The Warren Report Issue 54: July 1974

 

The Critical Guide to 

the Warren Illustrated Magazines

1964-1983

by Uncle Jack

& Cousin Peter

Kelly

Creepy #63

"Jenifer" ★★★★

Story by Bruce Jones

Art by Bernie Wrightson

"A Touch of Terror" ★★

Story by Rich Margopoulos

Story by Adolfo Abellan

"...A Ghost of a Chance" ★

Story by T. Casey Brennan

Art by Vicente Alcazar

"Demon in the Cockpit" ★★

Story by Rich Margopoulos

Art by Rich Corben

"Fishbait!" ★★1/2

Story by Larry Herndon

Art by Leo Summers

"The Clone!" ★1/2

Story by Martin Pasko

Art by Jose Gual

While hunting in the woods, Jim happens upon a shocking sight: an axe-wielding man about to behead a young girl over a tree stump. Jim shouts out a warning but the man begins his task and the hunter has no option but to shoot. With his dying gasp, the assailant mutters, "Jenifer!" Jim turns from the corpse to see how the girl is doing and when Jenifer raises her head, the man sucks in his breath. Never before has he seen anything as hideous as Jenifer.

Though appalled, Jim is also strangely compelled to protect the girl and, in the ensuing days and weeks, he brings Jenifer home to his wife, Madge, and children, and even begins adoption proceedings. When the girl bites Madge and the family cat turns up minus its catguts, Madge has had enough; she packs her stuff and the kids and moves out. That's when Jenifer starts showing up in Jim's bed for a bit of canoodling. With his sanity dangling by a thread, he visits a local carnival freak show and begs the owner to take Jenifer off his hands. He moves out for three days and comes back to find an empty house. Relieved, he opens the refrigerator for a beer, only to find the carnival owner, his entrails spilling out like so much bratwurst. 

Jim turns to drinking his days away. One morning, he picks up the local paper to read a headline about a missing local youth. Fearing the worst, he opens the basement to discover Jenifer having an early lunch. The girl looks Jim in the eyes and, suddenly, he is not in control of his own faculties. He takes Jenifer and an axe and heads for the forest. He ties the girl up and waits for someone to approach. As a hunter comes into view, Jim raises his axe...

Bernie Wrightson was already a star when "Jenifer" was published, but Bruce Jones was an unknown commodity. He'd had the one story published in Creepy (the fair-to-middling "The Thing in Loch Ness"), but no one was prepared for "Jenifer." Was this just a one-off, a burst of genius from a young writer who would then recede back into the ranks of wanna-bes? Luckily, we would soon find out that was not the case. Jones was a writer who would dream up insanely good horror tales at an alarming pace in the coming decade. The comic book answer to Stephen King. And then he took over a moldering icon, the Incredible Hulk, and fashioned him into a complex, multi-layered, psychologically damaged, and compulsively readable character. But that's another story for another blog.

"Jenifer" is so much more mature than anything Warren had ever published; adult themes without boobies or pretension. To me, the scariest element of the story is not that Jim becomes obsessed with this freak of nature or that the girl prefers her meat fresh, but the final revelation: that this is how Jenifer finds her new homes after she's gotten bored with the latest puppet. There's a reason why this one unfailingly shows up near or at the top of everyone's Top Ten Warren list. "Jenifer" is heady stuff. 

    

After one of his best security guards is murdered inside a toy factory, Frank Grogun makes it his job to get to the bottom of what happened. To that end, Grogun locks himself into the factory and waits the night out. As he's making his way through the building, he hears a strange noise. Turning, he's horrified to see an army of dolls approaching, armed to the gills with cute little knives. Grogun does what he can with his .44 but the onslaught is too much and he's soon overcome with plastic hands and teeth.

Standing at Grogun's graveside, toy company president Douglas Starr confesses that the evil little dolls (christened the "Nymatoids") have been distributed throughout America, waiting for his psychic call. He's not happy with the way the Nation has been dealing with topics such as abortion, drugs, and riots. Now, one call for action from his diseased brain and all the little critters will rise up and kill their masters. But the joke's on Starr, as he learns while walking from Grogun's grave. It's the little people who control Starr, not the other way around. Starr dies from a heart attack and, throughout the States, the Nymatoids begin "to move."

"A Touch of Terror" is not a bad little story, but it would be done so much better several years later as Halloween III: Season of the Witch. I'm still not much of a fan of Abellan--way too dark and muddy for my tastes. There's an awkward shift in POV halfway through the story, where Starr begins his monologue, and it's not until the closing pages that we realize the big man is actually standing in front of Grogun's grave, addressing the unknown elements of the story. It's all expository, and delivered clunkily, but I loved the final twist where we discover the dolls are actually in control and mankind is in deep doo-doo.

"Treasure hunter" Scott Murdock ignores all the usual warnings and breaks into the old Lindler Mansion, a house that's been cursed for decades. Legend has it that on his death bed, Baron Lindler swore that any trespasser would be given "what he needs most!" Upon breaking in, Scott (and his lovely assistant, Jean) immediately stumbles into the ghost of the Baron, who warns the pair that they're going to get "what they need most!" if they don't turn around and scram. Jean declines further investigation (wisely summing up the events with "Scott! Something horrible is happening!") but Scott pushes on and gets "what he needed most!" which is, evidently, a coffin. With a snicker, the Baron informs a/ Scott that he's now a vampire and b/ the readers that they have just wasted precious minutes of their lives reading this jumble of cliches.

 

The US defense department sets its mountain of nukes to the side for a moment to concentrate on another weapons project aimed at defeating the stinkin' commies: witchcraft. Set in a giant complex in the mountains, the department hires a college professor to summon a demon named Y'Suril and the test proves successful. Unfortunately, the powers-that-be hadn't counted on the Reds having a similar plan. Hilarious that Margopoulos would pepper such an inane script with pretentious captions (in describing a simple helicopter: steel ribbed product of a pollution-fraught technology!) and give the entire proceedings such a serious tone. I bet if Corben had had a crack at the script for "Demon in the Cockpit," the whole thing would have been much funnier. As for Rich, I find these ultra-bright colors don't accent his art well. Several of the panels look paint-by-number.

A luxury yacht becomes disabled while at sea and the pleasure seekers and crew must take to the lifeboats before the ship sinks. Once in the boats, the survivors are attacked by a school of sharks, which tip each boat over and munch on the delights found within. When the blood evaporates and only two men float in the water, they discover that it wasn't another boat that tore a chunk out of the yacht but something far more sinister. There's a lot of soap opera crap that I've cut out of my synop of "Fishbait!" because, frankly, it doesn't matter to the story. The main protagonist, Jake, spends the entire tale bitching about how the yacht owner, Mark, stole his girl. If you don't like the guy, why would you be on his boat? As I say, all that nonsense is disposable and the real delight here is the mystery behind the sunken boat. The reveal is very cool (though just as preposterous as Jake's invite) and the shark action is a nice vacation from vampires and killer dolls.

 

In the not-too-distant future, Professor Grant Deighton has perfected cloning as a source for replacing organs or limbs for needy patients. As Deighton explains, the clones themselves feel no pain and are not legally human, so no one can stop the advance of science. But, unfortunately, something goes wrong at the assembly line with the clone of Harvey Danziger, for this organism can feel pain during the various operations performed on his almost-comatose form. When an electric shock brings him speech and movement, Harvey escapes and heads out on a vengeance trail, seeking out the patients who received his vital parts and stealing them back. One of those patients turns out to be Dr. Deighton, who undergoes a kidney transplant just before the clone's city tour. Yep, he got the kidney from Harvey and in the final panels, Harvey gets it back. But wait! There's more! Harvey's a clone of a ghoul (you just knew something like that would screw up a good science experiment) and he munches on his recovered kidney as Deighton lays dying. There are elements of "The Clone," I'll admit, that are sorta fun (like making the poor doofus a dead ringer for Walter Brennan), but the whole enchilada is pretty darned stupid and the extra special secret sauce ("I'm a ghoul!") make this one extremely hard to swallow.-Peter

    

Homage to Johnny Craig?

Jack-"Jenifer" is certainly a great story with great art. The subtle horror of Jenifer climbing in bed with her "stepfather" is worse than anything else. This is as good as we've seen to date in a Warren mag and could stand with EC classics; in fact, one panel on the last page could've been drawn by Johnny Craig.

I liked "Demon in the Cockpit" more than you did, entirely due to the way Corben takes a mediocre script and amps up the entertainment value with colorful visuals. I was not thrilled to see Martin Pasko's name when I started "The Clone," but I ended up liking the story for most of its length. The panels of the clone ripping out a lung and gouging out an eyeball with a spoon reminded me of something Jack Davis might do. It all gets ridiculous when he starts machine-gunning everyone in sight and I think a good idea was lost by the end.

The dolls in "A Touch of Terror" could have been drawn by Jack Sparling and the story was confusing because I couldn't tell who Starr was talking to or where he was for most of the story. "...A Ghost of a Chance" is a dumb story with evocative art by Alcazar. "Fishbait" is terrible from start to finish, with more scratchy art from Leo Summers.

Sanjulian

Eerie #58

"They Eat Babies... Don't They"★★1/2

Story by Bill DuBay

Art by Esteban Maroto

"Webtread's Powercut"★★

Story by Doug Moench

Art by Leopold Sanchez

"The Pepper Lake Monster"★★★★

Story and Art by Bernie Wrightson

"Mind of the Mass!"★★

Story by Greg Potter

Art by Rich Corben

"Knucklebones to Fever Twitch"★★1/2

Story by Doug Moench

Art by Leopold Sanchez

"Carnage in Costume"★★★

Story by Gerry Boudreau

Art by Isidro Mones

"They Eat Babies... Don't They"

Way back in the Norman times, a spaceship lands in the woods and a woman faints when she sees the creatures that emerge. When she awakens, a stranger who calls himself a healer touches the stump where one of her legs is missing and the limb regenerates. But where is the child who had been with her before the ship landed? Soon, more children disappear and the healer performs miracles for the grieving parents. The healer appeals to the king to let him take all of the remaining children to safety. The king enlists the aid of the Exterminator, a knight whose face remains covered by a helmet, and rebuffs the healer's offer. The Exterminator follows the healer to the spaceship, where the creatures insist that they'll have to take the children by force since they are not being given willingly. The Exterminator attacks and kills the healer, despite the healer's explanation that the outer space creatures mean no harm to the children. The healer finds the children alive and well in the spaceship and returns them to their parents before reporting to his boss from the future, who comments that it was a good idea to send a non-feeling robot Exterminator into the past.

Bill DuBay crams a lot of plot into eight pages of "They Eat Babies... Don't They" and it makes sense, for the most part. It's good to see Maroto manage to tell a story with his lovely art and not get too lost in the crazy page designs. The moral at the end appears to be that it would have been better to let the aliens take the children away from human greed, lust, and war, which I don't think is the best idea, but it WAS 1974.

"Webtread's Powercut"

The Spook watches a spider spin the words, "Dead Man Death Stalks Me" in its web and then sets off in his skiff across the bayou. In a cave he finds an old hag, beaten badly and dying; she begs him to avenge her. He poles his skiff to a steamboat and boards it, killing all the inhabitants and cutting off their fingers. He returns to the cave, tosses the severed fingers on a fire, and the hag is restored to life. He has avenged her and tells her his debt is paid, for it was she who brought him back to life as well.

"Webtread's Powercut" is the absurd title of the latest Spook saga and I guess it refers to the spider that writes the message (webtread) and the Spook's lopping off of fingers and other assorted body parts (powercut). At least, that's my best guess. Moench's story is straightforward, a tale of vengeance that leans heavily on the violence, but Leopold Sanchez's art is really impressive: I love his shadows, silhouettes, and use of light and dark.

George Summers decides to capture "The Pepper Lake Monster," a giant creature that inhabits a nondescript lake. He builds an enormous trap and succeeds, but when he tells the villagers his plan to take the monster on the road and exhibit it, they kill him and let the monster go free to return to the lake.

Wrightson's story is a simple one but it's beautifully told. The first full-page shot of the monster is stunning, and the art from start to finish is perfect. One panel in particular, on page three, really looks like the work of Graham Ingels. Wrightson's stories this month are so impressive that they almost seem too good for Warren mags.

"Mind of the Mass!"

The Child/monster walks to the nearby town and unintentionally frightens a little girl, so one of the townsfolk shoots him in the street and then again in the woods outside of town. The Child finds shelter in a cabin with a blind old woman who scares off the townsfolk by pretending to be a witch. A mob is assembled and they return to the cabin and burn the old woman at a stake. Their attempt to attack and kill the Child fails and he kills a few of them and then destroys the town by knocking over a stone wall.

"Mind of the Mass!" is a shameless mashup of elements from Frankenstein (the little girl), Bride of Frankenstein (the blind old person in the cabin), and a generic witch burning story. The narrative is dull and predictable and it's not clear at the end how the Child comes to a wall and how that wall's collapse destroys the town. Corben's art is fine but doesn't light the sort of spark it did in "Demon in the Cockpit."

"Knucklebones to Fever Twitch"

The slaves below deck on a slave ship bound for New Orleans are so badly treated that they all die before the ship reaches port. The Spook shows up and beats up or kills what crew members he finds on board. He takes some severed fingers to Jeesala, the witch, and convinces her to give up some of her life force to bring the dead slaves back to life. They are revived as zombies and attack the crew before the Spook blows up the ship and the zombies.

Jeesala does give the Spook some knucklebones at the end, so I guess the title, "Knucklebones to Fever Twitch," has some connection to the story. At 13 pages, this is the longest Warren tale of the month, and it doesn't justify its own length. Moench's faults as a writer are again on display and the art is not quite up to the level of this issue's other Spook story--perhaps Sanchez's workload got too heavy. I guess the Spook series takes place no later than 1860, when the last ship brought captives from Africa to the U.S.

"Carnage in Costume"

Dr. Archaeus gets a little bit sweaty when his pretty new neighbor, Ingrid, pays him a visit, but it doesn't stop him from planning the murder of another juror by the name of Raphael Abernathy. Miles Sanford knows who's going to be killed and tells his gal pal, Jamaica, but when Abernathy is murdered by five golden rings around his neck at a costume party, Sanford is powerless to stop it. In the end, Jamaica takes a few days off to go and visit her old pal Ingrid and meets Ingrid's new neighbor!

"Carnage in Costume" is just plain fun. I like seeing Dr. Archaeus get nervous around Ingrid, I like the way he outsmarts Sanford at every turn, and I'm intrigued by the cliffhanger. It's interesting how Boudreau can manage to tell an entertaining, multi-part story when so many other Warren scribes fail to do so.-Jack

Peter- Morality, morality, morality. Where best to get a dose of "we're not doing enough for mankind" than in a comic book aimed at pre-teens who like to look at nekkid girls under the sheets at night? The message behind "They Eat Babies... Don't They?" (what a larf that title is!) is a bit confusing but Maroto delivers some of his best graphics in a while (certainly since Dax expired), so it's worth the page turning. 

Even with a stupid title, I liked "Webtread's Powercut," for precisely the opposite reason I hated "Knucklebones to Fever Twitch." Moenchmeister seems to have abandoned that sickening coat of pretension with "Webtread" and concentrated on telling an interesting story. The adjective-laden sentences make their unwanted comeback in "Knucklebones" (Spongerot flecks the putrid carcasses of the weak, threatening the strong... squalid pestilence crawls over shivering skin pressed against skin...) and do I really need to point out the irony of taking a stance against racism in a funny book strip called "The Spook"? I'm not sure what's being done here that's not being done over at Marvel's "Brother Voodoo." I'm all in on Leopold Sanchez's art, though (especially page 51, left); this guy gets better and better.

I love the Lovecraftian atmosphere Bernie evokes with "The Pepper Lake Monster," and his art doesn't hurt either. I remain unimpressed with the "Child" series; "Mind of the Mass!" is even more derivative than its first chapter. Just because Greg Potter is writing an homage doesn't mean the guy can't find something original to say now and then. Oh right, the blind hermit is a woman. Forgot. As Jack mentioned, Gerry Boudreau manages to craft a winner with Dr. Archaeus every issue. How does he do it? If anything, this is more of a rip-off than "Child" and yet, whereas that Greg Potter creation is nearly unreadable, Archaeus just gets better and better. It'll be interesting to see how Boudreau wraps it all up in the next two segments.

Corben

Comix International #1

"Terror Tomb"

(Reprinted from Creepy #61)

"Lycanklutz"

(Reprinted from Creepy #56)

"The Hero Within"

(Reprinted from Creepy #60)

"The Low Spark of High-Heeled Noise!"

(Reprinted from Creepy #57)

"Bless Us, Father..."

(Reprinted from Creepy #59)

"Judas"

(Reprinted from Creepy #62)

"Child"

(Reprinted from Eerie #57)

"As Though They Were Living"

(Reprinted from Vampirella #30)

"Top to Bottom"

(Reprinted from Vampirella #33)

"Demon in the Cockpit"

(Reprinted from Creepy #63)

Why this wasn't called Corben's Color Magazine rather than the slightly baffling Comix International is known only to James Warren and his accountant. There's nothing even slightly International about this premiere issue; it's simply a way for Jim to cash in on his golden boy, Rich Corben. The content will be opened up to include other artists in future issues and I must say that, even for the then-princely sum of two bucks, this is a very cool zine. CI will last five irregularly-published issues.-Peter

Ten color stories, all drawn by Corben. Seven from Creepy, two from Vampirella, and one from Eerie. "Terror Tomb" and "Lycanklutz" are great; the rest aren't so hot, except for "As Though They Were Living," which is written by Gerry Boudreau, who is fast becoming my favorite Warren writer with the Dr. Archaeus series. Two dollars was a lot of money for a mag of reprints in 1974, especially when most of them had just been published within the last year. The color does look great, though.-Jack

From Creepy 63

Next Week...
In The Brave and the Bold...
Does Michael Fleischer still have
that old Spectre magic?