The Warren Report Issue 79: October 1976

 

 

The Critical Guide to

the Warren Illustrated Magazines

1964-1983

by Uncle Jack

& Cousin Peter

Eisner

The Spirit #16 

"The Inheritance" (4/11/48)

Story by Will Eisner

Art by Will Eisner & Jerry Grandenetti

"The Moment of Glory" (7/2/50)

Story and Art by Will Eisner

"Olga Bustle in 'Outcast'" (9/1/46)

Story by Will Eisner

Art by John Spranger, Will Eisner, & Bob Palmer

"The Fix" (5/4/47)

Story by Will Eisner

Art by Will Eisner & Jerry Grandenetti

"The Fly" (3/10/46)

"Who Killed Cox Robin?" (8/4/46)

Story by Will Eisner

Art by John Spranger, Will Eisner, & Bob Palmer

"The Springtime of Dolan" (7/11/48)

Story by Will Eisner

Art by Will Eisner & Andre LeBlanc

"Dulcet Tone" (7/7/46)

Story by Will Eisner

Art by John Spranger, Will Eisner, & Bob Palmer

Jack-This last issue is a mixed bag of post-war stories. There's a quartet from 1946, with pencils by John Spranger and inks by Eisner and Bob Palmer. The best of these is "Olga Bustle," a spoof of Jane Russell that features a noticeably different art style, more early 1940s broad lines and cartoony looks than the late 1940s look of subsequent Spirit strips. "Who Killed Cox Robin?" has a terrific sixth page that looks very noirish. There are a couple of stories from 1947-48 inked by Eisner and Grandenetti; "The Inheritance" leads off the issue and is a perfect mix of crime and humor as the Spirit once again manages to elude marriage-minded Ellen. There's 1948's "The Springtime of Dolan," inked by Eisner and LeBlanc, which starts out great but loses focus midway through and, last of all, from 1950, we have "The Moment of Glory," in which Eisner mixes ghostly doings, crime, and humor with the focus being on a little guy's heroic act.

I'll admit it, Will Eisner is one of my comic book heroes--I view him and Carl Barks as the two greatest all-around talents in comics history. But what re-reading these 16 issues of Warren's The Spirit has taught me is that, even after he came back from the war, he wasn't doing it alone--despite the lack of credits given to anyone else in the strip's initial run. Grandenetti, Feiffer, LeBlanc--they all contributed to this fantastic strip, and I'm indebted to the comics historians who have unearthed their hidden contributions.

Peter-The thing I'll miss most about The Spirit, as we salute the 16th and final issue of the Warren incarnation, even more than the hit-or-miss humor and the weird supporting characters, will be those gorgeous splashes. Even if the story is a snooze, chances are Eisner's art will carry the day and that begins with his trademarked splash, usually incorporating "The Spirit" in some strange landscape or architecture. Jim Warren has said he would have loved to continue publishing the Spirit's adventures, but the magazine couldn't move enough copies to keep it going.

After the axe fell at Warren, Eisner returned his character to Kitchen Sink (which had published two issues of reprints just prior to Warren's version), continuing the numbering at #17. That version resembled Warren's, magazine-sized and black-and-white (with color added later) and lasted 25 issues, until 1983. The Spirit then was reincarnated as a comic-sized zine, also published by KS, for 87 issues, until 1992. Perhaps the most lavish version was DC's complete reprinting (in order), The Spirit Archives. If you're serious about The Spirit, that's the way to go.

Sanjulian

Vampirella #55

"The Resurrection of Papa Voudou!"

(Reprinted from Vampirella #15, January 1972)

"...And Be a Bride of Chaos"

(Reprinted from Vampirella #16, April 1972)

"The Corpse with the Missing Mind" ★★1/2

Story by Bill DuBay

Art by Jose Gonzalez

"The Lurker in the Deep!"

(Reprinted from Vampirella #13, September 1971)

As is her custom, Vampi always likes to tell one original story to round out the reprints in her annual "Super Collector's Edition!" The retreads are highlighted by the superior "Papa Voudou," one of the best installments of the decidedly lukewarm Vampi series ever written. The other two aren't bad either.

In the new Vampirella adventure, "The Corpse with a Missing Mind," Vampi joins Pen in attending the funeral of Henderson Hunt, an old friend of Pen's, a billionaire he'd fallen out of contact with. After the service, the pair are approached by another of Pen's old friends, Charlie Juggles, who tells an odd story to the magician. The trio pack into a limo and are driven away. According to Juggles, Hunt's brain and eyeballs were stolen while the pair were flying in Hunt's private jet. Juggles believes that Hunt is still alive somewhere. Suddenly, gas fills the backseat of the limo and the three passengers lose consciousness. 

When Vampi and Pen awaken, Juggles is nowhere to be found, but the pair are soon confronted by strange characters such as the Seven Dwarves, pirates, and space heroes. Vampi wonders aloud if they've fallen into Alice's Wonderland and Pen suddenly exclaims "I've got it!" They are in Wonderland... or at least a theme park variation on Wonderland. The voice of Henderson Hunt emerges from the shadows, confirming Pen's suspicions. 

Vampi and Pen enter a laboratory and there, sitting upright in a chair, is the body of Hunt; in a tank beside him float his missing brain and eyeballs. The billionaire has devised a way to live forever but wants to atone for the waste he feels his life became after he inherited his riches. He will build Wonderlands all over the world with free admission and children will come and play and smile. He admits to his friend Pen that it will be the first time in his life that he will be truly happy. 

For a Pen/Vampi solo short that doesn't seem to fit anywhere in the current chronology (what else is new?), "The Corpse with a Missing Mind" is not bad; it is, in fact, better than any of the Vampi stories we've been fed lately. It's goofy and derivative and doesn't make a lot of sense (so why the elaborate ruse, gassing his buddy, when he was going to tell him the truth anyway?) but it's a pleasant five-minute read. Sharp color, too, due, according to the credits to Bill DuBay.-Peter

Jack-I'm surprised you liked that mess by DuBay. I thought the story and color were terrible, and the art by Gonzalez made me wonder just what happened between 1972 and 1976. When we first reviewed "Papa Voudou," I wrote that it was entertaining from start to finish and had gorgeous art. I wasn't as impressed by "Bride of Chaos," which I found unsatisfying, but I called "Lurker" thoroughly enjoyable, well-told and with great art. The cover, by Sanjulian, is reprinted from Vampirella 36--or at least the illo is.

Frazetta

Creepy #83

"The Strange, Incurable Hauntings of 

Terrible Phinneas Boggs" ★★★

Story by Bill DuBay

Art by John Severin

"Process of Elimination" ★★

Story by Bruce Jones

Art by Russ Heath

"Country Pie" ★★1/2

Story by Bruce Jones

Art by Carmine Infantino & Bernie Wrightson

"In Deep" ★★★

Story by Bruce Jones

Art by Richard Corben

"Harvey Was a Sharp Cookie" ★

Story by Bill DuBay

Art by Jose Ortiz

"Now You See It..." ★★★

Story by Bruce Jones

Art by Al Williamson

"The Last Super Hero" ★★★

Story by Cary Bates

Art by Carmine Infantino

A novelist buys the mansion that once belonged to a famous movie star/stunt double and discovers that the actor's ghost still haunts the hallways, craving attention. A nice change of pace, devoid of any real violence or fatalities, "The Strange, Incurable Blah Blah Blah..." had me smiling through most of its text-dense and typo-riddled length. It's the kind of thing that might have been dramatized on Night Gallery, a wink at the viewer and reassurance that there won't be any real scares tonight, but you'll be entertained, nonetheless. My only nit is that the writer doesn't come off as a contemporary scribe, using an almost stilted form of prose, a la Poe or Lovecraft. There are no African Americans to insult here, so Dube throws in a random "faggish" when describing one of Phineas's more "feminine" guises. Severin's art is, obviously, a gigantic portion of my affection for this one.

Chris heads home from his "government job" and puts bullets in his wife and two kids, then meets up with his secretary, Madge, for a fling at a motel. Once the lovemaking is over, the two park on a viewpoint overlooking the town. Chris kills Madge and then settles in for the main event: a nuclear holocaust.

I vividly remember reading "Process of Elimination" for the first time as a teen and being (pardon the pun) blown away by its hazy conclusion. What kind of job was Chris doing that he knew the precise time of "the end of the world"? Why was using a handgun (with silencer!) more virtuous and merciful than sleeping pills? And, more important, did Chris know he was married to Florence Henderson? My teen mind whirled around the savagery and really deep thinky stuff.

Now, having read the story for a third (or possibly fourth) time, I have to say the element that shows through strongest is pretension. We're supposed to hate Chris (I assume), since he's selfish enough to off his family so that he can die in the arms of his deflowered lover, so why is Jones painting the guy as a wonderful family man doing the right thing? Maybe that's not Bruce's intent, but that's the vibe I get. Russ Heath's art is awful, a mere shadow of what the man was capable of in his younger years. Those panels of Gwyn dishing out some pie and taking some lead between her breasts are cringe-worthy (if I saw those panels reprinted somewhere sans credit, I'd guess Dick Ayers). A big, big disappointment and, I have to believe, one of Warren's more controversial, divisive tales.

Things are a little more clear in Bruce Jones's next story, "Country Pie." A psychic helps police track a serial killer who's about to score his (her?) next victim. Meanwhile, a slick city man stops on a country road to give a lift to a pretty young teenage girl and her little brother. Will the police arrive in time to prevent the murderer from striking again? Thankfully, Bruce disposes of the "mystery" of the killer's identity halfway through the story (it's fairly evident who the fiend is), so there's no foolish "Aha!!!" in the final panel. But what does arrive in the climax is a bit abrupt and disappointing. It's still an entertaining read, and Bernie and Carmine make a decent art team, with Bernie being more evident in the last couple pages.

While far out at sea, a young couple find themselves in deep trouble when their small sailboat sinks and the pair are left to drift, clinging to a life preserver. Though they fight to stay awake, both drift into slumber and, when he awakens, the man finds his wife dead. From there, it's only a matter of time before the gulls and sharks begin to pick at her corpse. After several days, a freighter comes along and picks the man up. In the hospital, doctors are able to pry the man's hands apart and discover he's holding a human heart.

Looking back now, I think "In Deep" was the first time I became aware of this new kid on the block, Bruce Jones. I won't lie and say that I was keeping track of the writers of these things, not back then, but I do recall being very impressed with a few stories that carried his name and then looking forward to reading anything he pumped out. That extended into the 80s, when Jones reinvented the horror anthology funny book with Twisted Tales. 

It's obvious Jones took his inspiration from Jaws, which had shattered box office records the summer before, but the story doesn't rely entirely on the attack of a Great White. There's a lot of stuff going on here. Some of it I ain't buyin' (like how our hero ended up with Peggy's heart and why the sharks didn't come back for some live meat), but that won't spoil a tale so filled with suspense that the reader is literally on the edge of their seat. Though I'm sure the black-and-white prologue and epilogue in the hospital were a necessity due to Jim Warren's cheapness, I would argue that the colorless bookends are actually pretty effective as is. Oddly enough, when "In Deep" was reprinted in Creepy #101, it was presented in all B+W (even weirder, when "In Deep" was reprinted in Comix International #5, the story was printed sans prologue and the epilogue was printed on the back page in red ink! See far below), and was followed up by a needless and silly sequel that same issue.

Then some idiot turned out the lights!

After Harvey Baggins refuses to sell his amusement park fun palace to a land investor, the man assaults Harvey's daughter and warns him that the worst is yet to come. Rather than give in to his tormenter, Harvey heads to Home Depot and buys thousands of razor blades, a hammer, and nails. He lines the walls and floors of the fun house with the blades and waits for company to come. Fun and blood follow.

The umpteenth "homage" to "Blind Alleys," Bill DuBay's "Harvey Was a Sharp Cookie" is a chore from the first panel to the last. Dube's not even trying here; the goal is to pump this thing out as fast as possible with as little effort as he can muster. Apply several layers of sadism and the kids'll love it, right? Harvey's the prototypical good guy pushed too far, but the extremes he goes to stretch the boundaries of believability. How could Harvey guess that the bad guy was going to walk into his hall of mirrors and smash the glass with his bare hands? Bit of a stretch. Wouldn't it just be easier to blow the guy away with a shotgun? But that one-star rating extends to the art as well, which is about as muddy and indecipherable as Ortiz has ever been. There's a muddiness to it that resembles a fifth-generation VHS-tape. 

Poor Harry only wants to spice up his dull marriage, so he continually sets the Selector-Hologram remote control to remote planets and dangerous creatures, all the better to play hero in front of his bored wife. All that Della wants to do is watch Al Pacino movies; that takes her mind off the fact that her husband spent all their savings on the silly hologram gizmo. But then Harry plays a trick on the Mrs., taking her to a prehistoric planet and confessing that he drugged her and motored the family spaceship to a distant star. Unfortunately, the ship crashed and they're stuck; might as well make the best of it.

After Harry's sexual moves on Della go nowhere and he tires of her endless whining ("You're a child, Harry... a thirty-year-old drop-out from a Burroughs novel!"), he hits a button on the remote and they're both back in their home. Harry admits it was all a trick to get Della involved. Amazingly enough, the machination pays off for the King of the Nerds as Della admits she kinda felt a little naughty in front of a fire in a cave without much on and she grabs the remote, setting the dial for "Killer T-Rex!"

"Now You See It..." is a lot of fun; you can tell Bruce was raised on some good ol' EC science fiction. It's got a very familiar flavor, and that could be due chiefly to the art of Al Williamson, who should be the perfect choice for a sit-com about a guy who likes to dress his wife in leopard skin onesies and threaten her with giant lizards. Alas, this isn't the Williamson we saw in the EC days, but a shell of his former self. True, some of his art is still pretty cool (that giant insect-dinosaur-monster reprinted above), but a lot of the panels just lie there with no energy to speak of. Still, this is a hugely entertaining sf-comedy.

In a future where war no longer exists, superheroes have hung up their capes and masks and blended in with the general public but, when he perceives an invasion of militant forces, the hero known as Furyfists laces them up and heads back into action. The enemy is ready, though, and Furyfists is killed in action. Meanwhile, another hero sees the news on TV and decides he's Earth's only hope.

I liked "The Last Super Hero" a lot but I won't lie; I can't say I fully understood the climax. That might be due to my density or because some info got left out of the little caption boxes. Is the "secret invasion" all in Furyfists's head? Who is the new last super hero in the final panels and why is there a beat-up corpse tied to a chair in the hero's HQ? It's all a bit hazy. Regardless of the ambiguity, I thought the script was strong and exciting and Carmine's pencils (and inks--the only Warren story he flies solo on) only add to that excitement. On his excellent Warren blog, our good friend and correspondent, Quiddity, questions "why this completely non-horror story appears here in Creepy."

It is very unique but also in keeping with some of the other unique trails the Warren writers have explored now and then (such as the goofy "Super-Abnormal Phenomena Survival Kit" back in #79). And thank God for the variety, a rest from the crap DuBay and Boudreau were (sump)pumping out of their Warren offices. And that finale (even as hazy as it is) is pretty horrific, wouldn't you say? As for Carmine, who begins a long (and some would say fruitful) partnership with the Warren zines this month, I'm on record as saying I dig his stuff. Always have. One of the only Silver Age DC artists I can stomach. So, I'm really looking forward to some of the bizarre matchups coming down the pike: Carmine with Alex Toth, Alfredo Alcala, Dick Giordano, and several others.-Peter

Jack-I was pleasantly surprised (all right, shocked) to read such a good issue of Creepy at this point in our journey! Gathering together John Severin, Russ Heath, Bernie Wrightson, Richard Corben, and Al Williamson in one mag, with seven new stories, was an embarrassment of riches. Sure, the DuBay prose drags things down a bit and the Ortiz art is muddy as heck, but this issue stands out among the junk we've been reading for far too long.

I thought "In Deep" was terrific, in part because Corben is such a better colorist than DuBay. This is a good example of what a Creepy story should be. Next best was "Country Pie," which had some surprises along the way and in which Wrightson's inks took some of the scratchiness off of Infantino's pencils. "Now You See It..." has some bad, DuBayish dialogue (from Bruce Jones, of all people), but the Williamson art is wonderful to see. DuBay's endless narrative captions drag down "Phineas Boggs," in spite of the usual solid art from John Severin; someone should have told DuBay that a good comic book story is one where the words and pictures depend on each other. This could be read without pictures and nothing would be lost.

I thought Heath's art on "Process" was not that bad, Peter; I was grateful he did not depict the murders of the children and the wife's body only exists in comics drawn for young guys. "Harvey" surely was written thinking of Palisades Amusement Park, which closed in September 1971 and was replaced by high-rise condos. The "Blind Alley" rip-off is inexcusable. And Quiddity is right about "Super Hero"--why is this here? The Frazetta cover is nothing special, but the Brancatelli column offers a fascinating look at the comic book distribution system.

Brocal

Eerie #78

"The Death of a Friend!"

(Reprinted from Eerie #49, July 1973)

"The Mind Within"

(Reprinted from Eerie #50, August 1973)

"Ghoulish Encounter"

(Reprinted from Eerie #52, November 1973)

"Enter Mr. Hyde"

(Reprinted from Eerie #53, January 1974)

"Stranger in a Village of the Insane!"

(Reprinted from Eerie #54, February 1974)

"...And An End!"

(Reprinted from Eerie #48, June 1973)

"The Hope of the Future"

(Reprinted from Creepy #57, November 1973)

Peter-Well, I guess it could be worse: an all-Oogie issue? Though I savaged Steve Skeates's epic of lunacy when we first reviewed it, I must add that the man himself seemed to be in on the joke the entire way. Way back in, I think, the early '00s, I wrote a piece on this series for a Warren fanzine (the name of which is honestly lost in my brain), extolling the virtues of flying by the seat of your pants when you write for a Warren funny book. I was generally positive in a snarky way and Steve Skeates got my e-mail address from someone and wrote me a long essay on how many roadblocks and landmines came with overseeing the Mummy and (later) the Werewolf series. A lot of writers would have bitched about how much work goes into their craft and how dare a nobody like me make fun of their children. Not Steve. He agreed with several of my points and countered several more. I exited that exchange with a mountain of respect for this guy. But the Mummy is just as dopey and indecipherable on a third reading as it was on the first.

Jack-It says a lot that Warren reprinted the stories out of order. They made little sense to begin with, so why not put the first story in the series last in this issue? The GCD tells us that some of the stories have pages deleted and other pages reordered. I did not read the whole thing over again to see if it makes any more sense--I'm not that dedicated. Still, in looking back over my initial comments on these tales, I always liked Brocal's art. So at least we have that. Oh, and the usual terrific inside cover by Wrightson.

"In Deep" gets the special Warren treatment in CI5

Next Week...
CatMan is Back!
But is that a good thing?

The Warren Report Issue 77: August 1976

 

 

The Critical Guide to

the Warren Illustrated Magazines

1964-1983

by Uncle Jack

& Cousin Peter

Eisner

The Spirit #15

"Sally of the Islands" (7/17/49)

"The Masked Man" (7/24/49)

"The Ball Game" (7/31/49)

"Matua" (8/7/49)

"Lurid Love" (9/18/49)

Story by Will Eisner & Jules Feiffer

Art by Will Eisner 

"Ace McCase" (9/28/48)

"Winter Haven" (12/4/49)

Story and Art by Will Eisner

"The Prisoner of Donjon" (8/29/48)

"Murder, ... Bloodless Type!!" (6/20/48)

Story by Will Eisner

Art by Will Eisner & Andre LeBlanc

Jack-Sometimes, taking the Spirit out of Central City results in great stories, such as "Sally of the Islands," where Eisner and Feiffer are able to create fully realized characters in very little space and tell a good story in only seven pages. The Spirit makes only a brief appearance in "The Masked Man," where a two-bit private eye impersonates the hero and learns it's not so easy to impress Ellen Dolan. "The Ball Game" is a satire on baseball and politics that isn't very funny; Sammy has never been one of my favorite characters and he takes center stage in this one. Science clashes with superstition in "Matua," a well-told story where a giant stone supposedly is an ancient monster about to return to life. These four tales open the issue and are presented in the order in which they originally appeared over four consecutive weeks in the summer of 1949.

"Lurid Love" satirizes love pulps with fake ads, but it's a weak story where the ads are funnier than the plot. Commissioner Dolan falls for a battle-axe in "Ace McCase," not realizing she's a crook. This story has a real surprise at the very end. Eisner does nice visual work with snow in "Winter Haven," in which Dolan and the Spirit happen on a convention of fences at a ski resort and engage in an exciting battle on the slopes.

Eisner's skill at mixing comedy and drama is on display in "The Prisoner of Donjon," in which an elderly prisoner refuses to be set free when the decrepit prison where he has spent decades is to be demolished. When he gets out, he insists on keeping a wire trash basket upside down over his head to simulate the view from behind bars! Finally, "Murder,...Bloodless Type!!" is an action-packed yarn about a man who pretends that his twin brother killed him. In all, a solid issue--too bad there's only one more at Warren!

Peter-The highlight here, of course, is the quartet of "island-hopping" stories that opens the issue. I had the most fun with the giant monster trappings of "Matua," but appreciated the noir of "Sally of the Islands." The latter would have made a great little mid-1950s Allied Artists B-flick, with its menacing shadows and cliched bad guys. I had to laugh when Sally asked Smith, "Who are you or what are you..." but not "and why do you wear that familiar mask?" Seriously, the Spirit goes undercover but leaves his trademark eye mask on? Yeah, I know... forget it, Peter, it's the comics!

"Lurid Love" is an on-the-nose clever send-up of the "Confessions" rags of the time, complete with faux-but-believable ads. Sammy's golden moment (reprinted to the right) was my spit-the-whiskey-out-laughing panel of the issue. I found the remainder of the issue to be gorgeously illustrated but familiar in the plot department. Still, this was the strongest issue of The Spirit in some time.

Torres

Vampirella #53

"The Human Marketplace" ★★★

Story by Gerry Boudreau

Art by Jose Gonzalez

"Opium is the Religion of the People" ★1/2

Story by Gerry Boudreau

Art by Rafael Auraleon

"The Professional" ★★

Story by Bruce Jones

Art by Zesar

"The Last Man Syndrome" ★1/2

Story by Roger McKenzie

Art by Ramon Torrents

"Jackie and the Leprechaun King" ★

Story by Bill DuBay

Art by Esteban Maroto

Crossing the US/Mexico border, Vampirella and Pen are stopped after Vampi's phony passport is flagged. A CIA agent named Spectrum (of course!) approaches Vampi and asks for her cooperation in a case involving a white slavery ring. With no obvious options, our Drakulonian Diva agrees and heads for San Francisco, where she hangs out in a seedy bar filled with salty seamen (ooooh, I just couldn't wait for the obvious typos on that one!).

Sure enough, within minutes, V is harassed by a sailor (wearing stripes, as if the vampiress were whisked back into Barbary Coast days) and eventually drugged and kidnapped. When she awakens, Cap'n Silver explains to her that she'll be brainwashed, sold to a wealthy foreigner with power, and then instructed to murder her "master." Silver explains that the same scenario will take place simultaneously around the world. Vampirella is dumped into a cell with several other captives.

When V runs out of her blood formula, she takes a bite out of one of her fellow inmates, only to discover that the girl has no blood! She's been transformed into a "cybernaut"! Taking wing, our heroine targets one of the sailors who kidnapped her. The man explains that Cap'n Silver's process not only brainwashes the victims but turns their bodies into "synthetic plastic." Holy Cow! The tar further elaborates that the girls are meant to make love to their "masters" and at just the right moment their bodies will explode! Holy Cow!

Vampi dines on the sailor and his dying screams alert Cap'n Silver, who enters the room armed with a gun. He takes a shot, but Vampi does a bat-change and avoids the bullet. Silver runs out the door and falls into a quicksand marsh, sinking out of sight. Meanwhile, the other sailors have decided that they're going to give the girls a test drive, unaware of the consequences. The bang ends with a literal bang. Vampi is congratulated by agent Spectrum and given a proper fake passport and birth certificate. The future is wide open.

It's almost inane to raise my hand in class and ask about silly plot points (if Vampi is so afraid of the border agents, why doesn't she turn into a bat and meet Pen on the "other side"?), but "The Human Marketplace" is so crammed full of head-scratchers and cliches, I almost feel I'd be amiss ignoring them.  Where is this island just outside of "San Francisco harbor?" Neither Alcatraz nor Treasure Island have the lush jungle foliage present and the nearest island would be Hawaii, wouldn't it? A few days' journey, at least.

Why would the CIA figure V is the perfect woman to go undercover on this assignment? What in their folder shows them she could be an asset? That she's a heck of a prop in a vaudeville act? What does Pen do while he's lounging around San Fran waiting for his girl to do all the work? Never mind, I think we can guess that one. Why is Vampirella always short on her faux-blood supply? It reminds me of the old Ultraman show where the big silver guy's chest-light would always start blinking in the middle of a big fight, signaling his power was running low.

But, hell, forget all that. "The Human Marketplace" is the most entertaining Vampirella chapter we've seen in years, dumb as a Motley Crue boxed set and equally void of vitamins. Boudreau discards all the eye-rolling seriousness we've seen in recent installments and goes for sheer nuttiness. If all Vampi stories were like this one, I'd be a lot less cranky.

(Insert eye-rolling emoji here)

A man searches the Naked City for the Snowman, a drug dealer who kept his sister addicted to heroin. He finally finds the scum in an abandoned amusement park and closes in for the kill. Turns out the Snowman has a gang of monster bodyguards that our hero must contend with before he rains hell down and achieves some sort of peace with his vengeance.

Having plumbed the depths of bad Harlan Ellison imitation, Gerry Boudreau turns his sights on the dark and violent world of McBain and Westlake and has just as much success with "Opium is the Woman of the World," er sorry, "Woman Loves Opium in Her World".... whatever. Simply attempting to imitate the style of hardboiled does not make a story hardboiled, as we see from the brain-dead metaphors dotting the landscape. The Manhattan skyline appeared on the horizon a supine glamour queen lying nude on a bed of darkness, her face wet with autumn rain sure sounds like the opening of an 87th Precinct novel but, believe me, Hunter/McBain never wrote a line so pretentious and solipsistic. The unchecked wave of racism bits here and there continues even into the Louise Jones era, with Gerry's character commenting on the "yellow munchkins in rice fields" he fought during the war. I'm amazed this crap has been pretty much ignored over the years.

Check out the "carefully prunned (sic) rows of shrubbery,
arrowing down the alibaster (sic) length of sidewalk..."

Peter Grant uses his good looks to first bed and then extort money from the beautiful housewives of Santa Mira. But when the women get wise to Grant's game, they join forces and end his little game. But one of them has actually learned a good lesson from the exercise. The final twist is a good one, but I have to say "The Professional" was way too long and boring. Halfway through the story, anyone with half a brain would know where this was going. I refuse to be a fanboy and add an extra star just because "The Professional" was written by my favorite horror comics writer. I have my scruples after all <wink emoji>.

A man walks the empty streets of the city, imagining the world has come to an end, even though a woman is being burned at the stake before his very eyes. In the end, he has what the Warren Publishing Company's psychiatrists term "The Last Man Syndrome." As he falls to the ground, people walk over him and trample him. The End.

When I finished "The Last Man Syndrome," I wondered when Jim Warren sent out the memo to his staff that the stories printed in Warren zines should change the world, not scare the reader. I wish I could remember my reaction as a 14-year-old Warren zombie to the McGregor, Moench, Boudreau, and McKenzie tales of inner turmoil and the human condition. The 45-years older me feels the strain of eye-rolling constantly through flowery sentences derived from entirely too much summer school required reading: Well, he had his privacy now. He didn't even feel the passing of a million feet that relentlessly trampled his lifeless body. He couldn't hear the numbling (sic) angry voices cursing him because he had gotten in their way. I can understand now why Jim W. never hired a proofreader. The guy woulda been at the office 24/7.

Little Jackie Paper loves his books filled with fantasy, but he's not very fond of his alcoholic father. So, one day, Jackie decides to head out on his own to find glory over the nearby hills. What he finds in the forest is the cute, lovable, and oh so adorable leprechaun, Bubba (not Baba... that would be plagiarism!) O'Reilly and his pet dragon, Fluff (stop... my sides are aching!). Together, the trio fights battles and enjoys incredible adventures until they run into Blackbeard and his cutthroat pirates. Bubba and Fluff are both slain, but Jackie is spared. That's because Blackbeard is, in reality, Jackie's dad, who explains that the "demon monsters" had cast a spell on the lad to convince him that they were the good guys. There was no Bubba and Fluff. Now, Pop explains, it's time for Jackie to grow up! As Jackie Paper walks away from the (imagined) bleeding carcass of Fluff, he sighs and thinks how much fun the evil villains were.

If this is the new "Golden Age of Warren," I think I'll go back and re-read Creepy #49 and Eerie #39, thank you very much. While I wasn't nearly as angered by "Jackie and the Leprechaun King" as Peter, Paul, and Mary should have been, it's still not my desired field of leisure reading material. What's Dube's message, exactly? That adulthood is for the birds? Now there's a viewpoint seldom shared. Can't wait for Dube's take on "Yellow Submarine." Maroto's art is the pits, little more than early sketches stolen off napkins. 

This month, Joe Brancatelli discusses the sudden firing of Carmine Infantino at DC and Marvel's musical-editorial-chair. Joe also brings up the fact that comic sales are down at least 30% from the previous year (a trend that will continue every year) and gets in a couple of snarky (but well-deserved) jabs at Stan Lee and Warren Publishing itself. I miss Joe Brancatelli.-Peter

Jack-Peter, that's the same Joe Brancatelli column we read two weeks ago in Creepy #81. Still, it's better than the comics on offer this time out. Unlike you, my favorite story was "Opium is the Religion of the People," mainly because Auraleon was the perfect choice to illustrate this grim tale. Boudreau is clearly a fan of classic films and even slips in a cameo by Dr. Archaeus among the rogues' gallery on the wall. I was happy to see Gonzalez back drawing Vampi, but his art doesn't seem as good as it used to and the story is a mixed-up mashup of cybernauts, a vampire, white slavery, and The Most Dangerous Game.

I was also glad to see a story by Bruce Jones, but "The Professional" is ruined by the terrible art, unnecessarily violent end, and silly twist. Still, it's better than "The Last Man Syndrome"--when a writer spends an entire story making the reader wonder what the heck is going on, the payoff had better be good, and this one isn't. Finally, "Jackie and the Leprechaun King" is more DuBay page filler with decent Maroto art. I really think the editor just gave DuBay a page count and he wrote till he filled it.

Maroto

Creepy #82

"Forgive Us Our Debts"

(Reprinted from Creepy #50)

"A Most Private Terror"

(Reprinted from Creepy #52)

"Deja Vu"

(Reprinted from Creepy #51)

"Relatives!"

(Reprinted from Vampirella #35)

"A Scream in the Forest"

(Reprinted from Creepy #53)

An all-Maroto reprint "Super Special Summer Giant" (though I'd question 76 pages being a "giant") proves that too much Maroto isn't necessarily a great thing. The scripts are, for the most part, decent, but Maroto's style should be absorbed in medium doses. That way you don't realize that Esteban's males all look like golden gods.-Peter

Jack-The best page of this issue is the new Brancatelli column, where he writes that many comic scribes look down on their readers and argues that comics were of higher quality in the 1960s and consequently sold better. I'm not sure I buy the second part of his argument.

Looking back over my comments on these five reprints that feature Maroto art, I see a theme--the guy can draw but he's not a good storyteller. The best of the lot is "A Scream in the Forest," and Warren colored a couple of its panels to cobble together a nice cover. "Deja Vu" is presented in color, though it was originally black and white. Four of the stories were first published in Creepy with cover dates in the first half of 1973, while the fifth is from a 1974 issue of Vampirella. At least (for once) Warren is not reprinting recent stories.

Sanjulian

Eerie #76

"Deliver the Child"★★

Story by Budd Lewis

Art by Leopold Sanchez

"Highsong"★★★

Story by Budd Lewis

Art by Luis Bermejo

"Oogie and the Scroungers"★1/2

Story by Bill DuBay

Art by Esteban Maroto

"The Silver Key"★

Story and Art by Jose Bea

"Beware Darklon the Mystic!"★★★

Story and Art by Jim Starlin

In 1936, cousins Gerome and Jason have a club they call the Moonweavers, dedicated to exploring the unknown. Jason has supernatural powers and senses something strange going on; the boys follow the brain waves to a spooky old house on Blake Street and find Mr. Diggers (from the hardware store) in the basement, summoning up a demon. The demon is not happy that Mr. Diggers commands it to keep watch over his baby daughter for the rest of her life and, when the boys distract Mr. Diggers, the magic barrier is broken momentarily and the demon springs to attack the man who summoned it. Mr. Diggers snaps back to attention and re-establishes the barrier just in time to sever the demon's hands, the only part of its body that had passed through the barrier. The demon is furious and somehow rushes upstairs, where it chews off the hands of Mr. Diggers's beloved daughter.

Peter and I don't always do these posts in order, and I can see from his comments below that he gauged my reaction to "Deliver the Child" accurately. It starts out as another boring bit of nostalgia, gets interesting when the boys encounter Mr. Diggers in the basement (I think he's nude, but fortunately Sanchez is good at shadow placement), and becomes horrible at the needlessly violent end. Stories like this one are part of the reason I never read Warren comics as a kid. This ending is shock for shock's sake. How does the demon bypass the barrier at the end when he's mad? It reminds me of the dogs next door who run right through the electric fence when they see a deer.

In 1799, a crusty old loner named "Wolfer O'Connel" lives alone out West, chopping wood and avoiding bathing. One day, some Indians approach him without warning and he doesn't take kindly to it, so he plays a trick on them before slaughtering them with his axe. The Indians were afraid of an evil spirit that Wolfer soon discovers is a great big mix of wolf and bear; Wolfer fights it off before luring a pack of wolves to kill it (and themselves) in a fall off a cliff.

Luis Bermejo's art in "Highsong" is reminiscent of Berni Wrightson's, especially in the long shots; his closeups of Wolfer's face aren't quite as good. The story suffers from more over-writing by Lewis, as well as more graphic violence, when Wolfer slaughters the Indians. Still, it is set in the wilderness, so it doesn't seem quite as out of place as that of the prior story.

Buck Blaster, Prunella McShatters, and Oogie (the god) are visited by an IRS ship looking to collect back taxes. Prunella uses her godlike powers to blow up the ship and she and Buck return to life on their lonely planet.

"Oogie and the Scroungers" (the scroungers are the IRS agents) is another overly long, unfunny adventure featuring people none of the readers could care less about. Maroto does know his way around the female form, so Prunella is a visual delight, but DuBay once again fills pages with meaningless drivel. His attempt at humor completely falls flat.

On his way to school one day, young Peter Hypnos encounters a painter in the village square. Peter is hurled into a painting, where a strange creature hands him "The Silver Key." Peter unlocks the door to his future and meets more bizarre creatures; eventually, he finds his way home, but his mother doesn't believe his tall tales.

As Peter points out, Jose Bea's artwork here is a direct swipe of the work of Terry Gilliam on the Monty Python TV show, which had taken America by storm when it began airing on PBS in late 1974. For me, the Gilliam skits have dated badly, and so have these Bea stories starring Peter Hypnos.

Two dangerous men meet across a table in a cabaret and stare each other down. One of them, a professional assassin named Koph-Fan, explains that he was hired to kill a crown prince named Darklon. Koph-Fan and three other dangerous men tracked Darklon to a bedchamber, where they mistakenly killed his girlfriend. Darklon took revenge by murdering the other three. Suddenly, Koph-Fan attempts to kill the man across the table, who is Darklon, but fails. In return, Darklon kills Koph-Fan after torturing him to learn the name of the man who hired him: Kavar Darkhold, Darklon's beloved father.

Never having read the series that begins with "Beware Darklon the Mystic," I'm intrigued, mainly because it's mid-'70s work by Jim Starlin. As a kid, of course, I loved Captain Marvel and Warlock and, while the art here is not up to the level of his Marvel work, the story is enjoyable and has some of the usual Starlin touches. I look forward to seeing where this goes. It's interesting to see an ending that seems like a Star Wars rip-off, yet it came before Star Wars.-Jack

Peter-Perhaps because it mines the fields laid down by Mr. Bradbury, I liked "Deliver the Child" a lot. I'm sure Jack will not like its uber-vicious climax, but I prefer my horror stories dark and grim. I'd also prefer them to be void of typographical errors (and this story is an example of what happens when you don't proof a zine before it heads to the printer), but, hey, I'll take a good story over good punctuation anytime. Yes, the back of my brain wonders if I enjoyed this story so much because the rest of the crop is moldy and derivative. I will say that the setup is very confusing.

I also really enjoyed the sole adventure of Wolfer O'Connell, a series that surely would have been more tolerable than Hunter or Freaks in the long run. Bermejo's art is some of his best; I liked that Budd didn't take time out to explain what the wolf-bear-thing was. It just was.

No amount of force-feeding will ever get me to see the bright side of crap like "Oogie" and "Peter Hypnos." Both have their fans, I'm sure, but neither swings my pendulum. Dube's cutie-pie nicknames and dopey dialogue ("Prunie's terrific at washing dishes... and I can always pump munchkin gas...!") leave me nauseous and I'll be a happy man when I don't have to look at Jose Bea's Monty Python homages again. Does Jose ever get back to being that artist that could creep you out with just a panel of two men talking in a diner? 

The complicated saga of Darklon has been dissected many times before (this is a great place to find out more), so I won't waste space other than to say that Starlin was a master, but this wasn't his masterpiece. In my long-ago assessment of the Eerie serials, I said: Of all the Eerie series, this one–-Jim Starlin’s homage to Steve Ditko’s Dr. Strange (at least, I think it’s an homage)-–is the most out of place. “Darklon” cries out for Marvel Premiere of the mid-1970s. Having re-read the opener just now, I haven't changed my mind.

Next Week...
Another old fave returns!

The Warren Report Issue 75: June 1976

 

 

The Critical Guide to

the Warren Illustrated Magazines

1964-1983

by Uncle Jack

& Cousin Peter

Kelly

Creepy #80

"Benjamin Jones and the Imagineers" ★1/2

Story by Budd Lewis

Art by Luis Bermejo

"Second Genesis" ★

Story by Gerry Boudreau

Art by Esteban Maroto

"The Fable of Bald Sheba and Montebank the Rogue!" ★★

Story by Bill DuBay

Art by Jose Bea

"Proof Positive" ★★1/2

Story & Art by Alex Toth

"Ain't It Just Like the Night" ★1/2

Story by Doug Moench

Art by Martin Salvador

"The Axe-Man Cometh" ★★

Story by Gerry Boudreau & Carl Wessler

Art by Jorge B. Galvez

"The Last Chronicle" ★1/2

Story by Budd Lewis

Art by Jose Ortiz

Young Benjamin Jones is terrified of the things waiting for him outside near the garbage pails; the creatures of the night. Luckily, Benjamin has his toy soldiers, the "Imagineers," who keep him safe when they're by his side. Problem is, Mom wants Benjamin to take the trash out and act like a big boy. The Imagineers must stay in the house!

Benjamin barely makes it back inside after the things attack him but, of course, mother is having none of it. Her son has forgotten to bring the trash can back in and now she insists he scoot back out the door or face the beating of his life. Little Ben begs his mother for a few more moments while his Imagineers ready their defense, but Mom has had enough. She storms out the door to retrieve the pail on her own, vowing that Benjamin's father is going to hear about this. Benjamin locks the door and refuses to open it even after his mother's screams ring through the night. 

Owing a huge debt (in my mind at least) to several similar Joe Orlando House of Mystery/House of Secrets stories back in the late 1960s, "Benjamin Jones and the Imagineers" is a jumbled mess with little energy. There's an epilogue after Mom is locked out and her shrieking halts where we see her, in one panel, pouring milk and making cookies for her sweet little boy and, in the next panel, propped up in a chair with her eyes torn out. I'm not sure whether Budd Lewis is reaching for the "Benjamin Jones was insane the whole time and killed his mother" angle or if these monsters really exist. It's a toss-up, I guess. Benjy's mom gets a nice once-over from Ken Kelly in his dynamic cover.

In a future where mice and lizards communicate telepathically with humans, a strikingly illustrated man named Hamlyn decides he really must know who his parents were, so he participates in a government experiment in time travel. Hamyln screws with the gauges and, instead of arriving 100 years in the past, he arrives a mere 30 years before in order to investigate his own birth.

In the past, he bumps into the strikingly illustrated Janella, who thinks nothing of lounging in the nude, and they have a smoldering tryst. Alas, the time cops arrive on the scene and execute Hamlyn for government crimes. The bright side is that he has impregnated Janella with... you guessed it... himself.

Groan. How could new editor Louise Jones not have taken one look at the script for "Second Genesis" and screamed loudly through the Warren office: "No more fucking talking animals!" Seriously, this story is stupid on so many levels that I'm not even going to my thesaurus to look up a fancy four-syllable synonym for stupid. And whoooooooaaaaa, that twist ending is such a shocker, ain't it? Maroto has seen better days as well.

Legend has it that Sheba the Bald Witch was buried with her magical ring, a priceless bauble that every man in the countryside covets. When Montebank the Rogue tries to liberate the corpse of its jewelry, the old hag strangles him and Montebank is cursed to lie with Sheba for all eternity. 

Yes, Peregrine (yet another rogue) has heard the legends and believes none of it, but when some of his tankard-lifting mates dare him to visit the grave, the man cannot be kept away. "The Fable of Bald Sheba and Montebank the Rogue!" is paper-thin horror that is saved infinitesimally by Jose Bea's art. In Jose's world, the humans are much creepier than the critters. For me, the biggest kick now to be had from a Bill DuBay story is guessing what crazy combo-title he'll come up with next. Think about it, the selection was endless: "(adjective) (name) and the (adjective) (nonsense word)." With his dictionary by his side, the man was unstoppable!

In 19th Century Baltimore, photographer Barton Dix invents a new form of film development and approaches the patent lawyer firm of Cozzens, Field, and Bryant in an effort to protect his brilliant breakthrough. Barton is dazzled by Bryant's daughter and entrusts the men with his invention. Alas, the three partners are shysters and the "daughter" merely a paid pawn in their charade. Barton overhears the men talking of their deception and invites them to his place for a demonstration of his new process. There, he poisons the three and then develops the film, not knowing how explosive the chemicals can be. BOOM!

At some point in this journey, I'm sure we'll run across a double-duty by Toth where the story is every bit as good as the art, but "Proof Positive" is not that breakthrough. Toth's climaxes, for the most part, have an abruptness to them that is unsatisfying, even while his graphics knock my socks off. The entirety of the story is printed vertically rather than the typical horizontal. Why? Because it's Toth.

A mysterious figure in a trench coat is driving around town, tossing drugged civilians into the back of his van and hauling them off to a deserted warehouse, where he deposits them into huge beakers. WTF? Turns out our perp is actually a good Samaritan alien who's come to Earth to save a handful of humans (and animals) from the upcoming nuclear war that will destroy mankind. After the radiation fades, the BEM will release the survivors and hope they do a better job in the future. We come to find out this is not the first world the grasshopper-creature has saved... and it won't be the last.

Though I thought "Ain't It Just Like the Night" (a superlatively dumb title) was more cliched Warren science fiction nonsense, I thought the Moenchmeister was a sly one when he shifted gears from obvious psycho-killer tale to Noah's Ark/ecology rant. Never saw that coming. The payoff panel, with the weeping insect-head man, didn't elicit the response I assume Doug was looking for. The opening captions, yet another stab by Doug at poetry, I think (Ain't it just like a dream that comes... only when you're blind... ain't it just like insanity to... do only what it thinks is right), made me stop reading a few times and consider another vocation.

With the help of his sister, Cloris, convicted axe-murderer Chester Loomis escapes the four walls of Hargrove Asylum. Cloris takes her brother home to her (incredibly) understanding husband to hide out, but the woman's real motives become clear when she buries a hatchet in hubby's head and calls the police. Chester has the last laugh, though, as he adds Cloris's corpse to the pile and escapes before the cops arrive.

One issue after "Shadow of the Axe" comes the lesser "The Axe-Man Cometh," which wears its pulp roots on its sleeve. It might not be fair to rip into a five-pager that has no script or story to speak of, but that final twist is pretty good. What's not good is the rough and ugly Galvez artwork, where every man looks the same (save a mustache or longer hair) and backgrounds are simply black or white.

Ever since his dearest Charlie sailed away in his patchwork balloon, Bernie sits in his prison and watches out the window, waiting for his friend to return. He finally does. Text-heavy and ponderous, "The Last Chronicle" seemingly exists for the sole reason its first chapter ("The Escape Chronicle" back in Creepy #75) existed: to win Warren Awards. Budd is endlessly satisfied with himself when he pumps out emotional dialogue like "(W)e built an escape machine! Oh God! Oh God, Charlie... Oh God! Didn't we?" In the end, I'm not sure why we needed a second chapter. Bernie seems to seesaw between "Charlie was the greatest thing to ever happen to me" and "Charlie ruined my life." Extra points to Charlie for landing the balloon on the roof of the mental institution with none being the wiser. From top to bottom this was one very boring, very disposable issue of Creepy.-Peter

Jack-I'm not sure which is worse--fewer long stories or more short stories, as we get in this tepid issue. Seven stories that range from five to eight pages in length mean that, when they aren't good, at least they're over quickly. And the stories aren't good this time around. I gave the highest marks to the Toth entry (of course), though it was nothing special and it was really annoying that it was printed sideways. I liked the art on "Benjamin Jones," but the last page makes no sense with Mom being fine in one panel and a corpse in another. I agree that Maroto's work has gone downhill and "Second Genesis" is weak sci-fi with an obvious payoff. Bea's art was too weird for me on the DuBay story, which featured another ending that was telegraphed in advance.

I assume the Moench tale was another file story; I've never been fond of Salvador's art, but the ending was a surprise. "The Axe-Man Cometh" had uneven art and a dopey ending; when I see Wessler as co-writer I figure the other writer had to try to make sense of whatever Carl turned in. Worst of all was "The Last Chronicle"; I had forgotten the earlier story and I wish I could forget this one--it's dull, talky, and pointless. I thought the Louise Jones era was supposed to be good! Not so far...

Bea

Eerie #75

"The Demons of Jeremiah Cold"★★★

Story by Bill DuBay

Art by Jose Ortiz

"The One Eyed Shall Be King!"★1/2

Story by Budd Lewis

Art by Leopold Sanchez

"Oogie and the Worm!"★1/2

Story by Bill DuBay

Art by Esteban Maroto

"Invasion"★1/2

Story and Art by Jose Bea

"Gillian Taxi and the Sky Pirates"★★

Story by Budd Lewis

Art by Luis Bermejo

Jedediah Pan rides in to the Old West town of Amity, where he enters a saloon and hears a group of men boasting about brutally murdering three young people by crucifying them and peeling the skin from their bodies. Disgusted, Pan decks their leader, a large Native American known as Red Fish, with one punch. A young man named Jeremiah Cold helps Dr. Perry Bottles remove the dead trio from their crosses and Bottles explains that they were all disabled in one way or another. Each lived in the remote, New Mexico town of Kalerville, where those with disabilities are welcomed.

That night, Red Fish and a friend take off from Amity in a biplane (it's1912), intent on machine-gunning the residents of Kalerville from the air. A bloodthirsty mob follows and Pan trails along at a distance to see what happens. When the mob reaches Kalerville, Cold and Bottles fight back, soon to be joined by Pan. Pan is Cold's estranged father and the two must put aside their differences to save the town's residents. Using their magic bracelets, they summon six demons, who quickly destroy the invaders. A brave leap onto the plane's strut by Cold causes it to crash into the side of a mountain. Kalerville is saved and a truce exists between father and son.

"The Demons of Jeremiah Cold" is an example of why I like Warren's longer stories and why I also like the continuing series. The opening of the story was disgusting, but gradually, over twelve pages, it began to make sense, and the end was satisfying. I had to look back at the earlier stories in the series to remind myself of who was who, but once I did I understood what was going on. Ortiz's art is so good that it always elevates any story it illustrates.

The caravan of circus freaks is passing through remote New Mexico when a wheel breaks on a rock. While the wagons are stopped, the freaks are approached by men in hoods and cloaks who demand that they submit to Kaler's judgment. They are brought before Kaler, a strange little bald man who lives inside a glass jar. He insists that the freaks mate with several women he has at hand in order to produce more deformed residents for Kalerville. No way, says Dramulo, who knocks over Kaler's jar, which breaks, killing him. The freaks head down into Kalerville, perhaps finding a home at last.

Any good feelings left behind from the first story are immediately wiped away by this mess, in which Budd Lewis reveals that the kind, accepting town of Kalerville is actually run by a guy from another dimension who is breeding deformed people for his supper. This story is just terrible, though the art is not half bad. The title, "The One Eyed Shall Be King," suggests that the freaks, with all of their problems, have more on the ball than the residents of Kalerville.

Somewhere in the vast reaches of the universe, the robot/computer named Oogie continues to have a man and a woman act out the space opera adventures of Buck Blaster and Thelma Starburst. When a Thelma Starburst spinoff becomes popular, the woman decides she wants liberation and domination, and she and Buck fly off toward Oogie to demand that she be made a god.

Nothing much happens in the ten (endless) pages of "Oogie and the Worm," and Maroto's art continues to underwhelm. DuBay seems to be spinning his wheels with this series and just filling pages. The attempts at humor fall flat.

What seem like tiny aliens discuss their "Invasion" of the human body. In the end, the aliens are revealed to be cancer cells.

This quick five-pager is reprinted from a full-color 1972 book called Dracula that was published by Warren (with a $5.00 price tag!). The book is available to read for free at the Internet Archive, and a comparison of the original pages with the reprint pages shows that the overall story is the same but many of the captions have been rewritten, for no particular reason I can see, and some of the panels have been laid out slightly differently. The punchline is the same. I cannot figure out why the alien from the last panel was used as this issue's cover, especially since they kept it small and surrounded it with vivid pink. It looks like the 1972 book was itself a reprint of a series of comics published in Spain with stories and art by Maroto, Bea, and others.

When Englishman Gillian Taxi invents what appears to be a big, flying teapot that runs on a fuel made from crushed rubies, he invites a couple of his pals over for a successful test drive and then opens a taxi company. The high price of a ticket dissuades most potential customers until an Indian prince arrives and pays for a passage to Pooten-Stan. On the way there, the flying teapot is hijacked by sky pirates, but some heroic work by Taxi saves the day.

I take back what I said about long stories. This one just goes on and on and never amounts to much. The art by Luis Bermejo reminds me of Alex Toth's work in spots, especially the way he draws character's faces, but this is a lot of rot, what ho!-Jack

Peter-I can't, for the life of me, figure out what's going on in "Jeremiah Cold," though I'm sure the whole thing is a lesson in the evils of prejudice. As usual, Bill DuBay's script is a whole bathtub full of doolally, but that goofiness translates into energy, which stimulates the kitsch side of my brain. The splash is about as graphic a concept as you'll see in funny books (gutted and crucified pre-teens is not something you'll see in The House of Mystery), but those graphics, I'm sorry to say, resemble the aftermath of a spilled barrel of entrails. I can't even begin to tell you what's happening on page 14.

I can't help but think that Budd Lewis was striving for some demonic version of Guardians of the Galaxy (or another of the lesser Avengers clones) with his "Freaks." I know my fingers keep typing the same sentences when it comes to the Lewis/DuBay dialogue in these things but, Kee-rist, no one, not even winged freaks, spout dopey lines like "I can't keep from wondering why I'm not normal, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, married with two kids and reading the paper at the breakfast table in a Boston brownstone!" My eyes are so tired from rolling.

"Oogie and the Worm" is an overlong mash-up of bad sci-fi and groan-inducing one-liners, easily the worst thing I read this month. "Invasion" is short and the climactic twist is pretty good, but I had the sneaking feeling that the captions didn't go with the pictures. At 16 pages, "Gillian Taxi" is entirely too long but at least it's a whimsical fantasy adventure in a sea of bad science fiction.

Eisner

The Spirit #14

"Dick Whittler" (7/23/50)

Story & Art by Will Eisner

"The Chase" (7/30/50)

Story by Jules Feiffer & Will Eisner

Art by Will Eisner

"Investigation" (8/6/50)

"Sammy and Delilah" (3/5/50)

Story & Art by Will Eisner

"A Day at the Zoo" (4/23/50)

Story by Jules Feiffer

Art by Jules Feiffer & Will Eisner

"Teacher's Pet!" (9/10/50)

Story & Art by Will Eisner

"The Hero" (5/13/51)

Story by Will Eisner & Jules Feiffer

Art by Klaus Nordling & Jim Dixon

"The Big Win" (10/1/50)

Story & Art by Will Eisner

"The First Man" (8/20/50)

Story by Jules Feiffer

Art by Will Eisner

Jack-A solid but not outstanding group of reprints fill this issue. With nine stories at seven pages each, there are 63 pages of comics included, quite a bit more than the 49 pages in Creepy and Eerie. Of course, these are reprints, but I think Eisner was doing touchups and revisions, so it's quite a bargain.

The first three stories make up one long narrative. "The Chase" is the strongest, with its great evocation of a seedy roadside diner where the flies outnumber the customers. The character of "Dick Whittler" is engaging and the first story has a nice cliffhanger ending. The third story, where all is explained, is a bit of a letdown, but Eisner sure can draw action scenes.

The next two stories are character studies where the Spirit barely appears. "Sammy and Delilah" is a clever parody where the temptress appeals to the boy's stomach rather than his lust (which is nonexistent), while "A Day at the Zoo!!" is most notable for Feiffer and Eisner's extraordinary skill at depicting rain on paper. "Teacher's Pet!" features the always-welcome P'Gell and the return of Dick Whittler, along with a funny bit where the Spirit masquerades as a college student to the delight of every co-ed in sight.

"The Hero" is drawn by Klaus Nordling and Jim Dixon, and their art is virtually indistinguishable from Eisner's. The last two stories are the weakest and "The First Man" seems to recycle a plot device we've seen before, with a nobody determined to be the first to pass through a new tunnel.

Peter-Overall, this is one of the lesser issues of The Spirit I've read, with a lot of humdrum scripts and forgettable supporting characters. I liked the goofiness of "A Day at the Zoo!!" but, of course, I was rooting for the lion. The art on the three-parter that opens the issue looks rushed, as if Eisner didn't have the time to complete the usual detailed backgrounds, moody splashes, and dark inks. Perhaps Jim Warren and Will Eisner had already mined all the classic material for the early issues.

Next Week...
Who is Nocturna?