The Warren Report Issue 35: April/May 1972

The Critical Guide to 

the Warren Illustrated Magazines

1964-1983

by Uncle Jack

& Cousin Peter

Sanjulian

Vampirella #16 (April 1972)

"...And Be a Bride of Chaos"★★1/2
Story by Archie Goodwin
Art by Jose Gonzalez

"Purification"★★
Story & Art by Nebot

"Gorilla My Dreams"★★1/2
Story by Gus St. Anthony
Art by Esteban Maroto

"Girl on the Red Asteroid"★
Story by Don Glut
Art by Bill DuBay

"Lover!"★★★
Story & Art by Pat Boyette

"Cilia"★★
Story by Nick Cuti
Art by Felix Mas

Vampirella joins Pendragon on a jet plane flying to perform at the European retreat of Count Mordante, who is resting in a coffin in the plane's rear compartment. Meanwhile, Adam Van Helsing recovers from his injuries while his father heads for Count Mordante's castle, having noticed that the note that sent Vampirella after Pendragon bears the seal of none other than Count Dracula! Pendragon and Vampirella settle in at the castle where, unbeknownst to them, various bigwigs from the Cult of Chaos have gathered to support Count Dracula/Mordante in his quest to choose the woman who will take part in a ceremony "... And Be a Bride of Chaos," the ancient god who once ruled the earth.

Pendragon and Vampirella perform for the guests and, when our heroine turns into a bat, Mordante has the room sealed and captures her with the intention of giving her to Chaos as a bride, much to the displeasure of a woman named Lucretia, who resembles Vampi and who had hoped for that honor herself. As he lugs Vampirella's unconscious form to an underground chamber, he regales his guests with the origin of Count Dracula. It seems our favorite count was originally from Drakulon, but was banished and ended up on Earth, where he lived through the centuries by taking on various guises.

Mordante straps Vampi to a table, as Dr. Van Helsing quietly arrives at the island where the castle is located. He finds Mordante's coffin and drives a stake into the Count, who yanks it out and reveals that Chaos protected him from this particular injury. Vampirella bursts upon the scene and rescues Van Helsing, telling Mordante that Lucretia was so anxious to wed Chaos that she replaced Vampi on the slab. Too bad for Lucretia--the sight of Chaos causes immediate death and the failure of the plan to supply the god with a bride removes the protection from Mordante, who quickly expires from the hole in his chest. Vampi, Pendragon, and Van Helsing leap into the water as the castle is destroyed by Chaos.

Archie packs a lot of plot into twenty pages here, yet the story is unsatisfying. There's too much Mordante/Dracula and not enough Vampirella. Dracula's origin is a stretch and his temporary immunity to a stake in the chest recalls some of the increasingly ridiculous Hammer Dracula films of the late '60s and early '70s, when just pounding a stake into the heart of the count was no longer sufficient to end his existence. Pendragon makes a nice companion for Vampi, since he is too old for any sexual tension and has a nicely self-deprecating sense of humor.

"Purification"

A beautiful young witch is grabbed by an angry mob, stripped, and tied to a stake for burning, but when the men see how sexy she is they rescue her and set fire to her accusers instead. A three-page strip that seems almost as light as an Aragones one-pager, "Purification" is good for a laugh but that's about it. Nebot's art recalls Wally Wood's somewhat, though it's more comedic and less technically masterful.

"Gorilla My Dreams"

Sailing back to England after exploring the Congo, Mark Evans is troubled by dreams in which he is attacked and killed by a giant gorilla. In the jungle, he was warned of the devil beast, Shagatha and, when a beautiful woman ran into camp pursued by gorillas, Mark fell hard for her. He and she make it back to London, only to have her reveal that she is the "Gorilla My Dreams"--Shagatha in disguise!

I would rate this one higher if the story weren't so transparent. Maroto's art continues to impress me, and I got a real Reed Crandall feeling from some of his panels here. Too bad the ending is a letdown.

Captain Rhodes is the only survivor when his space ship crashes on an asteroid. He thinks himself alone until he sees a surprising sight: a beautiful, naked girl hatching from a great big egg! He teaches her how to love a man but soon she grows into a giant, reptilian creature. He is unable to bring himself to shoot the "Girl on the Red Asteroid," who retains her gorgeous face and lush red tresses.

Just shoot her already!
("Girl on the Red Asteroid")

This issue of Vampirella is fast becoming a real disappointment, breaking a string of several high-quality issues that I had enjoyed. So far, Glut and DuBay's effort is the nadir: a poor story and worse art. Oddly enough, the depiction of the giant reptile on the splash page looks nothing like the one on the last page.

During the French Revolution, young Marquis Jean Rabat gets his kicks by dressing like a beggar and spending his time with the revolutionaries. He especially likes it when women are whipped as punishment. Using the name Mons. Mysterie, he starts killing women and follows his foul deeds with a bloodcurdling scream. Eventually, Rabat is guillotined, but even his severed head emits the horrible shriek!

Pat Boyette's "Lover!" doesn't make a whole lot of sense, seeing as how it starts at the dawn of the French Revolution and continues on (presumably) for a number of years until Napoleon is in power, but the sheer, baroque style of the artwork and page design won me over. Boyette follows predecessors Gene Colan and Jerry Grandenetti in using creative panel sizes and shapes and manages to keep the narrative flowing without too much confusion.

In 1872, the freighter Davey Jones is lost at sea and the only two survivors are cast adrift on a raft. When they finally make it ashore, Captain Spike sets off for England with a mysterious and beautiful companion named "Cilia." The local fishermen become suspicious of Cilia, who only eats fish and who needs to return to the ocean for a dip every so often. They knock the captain out and grab the gal. The captain later explains to the other survivor, Zackery, that Cilia is a cilophyte, a human-octopus hybrid whose top half is hot babe and whose bottom half is all tentacles. She saved Zackery's life on the raft and Spike fell hard for her. The local fisherman leave her near death and, when she begs Spike to finish the job, he does so with a harpoon. The villainous fishermen are later done away with by vengeful members of Cilia's family who lack the human half.

Nick Cuti's haunting story meshes well with Felix Mas's Ernie Colonesque art to make an enjoyable fable. Nothing special, but not a bad end to a weak issue of Vampirella.-Jack

Peter-Aside from the Vampi story and Pat Boyette's unnerving art, this issue is one big smelly pile of nonsense, which is odd since the other two titles we look at this week are above-average. With all the typos riddled through the text, I'm surprised the letterer didn't "accidentally" mis-title the Nebot entry, "PuTrification." Nebot may have had his fans (the same who haunted the comic shops for the latest issue of Elfquest), but I ain't one of them. I like my horror comics to be a little less... sparkly. "Gorilla My Dreams" may be proof that Forry Ackerman liked to sneak into the Warren funny book division now and then and put in his two cents. What an awful story and, again, plagued by typos in the worst places possible (Behind every superstition there is a seed of thruth) and the most utterances of the exclamation "My God!" ever used in one story. But, hey, what a twist, right?

"Lover!"

I thought "Girl on the Red Asteroid" and "Cilia" were both pretty dumb (even though the cover screams that "Cilia" is "one of the most beautiful horror stories ever told!"), but Felix Mas still contributes some solid graphics. The script for "Lover!" is a bit standard, but Pat Boyette more than makes up for his shortcomings as a writer with his freakish visuals. Boyette seems to see a world that holds no beauty (other than the one pretty maiden who meets the business end of a whip), and every man is missing an eye or layers of skin.

Then there's the main attraction, "...And Be a Bride of Chaos," which seems to be one of the most popular entries in the Vampirella saga, but I find it to be the weakest of Archie's. Lots of logic problems and a meandering plot. I do like that Archie found a way to tie the Vampirella/Dracula saga into his "Coffin of Dracula" two-parter, but this is his swan-song. I can't say I'm optimistic about the future, given the identity of the writer who now holds the reins.

Kelly

Eerie #39 (April 1972)

"Head Shop"★★
Story by Don Glut
Art by Jose Bea

"Just Passing Through"★1/2
Story by Steve Skeates
Art by Rafael Auraleon

"The Disenfranchised"★★★★
Story by J.R. Cochran
Art by Tom Sutton

"Dax the Warrior"★★1/2
Story & Art by Esteban Maroto

"Yesterday is the Day Before Tomorrow"★★
Story by Doug Moench
Art by Dave Cockrum

"Ortaa!"★★★
Story by Kevin Pagan
Art by Jaime Brocal

"Head Shop"

Every day on his way to work, Christopher Ducey walks past a haberdashery that displays hats in its window. One of the hats is perched atop a very realistic head and Chris begins to become obsessed. Noticing that the head is gradually rotting, he works up the courage to go into the store one day and point this out to the proprietor. "You're right!" says he, and chops Chris's head off to replace the one rotting in the window.

When I see a story by Don Glut in a Warren mag, my expectations are low, so anything resembling entertainment surprises me. "Head Shop" features passable art by Jose Bea, who delivers a suitably creepy rotting head in a few stages of decay. This is enough to make six pages not seem overly long. The title's double meaning is cute.

"Just Passing Through"

A young man notices that his clothes don't fit and fears he's shrinking. His mother tells him about his father, who appeared one day as a giant and steadily shrank till he disappeared. One night, when he was normal size, he impregnated a woman he met at a bar. The next morning, he told her he was leaving and that, one day, another man would leave her. It turns out she's the mother of the young man who's now shrinking.

Steve Skeates does Don Glut one better with "Just Passing Through," a story that meanders along for seven pages and then just ends without a real conclusion. Auraleon's art is very nice, but this is not a story--it's a memo.

Harold walks the cold city streets alone, always grinning. He thinks back to how he became "The Disenfranchised." It began when he was a boy, helping out in his father's butcher shop; the neighborhood was razed as part of slum clearance and Harold's father lost his shop, then his apartment, then his life. Now Harold wanders the streets alone, meat cleaver in hand, looking for revenge. He kills a junkie who tries to rob him and he finds shelter with the other poor souls who wander the city streets. Finally, when a city inspector tries to convince him to come to a shelter, Harold snaps and cuts the man to pieces.

Peter has plenty to say about this story, so I'll just note Sutton's chilling art and leave the rest to him.

"Dax the Warrior"

"Dax the Warrior" is returning home from battle when he meets Freya, a super-sexy naked woman who falls for him in the blink of an eye. They frolic happily together until she is snatched away by a flying dragon. Dax gives chase and enters a realm of darkness, ignoring doom-laden warnings from a hooded man. He finds Freya and heads back into the light, but the hooded man points out that if he kisses her, he'll spread leprosy over the earth.

Dax was a Maroto character who had premiered in Spain the year before. In this initial installment, he's basically another Conan, all muscle and never failing. Maroto's artwork is excellent, but the writing is a bit florid for my taste. For example, take this sentence: "I will rip forth your hell spawned entrails, God-forbidden beast!" The GCD puts a question mark next to the writing credit, pointing out the possibility that the original Spanish was translated by someone other than Maroto.

In the 25th century, a thief named Andros Palmer is tired of small-time heists and dreams of one big score that will set him up for life. He murders a scientist who has just invented a time machine and Andros travels 30 years into the future, where he reasons that he can steal the blueprints for new inventions, go back to his own time, and strike it rich. Andros murders a scientist named Gral Tharkos and returns to 2642, where plastic surgery and a new name lead to the realization that he is now Gral Tharkos, destined to be killed by himself three decades' hence.

"Yesterday is the Day Before Tomorrow"

Doug Moench trots out an old science fiction trope and gets confused about how centuries work (2642 is not the 25th century), but more early work from Dave Cockrum makes the confusingly-titled "Yesterday is the Day Before Tomorrow" more enjoyable than it should be. Knowing what Cockrum would do in a few years at Marvel makes it fun to see him develop as an artist at Warren.

"Ortaa!"

On an expedition to the American Southwest to prove that the Aztec race originated there, Adam is haunted by nightmares in which he is an Aztec named Chlan who is sacrificed on an altar and whose heart is cut out by a priest. Seeming possessed, Adam hits a rock with a pickax and a door opens to the old Aztec altar site. In his nightmares, Adam's heart turned into a giant serpent that attacked the priest and drove the people south to Mexico. In the present, he ventures into the cave and again confronts the serpent/monster that grew from his heart. He kills it and saves his fellows, but the effort results in his own death by cardiac arrest.

Adam helpfully tells us that the story's title, "Ortaa!" is the serpent's name and also an anagram for aorta. The story is fairly entertaining and it is helped immensely by Jaime Brocal's art. As is typical in a Warren story, there is a beautiful gal on the expedition and she manages to brighten up the panels.-Jack

"The Disenfranchised"

Peter-"The Disenfranchised" is my favorite Warren story of all time. I realize I have several years of extraordinary material to sift through (well, actually, the pessimist nudges my optimist and insists that, no, I really don't), but I've read all these stories before and this is the one that has stayed with me the longest. I've written pieces on it for magazines and blogs and I've read the damn thing dozens of times and yet I still find it as creepy as the first time I read it nearly fifty years ago. It scared me as a kid like no other comic story would and it still gives me the willies. Writer Cochran tapped into the phobia that America was going through in the early '70s (and goes through to this day): the downsizing of Mom-And-Pop stores and the corporate takeover of the U.S. When the “little market down the street” closed up, it took America’s values with it, leaving behind unemployment and ghettos. Ironically, I first bought Eerie #39 in 1972 at a soda fountain (Pronto Pup on Lincoln Avenue in San Jose, California). That shop’s a Starbuck’s now. Ken Kelly's cover is pretty cool, but it in no way prepares you for Tom Sutton's vision of Harold, the poor, put-upon butcher's son who now roams the streets for a different kind of meat. This is Sutton at his apex; the two-page, 11-panel sequence leading up to Harold's big CHOK! is a virtual guide to building suspense and then releasing tension.

The conclusion of "The Disenfranchised"

In the letters page for Eerie #41, Don Glut says "Head Shop" was inspired by a walk past a Hollywood wig store. "The wigs were displayed in the window on wooden heads. I stopped and did a double take. One of the display heads looked exactly like someone I knew!" More likely, Don got his inspiration from a matinee screening of Amicus's anthology film, The House That Dripped Blood (1971). In the "Waxworks" segment, Philip Grayson (Peter Cushing) becomes obsessed with a wax museum dummy that looks like his dead partner. Turns out the proprietor covered his dead wife's body in wax and uses fresh-cut noggins from the men who become obsessed with the dummy. Guess whose head is next? "Waxworks" ends with a sequence very similar to the final panels of "Head Shop." Now, don't get me wrong, I still love the story (it's Glut's best for Warren, regardless of its origin); it's a nasty piece of work that almost begs the question: why the hell would someone go to the trouble of hacking off a man's head to display hats? Aren't those plastic dummy domes pretty cheap? Bea's disintegrating head (especially the last two phases) is the stuff of nightmares for a ten-year-old.

I'm not sure what the hell Steve Skeates is trying to say with "Just Passing Through," but the least Jim Warren could have done is give his writer enough space to finish the damn thing! Seriously, I'd love to hear the story behind this story. "Dax the Warrior," of course, is groundbreaking territory for Warren. Though the company had run a few continuing characters (who here remembers Thane the Barbarian? Me neither), those would run a couple of chapters and that's all. The popularity of "Dax" paved the way for the (eventual) serialization of Eerie (for better or for worse). "Dax" is a dynamite strip visually, with word balloons and captions added here and there for no apparent reason other than to muck up our view of the Maroto art, but even the prose works for the most part. It's a great launch to what would become one of Warren's best series. Aside from the title, Doug Moench lays off the pretension with "Yesterday is the Day Before Tomorrow." That doesn't mean it's anything but a standard SF tale with a standard EC climax. "Ortaa!" is a bit better thanks to Jaime Brocal's art. The climax is pretty dumb. -Peter

Enrich Torres

Creepy #45 (May 1972)

"What Rough Beast" ★★1/2
Story by Jan Strnad
Art by Frank Brunner

"Targos" ★
Story by Jack Katz
Art by Jack Katz & Nebot

"And Horror Crawls... from Out of the Sea!" ★★★1/2
Story by Kevin Pagan
Art by Tom Sutton

"For the Sake of Your Children!" ★★★
Story by E. A. Fedory
Art by Jaime Brocal

"Dungeons of the Soul" ★
Story by T. Casey Brennan
Art by Felix Mas

"The Picture of Death" ★★1/2
Story & Art by Jose Bea

Sometime in the future, a giant beast terrorizes a high-rise complex while a woman named Ginny sits on a couch, cradling her baby. Enter Ginny's ex, Michael, who cut out after Ginny found out she was pregnant. Now, Michael has returned, assuring Ginny he's grown up a bit and can handle the situation. It's not that simple, explains Ginny, and she tells him the story of how she became pregnant. Exploring "the lowest levels of the city," Ginny was raped by a giant beast known as the Demogorgon (or maybe it's the Demogorgan, depending on which page you're reading) and their child is the result. As evidence, Ginny pulls back the child's blanket, revealing two little horns atop its otherwise cutely demonic head. At that moment, the child's real pop comes crashing through the window, grabs its kid, and exits stage left.

"What Rough Beast"

"What Rough Beast" is not a bad story, it's just not much of a story. The future tense is random as, aside from a guy in a spacesuit in the intro, there are no futuristic trappings or "inventions" or the like (in fact, Michael wears one of those neato gold chain/medallion combos that went out of fashion soon after the release of Earth Wind and Fire's Greatest Hits), so why the extra effort? Is the Demogorgo(a)n a punishment for our sins, pollution, nuclear war, reality TV? The old man who warns Ginny of the Beast seems a good outlet for Jan Strnad to explain away his demon's existence but perhaps it's better off we don't get some kind of early-1970s pretentious jive. Frank Brunner's art is gorgeous, but that's a given; it's also the last we'll see of him around here as he's off to begin his historic run on Doctor Strange (in Marvel Premiere).

Targos is confident that, when his barbarian days
are over, he can find a job on The Golden Girls

"Targos" is yet another stab at the unreachable: a readable Warren fantasy tale. This one sees Targos of Goofynamia, he of the bouffant, embarking on a quest to free Kirke, loveliest goddess of Sillimoniker, from the chains of father Kronis. Along the way, he battles child-killers of Cholkis and the fierce sea beasts known as Ganoids before defeating the evil (but simply gorgeous) Queen Cybele and returning to his little beach girl, Kirke. Yet another grand fantasy from the brain of Jack Katz, whose The First Kingdom "graphic novel" would be published by Comics & Comix beginning the following year. There's nothing resembling originality here (other than the goofy names), but perhaps visuals by Wally Wood might make it "lookable" (if not readable). As it is, the Katz/Nebot style (lots and lots of white space) does not exactly beg for postering. Targos himself is an obvious Ka-Zar swipe.

"And Horror Crawls... from Out of the Sea!"

A giant blob rises from the depths of the sea and, one by one, absorbs and kills two couples partying on a beach. There's not much more to "And Horror Crawls... from Out of the Sea," but what you get is a hell of a lot of derivative fun. Take one part "Who Goes There," a heaping portion of Theodore Sturgeon's "It," and maybe a slight sprinkling of the old sleaze classic, The Flesh Eaters, and you have some idea of what writer Kevin Pagan was trying to accomplish (you even get the requisite "coincidental explanation of what's going on before it even happens," via the convenient chemist on the beach). But let's not beat around the bush; assign Grandenetti, Cockrum, Maroto, or even Corben, and this doesn't work nearly as well. Sutton's Lovecraftian tentacled blob, rotting carcasses, and even bikini'd babes are stellar visual delights, and we know that no other artist in the '70s did cosmic (and deep, deep sea) horror like Tom.

"For the Sake of Your Children!"

Feared by the peasants of the village, Baron von Norda has free reign to tax and terrorize, but now blood-drained corpses are stacking up like cords of wood and the villagers have had enough. They fire up their torches and storm von Norda's castle, driving a stake in his heart. Buoyed by their relatively easy conquest, the troops then go in the cellar to have a look, and they unwittingly unleash hundreds of vampires, locked up for years and fed by von Norda. The townsfolk return to their wives as hungry vampires. I had a hard time following the script for "For the Sake of Your Children!" as it's adjective-heavy and (choke!) poetic in quite a few spots. Take this passage, for instance, which opens the festivities:

The Vienna woods... weird... majestic... dark with foreboding secrets... riddled with ancient hermetic mysteries... hoary with the dust of countless ages!!! Fresh morning mist lies not within for centuries ago it was ripped asunder by a pall of malevolence that choked the dryad-carpet of ferns, and wrought finality to the divine nuptials of nature!! Of kindred nature, it dwells more within the cloak of night... more beneath the cerements of evil, an unholy place the Earth-mother could never suckle!!!

Huh? By the second act, I really wasn't sure I could read between the bold adjectives and muster a cohesive narrative but, by the climax, I was back on sure footing, despite the flowery verbiage. Well, except for the part about von Norda's parents... I'm still closing one eye and looking to the heavens on that one. Jaime Brocal turns in his best work yet; these vampires are savage but the villagers may just be more savage.

"Dungeons of the Soul"

Modrius keeps a man in an iron mask captive in his cellar until Modrius's lady love, Adrianne, inadvertently frees the prisoner from the "Dungeons of the Soul"! Eventually, the masked man and Modrius square off with swords, but Modrius finds he cannot slay his prisoner. After a very touching monologue ("How many times must our trust be betrayed, before we learn not to trust? How many times must our love be rejected before we learn not to love? How many roads must a man walk down..."), the stranger is unmasked and, surprise surprise surprise, we discover he's the good half of Modrius, waiting for the love of Adrianne to set him free!

As a way to lessen the pain I knew would be inherent upon reading another T. Casey Brennan script, I decided to play a game. I would down a shot of whiskey every time Brennan included an abstract and mystical bit of dialogue. Unfortunately, by the second page I was so (expletive deleted) drunk, I had to begin again the next day. Needless to say, it took me two weeks to read "Dungeons of the Soul" but, oh boy, I had a good time doing it. So many TCB nuggets in this one, but I'll focus on one (as, mercifully for you readers, we don't have the space for all of 'em), when Modrius muses out loud about the exquisite Adrianne:

"I have long been set free from the agonies that sensitivity and gentleness bring! Should I wear my heart on my sleeve, as a target? Should I offer my soul in a drinking cup to all those who would have it? How vulnerable we are in our days of honesty, when we seek to show the love in our unstained souls to a world that wants no part of such things! And how secure we are when we at last surrender, to conceal ourselves within our walls of bone and flesh!"

And who saw that twist climax coming? Raise your hands. No, you didn't!

"The Picture of Death"

In 1750, traveler Herbert Wilson stops at a small pub to stay the night. The drunken patrons warn Wilson not to stay in the room he's offered by the tavern's owner. It's haunted, they say, haunted by a very strange painting on the wall. No one who has stayed in the room was ever seen again. Herbert takes the room anyway and enters, noting the grotesque canvas depicting several ghoulish creatures and hanging on the wall but tabling any alarm until he's rested. But something about the picture nags at the man and he finds himself falling asleep while gazing upon its creepy subject. While Herbert slumbers, the painting's subjects crawl down from within the canvas and pull the terrified man back in with them. Herbert learns that the creatures are actually the lodgers who spent the night in the room and disappeared, trapped inside the nightmarish landscape within. Now, Herbert becomes part of the picture. The story has some logic problems (the tavern mistress seems to be on the up-and-up, so why would she keep renting out this room if it's an abyss?), but its atmosphere of dread (very similar to Poe and Lovecraft) won me over, as did Jose Bea's near-perfect visuals. A little bit of editing (we didn't need to see the chase through the other dimension) and this would have been so much better.

You tell 'em, Don!

Though the tone of the issue's stories is somber, the letters page is full of hilarity. Don McGregor defends his "werewolfry as prejudice" sermon back in #43 known as "The Men Who Called Him Monster." Big Donny Mac allows how he figured there'd be "voices raised in denunciation," but for those of you "who wished (character) Richards had been more of a solid stone cat, all I can tell you, Dude, is that there are only so many things you can do in a 14-page story." The whole diatribe is reprinted to your right, but I'll just remind Mac that perhaps he should leave the deep messages to the Coca-Cola commercial folks and just write a good monster story. Another writer asks if Garcia patterned Richards after actor Sidney Poitier, to which Uncle Creepy answers, "Not really... Richards was described to the artist as "black, in his late twenties and... like one of those classic Dashiell Hammett-school types..." Evidently, Garcia's translator broke it down to Luis in a different fashion.

A reader notes in the letters column of #47 that the cover, by Enrich, looks like it was based on a movie photo. Sure looks like the artist might have got some inspiration from that "Dwight Frye as Renfield" still that popped up every few months in Famous Monsters. I like the new "Coming Attractions" feature on the inside back cover and I'll be monitoring the page for any stories that never showed (there was one if I recall correctly that took years to surface).-Peter

Jack-Big changes at Creepy with the May 1972 issue! The page count jumps from 68 to 76 and the price jumps from 60 cents to 75 cents. Billy Graham is no longer managing editor; in fact, his name is nowhere to be found and now J.R. Cochran is listed as associate editor instead. Three stories stood out for me. The first was the Pagan/Sutton effort, "And Horror Crawls... from Out of the Sea!" Sutton's poses can be awkward at times, and I don't think his art is as good here as it was in last month's Eerie, but for the most part this is a decent horror tale with a satisfying finish. I also enjoyed "For the Sake of Your Children!" but, like Peter, I found it confusing in spots. The first page has a half-page panel that is a real winner and Brocal goes overboard in his gruesome depictions of staking, decapitation, and general mayhem, much as Sutton did in Peter's favorite story above. Overall, it's a Gothic romp.

My third favorite, and perhaps Creepy-est of all, was Brocal's Bosch-influenced "The Picture of Death." His art in the pages that are supposed to depict regular people is weird enough, but the sequence when the creatures start coming out of the paining was most effective. The other three stories were all average. I liked the use of the famous Yeats poem in "What Rough Beast" and Brunner's richly atmospheric art is pleasant, but I don't think his work is as good as that of Gonzalez, Maroto, or Brocal. Still, the art elevates a story that is poorly thought out. "Targos" is ten pages long but seemed like twenty--the line drawings are jarring coming right after Brunner's rich shadows. Here's an example of Katz's prose: "Give up the amulet of power or my sword will taste your soft body." 'Nuff said. Finally, there's our pal T. Casey and "Dungeons of the Soul." It starts out much too wordy but the verbosity calms down and it just becomes obvious, since we all know who the man in the iron mask is long before he stops socially distancing himself. The conclusion is surprisingly schmaltzy for a Warren mag.

From Vampirella 16

From Vampirella 16

From Creepy #45

Next Week...
An early Christmas present
courtesy of Frank Miller!

The Warren Report Issue 34: February/March 1972

The Critical Guide to 

the Warren Illustrated Magazines

1964-1983

by Uncle Jack

& Cousin Peter

Ken Kelly

Eerie #38 (February 1972)

"Stake in the Game"★★
Story by Doug Moench
Art by Jose Gual

"The Carrier of the Serpent"★★
Story by T. Casey Brennan
Art by Jerry Grandenetti

"A Stranger in Hell"★★1/2
Story by T. Casey Brennan
Art by Esteban Maroto

"The Night the Snow Spilled Blood!"★★
Story by Don McGregor
Art by Tom Sutton

Photographer John Edwards has the rather odd assignment of doing a study in pictures of the blood bank manned by Drs. Sarno and Hauser. Rumors of missing blood turn out to be due to the fact that Hauser is a lazy vampire who likes to chug from a bottle of plasma when Sarno heads to the cafeteria for his nocturnal coffee break. After photographing his model/girlfriend Pam the next day, Edwards makes a startling discovery: Dr. Hauser does not show up in the photo he develops! The photographer puts two and two together and deduces that the doctor is a vampire; he then comes up with a nutty plan to pour some silver nitrate into a bottle of plasma and kill the bloodsucker by tricking him into drinking the fatal and precious metal.

Jose Gual must not have read the script carefully,
because that hair is nowhere near that bosom.

Back at the blood bank, Sarno observes Edwards pouring the silver nitrate into the bottle and realizes what's going on so, being a nasty vampire, he hotfoots it over to Pam's apartment and puts the bite on the beautiful blonde, who is surprised to realize that she enjoys the experience. Edwards is soon awakened by a telephone call telling him that Pam is at the hospital undergoing a blood transfusion. He races to her side but--wouldn't you know it?--they happened to infuse the bottle of plasma mixed with silver nitrate, killing the patient.

The final battle recalls a similar scene in Horror of Dracula.

Edwards goes to Hauser's home, hoping to stake the vampire, but finds him gone, so the photographer decides to wait at home, armed with a stake, garlic, a cross, etc. Sarno eventually shows up and a battle is waged, with Edwards snatching victory from the jaws of defeat by means of a hastily-made stake through the heart. Later, when the authorities don't believe his story, Edwards visits Sarno at the blood bank to tell him about Hauser, only to learn that Sarno is a vampire, too!

"Stake in the Game" is one of the longest stories we've read so far in the Warren mags. At 21 pages, it rivals some of Vampirella's recent epic adventures. Unfortunately, Doug Moench's script, while reasonably entertaining and a fairly breezy read, drags every last vampire cliche out into the daylight and doesn't do very much new with any of them. Jose Gual's artwork matches Moench's storytelling: it's good enough to avoid mockery but not good enough to be remarkable. The story has the odd distinction of being split in two parts; the first ten pages lead off the issue and the last eleven pages finish it. I was wavering between two and two and a half stars until the epilogue, which caused a half star to be deducted due to the completely unnecessary revelation that the other doctor was also a vampire.

Clad only in a loincloth, a musclebound gent by the name of Thogar sets off along the road called Agarra-Zin to visit his beloved in the land of Ra-Noon. After Thogar is beaten and left for dead, he is nearly eaten by a huge serpent. When the snake sees that Thogar is alive, he proposes a deal: if Thogar becomes "The Carrier of the Serpent" all the way to Ra-Noon, the serpent will scare off any more bad guys. Thogar accepts and soon discovers the seeming wisdom of the snake's plan. However, Thogar begins to be troubled by some of the acts the snake encourages him to carry out: he kills a gentle beast for food and robs and kills a kindly old man.

Thogar sees his own reflection in a pool of water and notices a change in his appearance. As he and the serpent approach Ra-Noon, all whom they meet flee at the sight of them. Thogar parts company with the snake and enters the home of his beloved, but she is repelled by the sight of him and he attacks her. Rejoining the snake, Thogar learns that "he who carries a serpent becomes a serpent."

T. Casey Brennan's morality play did not look promising at first, what with the hyphenated names and the preachy tone. I was also not expecting to like Grandenetti's art, especially based on the murky early pages. But, against my better judgment, I somewhat enjoyed this story, which tells of the dangers of compromising one's principles for expediency. As with the Moench story that precedes it, there's nothing particularly spectacular or surprising, but it is a decent read and Grandenetti's unusual page designs can be eye-catching.

"A Stranger in Hell"

A man throws himself in front of a speeding train but does not die. A mysterious, beautiful, scantily-clad woman appears and offers to give him death if he accompanies her. Claiming she is the messenger of death, she points him to the sewers but, though he descends among the hungry rats, he still fails to expire. On they proceed until he meets Death himself, whose son Thanatos attacks the man with a hatchet, yet he lives on. Death explains to the man that he is "A Stranger in Hell," doomed to live on endlessly for the amusement of Death.

I really have no idea what the heck T. Casey Brennan was getting at here, but Esteban Maroto sure can draw. In my little logbook, I rated this story one star for the writing and four for the art. Maroto's depictions of Death and his minions are stunning. Too bad the prose gets in the way.

It's Christmas Eve 1976 and the carolers are on the city streets, but Anthony Crane's mission to kill Wendell Bourque is not dimmed by the spirit of the season. Crane goes to Bourque's apartment and murders the man, who was his wife's lover, but the act gives him no peace; as soon as Crane walks outside, he begins to find himself covered in a familiar red liquid. On "The Night the Snow Spilled Blood!" it is Wendell Crane who suffers the torment of the damned.

"The Night the Snow Spilled Blood!"

Blood everywhere! Like a modern-day "Tell-Tale Heart," Crane is tormented by the sight of blood wherever he goes. Meanwhile, his wife Claire discovers the corpse of her lover and calls the cops, who respond to the scene. They bring Claire home and, when Wendell arrives, he opens fire on the police and they return a hail of bullets. A chase ensues and Crane is captured, only to sit in the back of the police car and hear a report on the radio that the attempt to manufacture snow for the holiday went horribly wrong and resulted in a bloody snowfall.

Well, this was a preachy issue of Eerie, wasn't it? Don McGregor follows Doug Moench and T. Casey Brennan with a tale that has bits and pieces of Eisner and Poe, all mixed up with a heaping helping of late-Vietnam War angst and cynicism. Tom Sutton has been absent too often in the pages of Warren lately, so it's great to see him back again and, at twelve-page length, there's plenty of fine, black-heavy art to enjoy. I wasn't that impressed by the tale until the ending, which took me by surprise. Bloody snow falling from the heavens explains why Crane saw everything covered in the red stuff, but it hardly explains why the carolers resemble ghouls!-Jack

Peter-Doug Moench abandons politics and racism for vampires and... Doug probably should have stuck to the other stuff. My first thought after finishing "Stake in the Game" is who thought it was a good idea to hand over 21 pages to a bad vampire script? Comparisons to The Night Stalker would seem obvious but, to be fair, the movie wasn't aired until just after this issue hit the stands, so it's just coincidence. "The Carrier of the Serpent" is another weak sword and sorcery tale; never mind it's written by my least favorite Warren scribe. Brennan tries to throw in a deep proverb at the end ("He who carries a serpent becomes a serpent"--very deep), but this is just fantasy trash indistinguishable from the stuff Gardner Fox keeps pumping out. "Serpent" is not among Jerry Grandenetti's best work, but there are flashes of Good Jerry here and there (like when he uses the snake to border the action).

I didn't hate "A Stranger in Hell"; in fact, I spotted glimpses of good writing buried under the usual pomposity of TCB's sermonizing. The moral, that Death is the greatest gift to man, actually makes some sense once you sit down, after rolling a few fat ones, and get lit. Easily, Brennan's most successful script yet but, yep, that's a sideways compliment. Then there's Maroto, who floors me every time he puts pencil to paper. Yes, a lot of Esteban's work has that posed look to it (the whole "gorgeous babe reclining with her ass in the air while looking over her shoulder" thing that Warren excelled at in the '70s), but it's so visually stunning. "How does he come up with this stuff?" I says to myself. It's a perfect warm-up for what Maroto is about to do next issue with a certain warrior named Dax.

Overlong and over-written, "The Night the Snow Spilled Blood!" still wins best of issue thanks entirely to the skills of Tom Sutton (who's actually only warming up to what I consider the apex next issue). The story is a meandering, bloated mess with McGregor's usual eco-friendly dialogue and convoluted events. The discussion between the two detectives in the car is equal parts pretentious and ludicrous, with the cops transforming the Charlie Brown Christmas Special into Freud ("It's the atmosphere. The small, vulnerable voice in the huge amphitheatre.") in one frame and then stumbling over the word "symbolic" in the next. But Sutton's stark, at times almost noir, visual style elevates Crane's madness from silly to disturbing.

Vincente Segrelles

Creepy #44 (March 1972)

"With Silver Bells, Cockle Shells And..." ★★★
Story by F. Paul Wilson
Art by Irv Docktor

"Something to Remember Me By!!" ★★★1/2
Story and Art by Tom Sutton

"A Certain Innocence" ★
Story by Steve Skeates
Art by Nebot

"The Last Days of Hans Bruder" ★
Story by T. Casey Brennan
Art by Frank Bolle

"Like a Phone Booth, Long and Narrow" ★★★★
Story by Jan Strnad
Art by Jose Bea

"The Ultimate High!" ★★★
Story by Steve Skeates
Art by Martin Salvador

"Dorian Gray: 2001" ★1/2
Story by Al Hewetson
Art by Bill Barry

"Sleep" ★★
Story by Kevin Pagan
Art by Mike Ploog

"With Silver Bells, Cockle Shells And..."

Creepy #44 sees a raise in the rent by fifteen cents but we get eight more pages for that extra coin. Even better, we seem to have received better content. Creepy's sister pubs will follow suit (in size, if not in quality) soon.

Ex-con Bill Carey is looking for the next big score, but the heat is on in the form of cop Kevin Mathis, who's itching to put Carey back in stir. Seems Carey got a very light sentence on a murder rap and that didn't sit well with the detective. Carey stumbles into a bar and meets Professor Storch, an old man who can't hold his liquor and who catches Carey's attention with his boasts of grandeur.

"With Silver Bells, Cockle Shells And"

Carey invites the old man to his house, but when the Prof. won't show him the green, the bad guy belts him with a bottle, accidentally killing him. Carey turns out the old man's pockets but all he finds is a packet of seeds. He buries Storch in the back yard with his seeds and hits the sack. The next morning, Detective Mathis shows up at the door, explaining that Storch is missing and was last seen in the bar with Carey. Seems the Professor was a botanist working on "a new seed that copies the genetic code from the wastes of other plants." Plant the seed with an old corn husk and up pops corn. Carey insists that he never met Storch and the cop can look around as much as he likes. Meanwhile, in the garden, Storch-head plants are popping up everywhere.

"Something to Remember Me By!!"

Definitely a case of style over substance, "With Silver Bells, Cockle Shells And..." doesn't have much of a story and too much of it is contrived (how quickly that cop shows up at Carey's door the next morning!), but Irv Doktor's art (delivered, according to the letters page, in "black and white oils") is stark and almost unsettling. That final panel, in different hands (let's say, Jack Sparling, for instance), would elicit guffaws rather than gooseflesh. This was F. Paul Wilson's second and final Warren contribution and, to me, it has the feel of a good episode of Night Gallery.

Paul Hardwick, eldest of the cursed Hardwick clan, is absolutely certain his wife Helene means to dispatch him with black magic. Several of his ancestors died strange deaths (burned alive, chopped into tiny pieces, eaten away in minutes by plague, all in front of a live audience), and he's paranoid Helene has consulted some of his occult tomes for a recipe. Helene has taken a lover and she's well aware of Paul's fears, so she goads him, telling him she's taken a lock of hair and placed it in his mother's antique locket for safe keeping.

"Something to Remember Me By!!"

One night, while traipsing through the family cemetery, Paul stumbles across a gravestone, etched with his name and that day's date. Two ghosts surround him, beckoning him to join them, and he keels over, dead of a heart attack. Helene and her beau, Clint, doff their costumes, bury Paul in his new home, and celebrate their new wealth. While drinking it up, Clint peruses the black magic book Helene took her instructions from and notes that the lock of hair must be buried with the dead or "the victim will return to recover it." A loud bang and shadow at the door turn out to be a tree branch in the wind but it successfully unnerves Helene and she talks Clint into going with her to bury the locket with Paul.

They open the coffin to find the rotting corpse reaching out to them and don't notice when lightning strikes Paul's tombstone. The marker crushes both of them and all three die happily ever after. There are inconsistencies and silliness to be sure (it's noted that Paul's doomed ancestors had "pieces" such as fingernails or a scrap of skin missing from their dead bodies even though they were burned, chopped, and rotten--tough to find evidence of that even with the high level of CSI they had in the 18th century!) but this is a Tom Sutton love fest for me. There were times when it seemed like Sutton was involved in the scripts he was given to illustrate and... times when he wasn't. "Something to Remember Me By!!" is clearly in the "involved" category. All the supporting props (the gnarled trees, the graveyard, the house which seems to have been built on the side of a crooked hill, etc.) are atmospheric and chilling; Paul's desiccated corpse (which somehow rotted down to the bone in a matter of hours!), with its upthrust hand, is a Sutton masterpiece. I'm not sure why Warren didn't just reproduce the panel rather than pay Segrelles to trace it.

"A Certain Innocence"

A rock band, The Screaming Turkeys, "hides" a "secret message" on their album cover (visible only under a black light) that triggers a transformation in sexually active teenagers, turning them into giant, tusked beasts who seek out and kill other sexually active teenagers. The "secret message" becomes the new rage. Steve Skeates, doubtlessly searching for a good idea one day at the Warren offices, looks over at T. Casey Brennan's desk and sees his 1971 Warren Bowling Trophy for whatever gawdawful story he wrote that year and figures, "Hey, I can write a story just as muddled!," and then does so.

There's so much wrong with "A Certain Innocence." First, the script seems... a bit sketchy and meandering. Skeates wants to satirize the music industry with his phony band names (The Automatic Snails, The Dog-Eared Pigeons, etc.) and his vast knowledge of music trivia (such as the "Paul is Dead" fad, here credited by Skeates to the Beatles themselves), but comes off more like a seventy-year-old man who knows nothing about the music biz other than what Paul Harvey had to say that morning. The climax makes no sense whatsoever, but then neither do the preceding incidents. Nebot again proves he's at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to the new wave of Spaniards arriving on the shores of Warren Publishing, mixing elements of innocuous GGA and Frallarico-inspired tusk-monsters and concocting a visual wasteland that perfectly meshes with the lame script.

"The Last Days of Hans Bruder"

Dr. Hans Bruder refuses, on a moral basis, to test his anti-cancer vaccine on convicts. He doesn't believe humans should be used as guinea pigs. In a rage, he injects himself with the serum and crashes through a window, disappearing. The police are notified, the radio issues very detailed reports (laughably so, in fact), but only fellow research scientist (and busty babe) Karen locates Hans lying in a park nearby. Karen calls an ambulance, but Hans feels the need to unload his story on her.

It seems that, back in World War II, Hans Bruder was a German doctor stationed at Buchenwald concentration camp, and he witnessed atrocities committed by fellow medics. Trying hard to stay the course, Hans managed to help his patients rather than perform sadistic experiments. One night, Hans was ordered by guards to give a young girl a complete physical before she becomes the commandant's "play thing."

"The Last Days of Hans Bruder"

Hans enters the room to discover the girl is none other than his sweetheart, Sonya, who joined the underground and was caught by the Ratzis. She only joined the freedom fighters "to build a better world, a world with peace and hope" for her and Hans. Knowing that his love will be used by the commandant and his men and then tortured, Hans stabs Sonya to death and is thrown in with the other prisoners to rot. When the Allies liberate Buchenwald, Hans is rescued with the others and reboots his life. Story done, Hans dies peacefully and Karen muses that Hans and Sonya "dreamed of a world of peace. Where they could find the love that was denied them. Perhaps he's found that world at last."

"The Last Days of Hans Bruder"

Ethereal worlds and abstract gods behind him, T. Casey Brennan turns his golden Smith-Corona toward inner peace and self-forgiveness in a world so full of evil. Unlike "On the Wings of a Bird" and "Escape From Nowhere World," "The Last Days of Hans Bruder" (I want to type Hans Gruber!) at least kept my eyes open for its entire soap-opera-filled, eight-page length. Make no mistake, this one is monumentally bad, but at least I didn't roll my eyes (well, at least not more than three or four times) or stick my swizzle stick down my throat. "Hans Bruder" is entertaining in the same way Othello performed by fourth-graders would be; it's amazing just how cheesy this thing is. From the start, I'm a bit confused. We open with Hans mid-tantrum, swearing that, by all that is holy, experimenting on cons goes against all he stands for, but the context here is that he's been doing it for a while. Why the sudden upswing in moral values? When he injects himself, he makes a very dramatic exit, but then he goes and hangs out at the park. Why the theatrics?

Then there's the generic Sunday-strip art of Frank Bolle, with very little dynamic or thought to choreography. The action just lies there dead in each panel. All of Bolle's faces look exactly the same; he's Warren's answer to Jack Kamen! That final page is the pits; I'd even take the Frallarico twins over this boring, milquetoast crap. Even in the WTF? world of Warren Publishing, I don't see T. Casey Brennan winning any awards for this.

"Like a Phone Booth, Long and Narrow"

Harry's wife Delores was a worrier, but she had reason to be. Catalepsy runs in the family and she's not feeling well. Delores makes Harry promise he'll have the mortician install a landline into her coffin and, if she needs anything, she'll call Harry. Inevitably, Delores passes and Harry follows her wishes to a T. Problem is, Harry's an alcoholic. After tying one more on down at Morgan's, the newly widowed drunkard passes out on his bed and can't quite make it to the phone when it rings.

A stunner, "Like a Phone Booth, Long and Narrow" is, as I recall, the first time I became aware of the power of Jose Bea. It was his first appearance outside Vampirella (a title I did not purchase at the time, since horror stories about girls were yeccchhhy) and, even at the age of ten, I thought this art was scary. You could say there might have been more elegant or clean pencillers around the Warren building (Wood, Crandall, and Gonzalez come to mind), but scary? Nope. Tom Sutton and Pat Boyette had unnerving styles, but they showed you all the horrors; Bea hinted at what might be terrifying in all those long, dark hallways and still creeped you out. For a designer to have that effect on a pre-teen, without showing the boogeyman, is quite an achievement.

"Like a Phone Booth, Long and Narrow"

Then you've got the script which, admittedly, borrows elements from Poe, by Jan Strnad (in his Warren debut). Sentimental, not maudlin; I feel as though Harry really does miss his wife. There's no hidden agenda, no life insurance policy, no secret lover. Just a couple of losers shambling through life. Harry's dialogues with Morgan the bartender and Delores sound real rather than forced or pretentious and the finale, despite the spoiler from Uncle Creepy, is unnervingly foggy. Is it really Delores at the end of the line? Strnad won't be around here much (he drops a few more scripts in the next couple months and then pops back in for a brief stay with Richard Corben in the Dark Ages II era), but he definitely leaves his mark.

John, an entitled young American, hears through well-placed sources that a group of priests living in a Tibetan monastery have perfected a drug that grants the user "The Ultimate High!" When he confronts their leader, the priest tells him that the drug is free but comes with a high price--the user will "waste his whole life upon it." Undeterred by the warning, John swallows the liquid and, indeed, receives the best trip he's ever taken. Coming down, he finds himself transformed into an old man, having literally wasted his life away on the drug. Steve Skeates finally comes up with a winner, a cautionary drug tale that actually avoids the preachy messages and concentrates on delivering an effective twist ending. John's only crime is arrogance, believing it's his right to have a good time, no matter what the cost. We're all guilty of that at one time or another.

"The Ultimate High!"

"The Ultimate High!" sees the debut of artist Martin Salvador, another of the Spaniards who sailed in and saved Jim Warren's ass in the early 1970s. Salvador's work can be flat and lack style and imagination at times but, for the most part, he gets his message across just fine; he sits comfortably between the ultimate high of a Bea and the dreaded low of a Nebot.

The final two stories this issue return us to mediocrity. "Dorian Gray: 2001" is a "futuristic" (funny just how far the writers of 1972 thought we'd get in just thirty years!) bit of nonsense about a vampire who's discovered the perfect subterfuge, living the life of a playboy zillionaire while draining the city dry. The script, by Al Hewteson, resembles one of those patchwork everything-but-the-kitchen-sink stories Skywald is famous for. Of course, it's no coincidence that Al Hewetson was already, at this time, Skywald's number one scribe. "Dorian Gray: 2001" was Bill Barry's sole contribution to Warren; no loss there, as Barry's style is bland and his characters look cookie-cutter, with odd angles to their heads and bodies. If I didn't see a credit on this, I'd have been sure it was Ernie Colon. "Sleep" is equally dismal, save Mike Ploog's drippy and atmospheric art. Two thieves discover the perfect tool for robbing rich mansions. When lighting fire to a finger on a dismembered hand, a spell puts the occupants into a deep sleep. It works really well until they get to a house owned by... (surprise!) vampires! The script, the first in a couple years by Kevin Pagan, is a mish-mash of "The Body Snatchers" and Lovecraft, with a climax everyone saw coming. With half the stories in Creepy #44 receiving three stars or higher, this is the best Warren publication in at least half a decade!-Peter

"Like a Phone Booth..."

Jack-I'm glad you liked it, Peter, but I thought it was nothing special, not as good as the issue of Eerie we read this time out and not even close to a typical issue of Vampirella. I liked Sutton's work in "Something to Remember Me By!!" and I really enjoyed Ploog's art in "Sleep," but the rest of the stories seemed mediocre at best. I think Irv Docktor's art on "With Silver Bells" is barely competent and the story is a tired twist on Little Shop of Horrors. I don't mind Frank Bolle's art, so I did not dislike "Hans Bruder" but, again, it was nothing special. "Like a Phone Booth" seemed derivative, pulling heavily from "The Premature Burial" and perhaps from "Long Distance Call" on The Twilight Zone, and I was disappointed in Bea's work and think we've seen better from him elsewhere.

I don't get your enthusiasm for "The Ultimate High," which seems to me to be just another trippy, early '70s misfire. Tied for worst are "A Certain Innocence," which continues the string of weak stories by Skeates, and "Dorian Gray: 2001," which at least has a decent last page, however random it seems in the context of the rest of the tale. Sutton and Ploog plus a heck of a cover make the issue passable but no more. By the way, there's a story by David Michelinie on the Creepy Fan Page.

Next Week!
The return of everyone's
favorite lunatic!

From Creepy #44

From Eerie #38