.  For all that, I don't have much to say about the story, other than noting Goodwin is good about setting up pieces for the series and at the same time telling an enjoyable story that stands on its own.  The catch being it's fairly slight, given how many moving parts are involved with a relatively small page count.

The Escape:  Luis Roca is not somebody I'm familiar with.  They have about 250 credits at the GCD, but most of them are not from the US, or are reprints of material that wasn't originally from the US.  They've got three credits with Warren.  The artwork looks pretty impressive, actually.  The story is competent enough as a framework for the artwork but is too cliche heavy to praise as anything else.

Prisoner in the Pool:  Not one I have much to say on; great Cockrum art, decent Saunders script that could have possibly used another page or two to breathe, and Sinis/ Sinus/ Pine Bender had way too many names for someone killed in the third panel they appear in.

She'll Never Learn:  Skeates and Barr give a look into the mind of an all too realistic madman.  Absolutely excellent work, but genuinely terrifying in a way I can't say I enjoy even as I admire the craft.

The Green Plague:  What might have been a neat story with another artist, but they gave it to Grandenetti... and I don't think it's well suited to his style.  Onward.

Vampi's Flames:  I call your attention to the small sketch by Dave Manak, it's his only contribution to the Warren books that I'm aware of.  I'm surprised the index didn't mention it, however, given that he has over 2700 credits at the GCD, mostly on humor books.

Dragon Woman:  One of three stories Sanho Kim does for the Warren books, he's best known for his work at Charlton, although he has a few stories in the Marvel B&W mags as well.  The issue goes out on an extremely high note with this story, as the index states, it's particularly impressive.

This was a very good issue... if my only major gripe is the Grandenetti story, well, we expect me to gripe about that.  I think I'm ranking the book as not as impressive as the sum of its parts, but I'm honestly not sure why.  

 

[The Lions Den]

On 2/4/2024 at 1:14 PM, OtherEric said:

Carnival of the Damned:  It's hard to see what caused the delay on the story, but it's a solid one with a particularly spectacular splash page by Sutton.  We meet Pendragon, who winds up being a major supporting cast member during the Warren era.  For all that, I don't have much to say about the story, other than noting Goodwin is good about setting up pieces for the series and at the same time telling an enjoyable story that stands on its own.  The catch being it's fairly slight, given how many moving parts are involved with a relatively small page count.

I always have trouble remembering what happens in this story, even though I've read it several times over the years. Could it be because of the missing text in the word/thought balloon on page 13, panel 2?

A bit of a mystery...  

[OtherEric]

On 2/9/2024 at 10:43 AM, The Lions Den said:

I always have trouble remembering what happens in this story, even though I've read it several times over the years. Could it be because of the missing text in the word/thought balloon on page 13, panel 2?

A bit of a mystery...  

Interesting, I missed that that was a thought balloon somehow.  I just read it as fog or mist hinting at the magical nature of the tent they were entering.  Good catch!

[Axe Elf]

Tom Sutton may have been late with his Vampirella story, but it was worth the wait; he gets a full workout in this issue with that 14-pager, plus the "Vampi's Feary Tales" frontispiece.  In this issue, it really was a "tale," being more of a one-page story than a simple splash with some text as is often the case.

And speaking of splashes, comparing Sutton's first cartoonish splash of Vampi back in VAMPIRELLA #1 pales in comparison to his much more mature work here ten issues later.

And the Vampirella saga appears to be maturing a bit too; I was actually pretty delighted with "Carnival of the Damned" in general--I didn't even notice any annoying spelling or grammar errors!  But then @The Lions Den had to go and point out the forgotten text in the thought balloon on page 13!  I didn't even recognize it as a thought balloon the first time through, either; I guess I thought it was just like a low fence leading people into the tent (if I thought anything about it at all).  Other than that error, though, the tale seems to be setting itself up nicely for future adventures--while being fairly engaging in its own right.

I know little about the ongoing adventures of Vampirella, though I've caught enough to recognize Pendragon as a continuing character.  My impression had been that he was some master wizard or something, though; so it's interesting that he starts out here as kind of a bumbling sideshow attraction.

I don't remember seeing artist L.M. Roca before, but his work on "The Escape" was pretty trippy.

I'm not sure why the "vacation" time machine would be set for Jack the Ripper's time--are people really endangering themselves by "vacationing" in Jack the Ripper's London?--but it was kind of a cute twist on the Ripper legend.

"Prisoner in the Pool" had not one cute twist, but two--and of course, I had to go back to look for any hint of his winged feet before the final reveal (I didn't find any; they always concealed his ankles or they were out of frame).  I'm not sure that all his lamenting about needing wings to scale the sheer vertical climb to the griffin's nest--or being concerned with falling to his death from the griffin's grasp--really work well in light of his winged feet, but I can kind of overlook that for the satisfaction of seeing the smug little centaur's plan foiled.

Ken Barr delivers some amazingly shaded art for "She'll Never Learn" which perfectly suits the dark psychological horror of the script.

He also delivers some lighthearted counterpoint with an EERIE magazine Easter egg--I think it's EERIE #29, judging by the front and back covers (although the front cover could be EERIE #8 as well)

Grandenetti's style is perfectly suited to penning the grotesque gnomes in "The Green Plague," but not quite so suited to drawing beautiful people.  It's probably not his best work overall, but the story itself was plausible and entertaining, with a satisfying resolution.

For "Dragon Woman" I guess I'm going to be "that guy" who goes against the consensus to say that I wasn't all that impressed with the new story and art by Sanho Kim (although I have to give points for full frontal boobery).  I can't say it was a bad story--the offhand wink about "Saint, George, and the dragon" was kind of cute--I just had kind of a hard time following it and putting all the pieces of the legend together.  Maybe I was a little tired when I got to the end of the book, but I didn't really care for the art that much either.  Proportions on faces seemed kind of odd and cartoonish, and Vampirella herself looks more like Conan or something.

Praise for VAMPIRELLA #9 and Wood's "Curse" dominated "Vampi's Scarlet Letters," but the letter from a 9 year old girl wishing she could attract boys like Vampirella was worth arching an eyebrow over.  Once again, there was a letter linking to a sketch in "Vampi's Flames," which was dominated by the usual sophomoric fan efforts.  @OtherEric, I can see why Dave Manak went on to humor books; his style seems more suited to that genre.

Overall, I continue to be completely charmed by the VAMPIRELLA mags, despite my disappointment in the much-ballyhooed Kim closer this week.  I think maybe had it not been so ballyhooed, I probably wouldn't have been so disappointed.  It was ok, but I was expecting great and got ok (IMO).  Without any expectations, ok is still ok.  And most of the rest of the magazine was significantly better than that.

(Okay, I think part of it IS all the hawt chicks...)

[The Lions Den]

On 2/9/2024 at 7:32 PM, Axe Elf said:

But then @The Lions Den had to go and point out the forgotten text in the thought balloon on page 13!  I didn't even recognize it as a thought balloon the first time through, either; I guess I thought it was just like a low fence leading people into the tent (if I thought anything about it at all). 

At first I thought it was a cotton-candy dispenser...  

[Jayman]

On 2/9/2024 at 7:32 PM, Axe Elf said:

 

I’m a fan! 

[The Lions Den]

On 2/9/2024 at 7:32 PM, Axe Elf said:

Proportions on faces seemed kind of odd and cartoonish, and Vampirella herself looks more like Conan or something.

I've always liked Kim's artwork, but I do see what you're saying---kind of reminds me of a girl I used to know...  

[Jayman]

On 2/10/2024 at 9:34 PM, The Lions Den said:

I've always liked Kim's artwork, but I do see what you're saying---kind of reminds me of a girl I used to know...  

Red Sonja? 

[Jayman]

Kim’s style is that of the Korean manhwa. Manga in Japan. I’ve come to appreciate it more and more over the years. Some examples…