Creepy #1 - Warren

I've started re-re-re-re-re-reading TwoMorrow's excellent Warren Companion book, and am enjoying it just as much the sixth time as I did the first (it's currently sold out via their website, but I heartily recommend trying to find it if you can).

Anyway, since I'm in a Warren-y mood, I thought I'd start at the beginning: Creepy #1, Warren's first comic-magazine publication; the one whose massive sales success paved the way for all of their future endeavors.

First off--the cover: awesome. Jack Davis managed to strike just the perfect balance of funny and, well, creepy. The first story is "Voodoo" by Russ Jones and Joe Orlando which is genuinely, again, creepy. Next is "H20 World" by Larry Ivie and a tour-de-force art job by Al Williamson and Roy Krenkel, about some scuba divers that discover an underwater world. Williamson's city designs are as good as anything you'd see in a classic Sunday adventure strip.

Then is "Vampires Fly at Dusk" by Archie Goodwin and Reed Crandall which feels like an unpublished EC story (a compliment, of course). Fourth is "Werewolf" by Larry Ivie and some hack named Frank Frazetta. This would be Frazetta's last sequential comic book story, and each page is an absolute work of art. Thankfully Warren retained Frank in the future, if only for the covers.

Hard to follow that, huh? Well, next is "Bewitched!" by Larry Ivie and Gray Morrow, no artistic slouch himself, which features a truly funny yet horrific ending. And we're still not done! Following that is "The Success Story", an inside-the-world-of-comics horror story (redundant?) by Goodwin and Al Williamson. And finally, we've got "Pursuit of the Vampire" by Goodwin (again!) and Angelo Torres, which is another EC-esque tale.

Warren was definitely trying to emulate the already-legendary EC Comics, but even this early on, you could see they were trying to strike a balance between those type of stories (and using some of EC's best artists) and a different kind of approach to horror comics.

As I have many times before with these Warrens, let's sum up what you got for your 35 cents in 1964: stories by Al Williamson, Roy Krenkel, Reed Crandall, Gray Morrow, Angelo Torres, Joe Orlando, Frank Frazetta, and a cover by Jack Davis! Talk about hitting the ground running. I've heard some comic historians call this issue "the single greatest comic book of the sixties" and while of course it has a lot of competition for that crown, it's definitely in the running.

I bought this at a horror con two years ago for like, $35.00. How a magazine this historic and this high-quality (and in very good shape, too!) sells for that little is a mystery to me. In fact, when I saw the price sticker, I was sure there was a missing "0" somewhere in there. It was my first purchase of the con, and I felt like it had already been worth the price I paid to get in the door.