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Most of the time, any story that starts with "In a post-apocalyptic future..." I go "Zzzzzz..." but Warren's "Hard John Apple" series, which this issue is(mostly) a collection of, I always enjoyed, probably because of the sarcastic touch brought to them by Jim Stenstrum, one of Warren's best writers.
The cover is by the unusual team of Jose Ortiz and Walt Simonson, and after a chance to buy some genuine soil from Dracula's castle, we open with "An Angel Shy of Hell" by Stenstrum and Rich Corben, from Creepy #64. We're introduced to Hard John and his...unsubtle ways of handing problems in a post-apocalyptic world.
Next is "Kansas City Bomber" by Stenstrum and Jose Ortiz, where we're introduced to a cult devoted to killing Hard John, as well as an orangutan reading an Air Force manual. 'Nuff said.
Next is "Brass Monkey"(the next chapter after "Bomber"), also by Stenstrum and Ortiz, with Hard John continuing his quest to release the nuclear missles still sitting idle underground, and the cult's attempts to stop him.
The last Hard John story here, "Gonna Nuke Mankind Right Outa My Hair", where we find out Hard John's true plan. It ends with some dark-humor slapstick that works as a great way to wrap the series.
There is one more feature, a reprint of the classic "The Super-Abnormal Phenomena Survival Kit!" by Stenstrum and John Severin, which sends up monster stories as well as every Captain Company ad Warren ever ran. A nice addition to this book and its tone fits just perfectly along with the Hard John stories. made even funnier that its followed by fourteen pages of CC ads.
One of Creepy's finest issues is headlined by a beautiful Ken Kelly cover, and then a Wrightson Uncle Creepy frontspiece, and opening story, an adaptation of Poe's "The Black Cat", the kind of story Wrightson really sank his teeth into. Did Warren ever collect all the Poe/Wrightson adaptations?
Next up is "Buffaloed" by Larry Herndon and the legendary John Severin, about a ruthless buffalo hunter who wakes up in an Indian village, and doesn't bother to listen to the local legends. Classic EC-esuqe story told with high-style by Severin--like Wrightson with his Poe tales, these western stories seem to fit Severin to a tee.
Third is "Firetrap" by Jack Butterworth and Vincente Alcazar, about a slum landlord who gets his comeuppance. Nice use of claustrophobic blacks--the story seems lit by a 20-watt light blub at best--by Alcazar.
Next is the color feature, "Judas" by Rich Margopoulos and Rich Corben, about an alien race coming to take over Earth, and it's one last, desperate attempt to fight back.
After that is "Survivor or Savior!" by Steve Skeates and Gonzalo Mayo, a grim tale of a time traveler who attempts to save the world. Distractingly nubile women populate this story, all courtesy Mayo.
Next is "The Maze" by Skeates and Leo Summers, about a small-time theif looking for a place to hide out until the heat's off, who stumbles upon an entire nightmarish world underground. He adjusts rather well.
Finally is "The Demon Within!" by Skeates(again!) and Isidro Mones, a psychological-horror tale set on the ledge of a building as a woman contemplates suicide. Another grim tale courtesy Steve Skeates, who must have been in a weird mood that week...
Like I said, a really great issue, feauring some classic artists and some newer talents, plus settings as varied as the Old West all the way to modern Manhattan. Throw in a couple of pages of Captain Company ads and you've got a solid installment of Creepy!
Great cover by Gray Morrow! Spooky and weird, this looks like it could've come right from a paperback book. Sa-weet!
"Eerie's Monster Gallery" is all about zombies this time, featuring an unsettling portrait of a throng of them, staring right at you, by Roy Krenkel. Run!
First up is "House of Evil!" by Archie Goodwin and Joe Orlando, about a man receiving a mysterious summons by his brother to come to a spooky haunted house. Gruesome and fun.
Next is "Hatchet Man" by Goodwin and Gene Colan, who did a lot of work for Warren early on, all of it uniformily excellent. A homicidal killer walks the streets; can the police find him before he hacks up another victim?
Third is "Gnawing Fear!" by Ron Parker and Rocco Mastroserio, about a nasty, unfeeling chemist working on a new rat poison. You should always be kind to animals, even rats...
Following that is "Shrieking Man!" by Goodwin and Steve Ditko. Ditko does a great job on the tale of two psychiatrists working in an insane asylum, one with a terrible secret. Fifth is "Undying Love!" by Goodwin and Donald Norman(?), a story set in the 15th century about a count who asks a wizard to create a potion to have the beautiful Esmerelda fall in love with him. As happens a lot in these early Warrens, be careful what you wish for!
The final story is "Island at the World's End!" by Goodwin and cover artist Gray Morrow, about a mysterious island(at the world's end, presumably) and a sea captain who falls for a beautiful, seductive woman named Cthylla who resides there. The unusual setting is nice and Morrow does his usual fine job. His sea captain reminds one of Gregory Peck as Ahab in Moby Dick, a cool touch I thought.
Warren was really doing well with Eerie, right out of the gate like they did with Creepy, and picking up speed. A solid issue.
One of my favorite things is a collection of comic covers all together--I think they look like gangbusters when you've got a bunch of them, so I think I bought this "best of" issue based solely on the cover.
This is all previously published material of course, but it was some of Warren's best:
"The Coffin of Dracula" by Archie Goodwin and Reed Crandall, a two-part Dracula sequel from Creepy #'s 8 and 9
"The Castle on the Moor!" by Johnny Craig, a spooky-castle tale from Creepy #9
"Moon City!" by Larry Englehart and Al McWilliams, about man's colonization of the Moon, from Creepy #4
"Swamped!" by Goodwin and Angelo Torres--vampires in the bayou! From Creepy #3
"Thumbs Down!" by Anne T. Murphy and Al Williamson, a horror tale of revenge set in the Roman Empire, from Creepy #20
"The Cosmic All" by Wally Wood, a classic space-exploration tale, filled with Wood-style heroic spacemen, wondrous elaborate rocketships, and creepy aliens, from Creepy #38
"Drink Deep!" by Eando Binder and John Severin, about a power-mad ship's captain who gets his comeuppance, from Creepy #7
"The Adventure of the German Student!" by Goodwin and Jerry Grandinetti, adapted from the tale by Washington Irving, about a young man convinced he is possessed by an evil spirit, featuring an absolutely knock-out art job by Grandinetti. Just look at the cinematic, moody splash:
...why this story is buried in the middle of the Captain Company ad section, I have no idea. It's one of the best tales in the book, and that's saying something.
Man, kids got a lot for $1.00 back in 1972...
This from Dark Horse Comics:
"The magazines that gave a whole generation the shivers are back. Creepy and Eerie were the definitive horror and sci-fi comics of the 1960s and flourished up until the early 1980s. Dark Horse Comics has entered into an agreement with New Comic Company to create archive editions of this classic material, as well as launch new Creepy and Eerie comics for modern horror fans. The licensing deal will encompass publishing, select film and TV development, and merchandising. Many of today's brightest stars will lend their talents to the venture, including horror legend Bernie Wrightson (City of Others) and modern master Steve Niles (30 Days of Night, Criminal Macabre).
Creepy is best remembered for its classic horror and was hosted by Uncle Creepy, while Eerie often ventured into science fiction and featured Cousin Eerie as its host. The rest of the gang includes Hunter, Child, El Cid, Marvin the Dead Thing, and the newly developed Creepy Family. The magazines, originally published by Jim Warren are remembered as presenting some of the era's greatest genre comics work.
'Both Creepy and Eerie are fondly remembered by comics fans as representing the best of science fiction and horror, and Dark Horse is proud and excited to relaunch these classic titles,' said Dark Horse publisher Mike Richardson.
'Mike Richardson and Dark Horse have an impressive and deep understanding of what it will take to help us correctly re-launch Creepy and Eerie. It's a great fit for our brands,' said New Comic executive and Submarine Entertainment Co-President Dan Braun, who negotiated the deal in cooperation with CAA--who represents both New Comic and Dark Horse. Deals in TV and Film are expected to be announced shortly.
New Comic Company acquired all rights in all media to the Creepy and Eerie comic book series earlier this year and was formed by New York based Submarine Entertainment and Los Angeles based Grand Canal Film Works.
New efforts are expected to debut this fall with the classic tales being prepared for the hardcover Dark Horse Archive series.
New Comic and Grand Canal Film Works executive Craig Haffner added, 'The depth of this library across the horror, sci-fi, and fantasy genres makes it truly tantalizing for a multitude of different platforms. Our association with Dark Horse will take us one step closer to realizing our goal of returning the Creepy and Eerie brands to their former stature and beyond.'
Dark Horse has set a tentative release date for the comics in early 2008."
What to think of this? Of course I'll be giving them a glance and maybe picking a few up depending on how they look.
There's no mention of formats, and after learning what an uphill battle IDW had with Doomed, if I had to bet I'd say that the new Creepy and Eerie will be in a standard comic book format(like the new Savage Tales book).
And even though I love the magazine format(obviously!), I wouldn't say that Dark Horse necessairily needs to be slavishly devoted to the classic Warren look, but I do feel that if you make them look like all other comics then they just sorta get lost in the mass of covers at the store every week. Going for that slightly bigger format might make them stand out more, and if you're going to bother and restart Creepy and Eerie then you need to give them every chance to survive.
I get a little nervous, frankly, when some company I've never heard of starts using words like brand and platform, since I worry they just look at a classic, hard-wrought catalog of material as just a carcass to pick clean. Part of the thing that works about the Warrens is their context--sure, there might be a lesser story or two(or three!) amid the classic stuff, but that doesn't necessairily mean if you take those lesser stories, the letters pages, the Brancatelli rants, and the Captain Company ads out you're going to make them better. We'll see...
Thanks to B/W fan Braindumper for pointing this news out to me!
Another issue of Vampirella, another fine, sexy/spooky cover, this time by Enrich.
After a frontspiece by Ramon Torrents and a letters page is a fun survey called "Vampi's Vault", featuring questions like "Do you like down-beat stories wherein the protagonist is destroyed?"(er, yes...no...sometimes!) and "What stimulates your imagination most about Vampirella?"(do we really need to answer that?).
The opening Vampi story is called "The Blood Red Queen of Hearts" by Bill DuBay and Estaban Maroto, about a mysterious, mostly-naked lady who wants to become the Queen of Chaos, and she figures the best way to do that is to bring The Big C the still-beating heart of Vampirella! Contains a rare scene of Vampi putting clothes on. The story is cool and bloody and exciting, and, wow, does Maroto draw some sexy women("What stimulates your imagination most about Vampirella?").
Next is "The Thing in Jane's Closet" by Budd Lewis and Torrents, about a woman who is convinced there's something in her bedroom closet. No one believes her, of course, even the psychiatrist hired to help her...good story with a fun, creepy ending.
Third is "Then One Foggy Christmas Eve" by Gerry Boudreau and Joaquin Blasquez, about a series of unsettling, sentinent Christmas presents and their plans for the world. Yes, you read that right.
Fourth is "Jewel in the Mouth of A Snake" by Jose Bea, a goofy tale about a legend of a giant jewel that lives in the mouth of a monstrous snake. EC-esque in its approach and humor, and a classic kick-in-the-pants ending.
Next is the color feature, "The Succubus Stone"(great title!) by Boudreau, Steve Clement, and Torrents, with color by Shelly Berne. It's about a police detective investigating a mysterious death and how it leads him to a house of women run by the even more mysterious "Madame Govay." Considering the horror/fantasy element is placed squarely in the middle of a dry, realistic setting, it can't be a conicidence that the detective's name is Matheson.
The last story is Poe's "The Oblong Box", adapted by Rich Margopoulos and Isidro Mones. Mones turns in a nice, sometimes cartoony art job on Poe's classic tale of the overseas traveller with the curious coffin-like box he brings on board.
This issue comes with no less than eighteen(!) pages of mouth-watering, allowance-busting Captain Company stuff, like EC reprints, Warren back issues, Pirates of the Caribbean model kits(Pirates of the Caribbean? that'll never sell!), superhero pins, paperback books, and even a full-page of Mego dolls! I wonder if I send the form in with a check I'll get anything...
This is the fourth and final issue of Warren's superb Blazing Combat series; its unconventional approach to war comics cost it being carried in local PXs, sending its margin of profitability into the cellar, forcing Jim Warren to pull the plug.
As usual, BC is graced with a gorgeous cover by Frank Frazetta. Frazetta's covers for this series were striking, iconic, and classic. Jim Warren said in The Warren Companion "They belong in the National Gallery", and he's right.
First up is "Conflict", by Archie Goodwin and Gene Colan. It's a brutal tale of combat in Vietnam where racism still festers, even amid the flying bullets. Tough and unsentimental.
Next is "How It Began!" by Goodwin and George Evans, a two-page historical piece on WWI flying machines. Following that is "The Edge!" by Goodwin and Alex Toth, set in 1952 Korea. From what I understand, if an editor wanted to get Alex Toth for his book, he could do no better than send him a story about aircraft, so I bet editor/writer Goodwin wrote this one to spec. It's an exciting tale of one side trying to overcome the other miles up in the sky.
Fourth is "Give and Take" by Goodwin and Russ Heath, who turns in an exceptionally detailed, photo-realistic art job about a give-and-take battle for a small piece of land in World War II-era Italy.
Next is "ME-262!" by Goodwin and Wally Wood, a tribute to the kind of plane that helped defeat Hitler(who even makes an appearance here!). After that is "The Trench!" by Goodwin and John Severin, about brutal hand-to-hand combat in World War I. Severin, as usual, does an excellent job. His war comics work was cartoony yet grittily real at the same time.
"Thermopylae!" is courtesy Goodwin and Reed Crandall, about a small band of soliders fighting off Hitler's motorized divisions as they overran Greece. There's a flashback sequence in the story set in 480 b.c., and Crandall changes the look of the art for this section--everything is bright and classical-looking, and then the WWII stuff is grey and gritty. Nice touch.
Finally is "Night Drop!" by Goodwin and Angelo Torres, about the nerves-of-steel U.S. paratroopers and what happens when one is taken prisoner and is the victim of a Nazi "only following orders." A far cry from the grim, yet ultimately rah-rah action-adventure war comics that most other companies were putting out at this time.
It's a shame that the PXs dropped the book before they gave it a real chance, since anyone reading it can tell Blazing Combat was patriotic yet honest, and didn't try and put a happy face on the brutal hell of war.
I have not yet been able to find even a cheap reading copy of Blazing Combat #1, so this is it for the title...for now. But I really hope I can soon, since BC was just about the best Warren had to offer--managing to corral Frazetta, Colan, Evans, Toth, Wood, Heath, Severin, Crandall, and Torres all in one single issue? Unreal.
Another item sent to me by my pal Craig Wichman, this reminded me that so far I have completely ignored Marvel's Bizarre Adventures!
That was not intentional--it's just that I never bought BA when I was a kid, and its entire existence had slipped my mind all this time while working on this blog. When Craig emailed me to ask whether he should send this, I practically did a Homer-esque "D'oh!".
The theme of this issue is "Gods", and as you can see from the striking Joe Jusko cover, Thor is our first story. I've always thought Thor had potential to headline a whole separate book of more adult adventures, like how Conan did. What with all the swordplay, viking derring-do, drinking, and wenching, Thor could've headlined Savage Hammer of Thor or something. Since Marvel was excellent at making a buck where they could, I assume The Mighty Thor as a color comic never sold that well. If it had, I'm sure we would've seen more of his solo adventures.
Anyway, the story is called "Sea of Destiny", by Alan Zelenetz with an exquisite art job by John Bolton, before he became U.N. Ambassador under Bush(who knew?). Thor hears the cry of a viking lost at sea, but he is told by his father Odin and the three Norns that Fate has determined he will die, and Thor should not try to get in the way of that. Thor isn't about to follow that, so he goes to try, and takes on the elements:
...wow. Bolton was kicking ass with this story.
He also take on a giant sea serpent and after a pitched battle teaches it whose boss. Sadly, during the battle, the lost viking Runolf drowned, and Thor leaves defeated.
As if Thor didn't feel bad enough, Odin chastises him for not heeding the words of the Norns and tells him "Each year at this time you shalt withdraw unto those very norns whose powers thou didst doubt."
A heck of a melancholy ending, but Thor is incredibly cool and imposing in this story, and like I said, I could've read a whole b/w Thor magazine of stuff like this.
Next is "Demon's Brigade" by Larry Hama, about a young "blade" who runs into what could be a god, though it at first he doesn't seem all that impressive. It's a funny tale, in a style familiar to anyone who has read any Lone Wolf & Cub. It's funny to think of all the attention Frank Miller got for bringing this look and feel into American comics with Ronin, yet here it is over a year before that.
Third is a "funny animals" strip titled "What Fools These Gods Shall Be!" by future Marvel EIC Tom DeFalco and Steve Smallwood. Three guys somehow find themselves with the ability to influence a TV production of the story of Icarus. The people inside the TV think the beings watching them are gods, and some of them react better than others. It has kind of a creepy ending, which is hard to do when you characters are a talking donkey, a talking buzzard, and a talking pig.
Next is a two-page feature that could've come right from Mad or Cracked(or even Crazy!), called "Gods for the Eighties", like Bromo, Walkman, Paranoia, and Jiggle. Thank god(no pun intended) things are so different now!
Ann Nocenti and Greg LaRoque contribute "The Streak", about a regular schlub blessed by Mercury with unending good luck. He of course uses that to gamble, but as you can expect it's a case of be careful what you ask for. It's an ok story, but it coulda run in The House of Mystery or something, nothing you'd expect from the more adult-oriented Bizarre Adventures.
Next is "The Prophet" by Mark Gruenwald and Val Mayerik, about one wise, lonely man who believed salvation was coming. Turns out he was right!
A big change of tone is next with "G-d!" by Al Milgrom, about the Almighty coming down to Earth(Manhattan specifically) and his attempts to understand what the heck is going on with us mortals. He ends up playing video games and getting his pocket picked. It's that kind of story--silly, goofy, light as air.
Last is "Bucky Bizarre" by our pal Steve Skeates and Smallwood, about a time-traveling, smart-mouthed so-and-so. Like the previous story, cute and you forget it the minute you turn the page. But that's ok--what with the heavy Thor and "Prophet" stories, this goofy stuff is a nice counter-balance.
My first reaction after reading my first BA is how all over the place it is--some real serious stuff, some goofy stuff, even talking animals! It felt a little schizophrenic.
But then I thought about some of my reviews on this very blog on Warren magazines, where I complain that a lot of the stories and art feel the same, repetitive. So I guess I can't be pleased--when it's coherent, I say it's too similar. When it's varied, I say it's all over the place. Geez, comic fans are friggin' difficult to please!
Anyway, I did enjoy this issue, and I thank Craig(again!) for re-introducing me to Bizarre Adventures. The ad for the next issue promises "An all-new collection of stories from The Tomb of Dracula, Tales of the Zombie, Haunt of Horror, and Vault of Evil." Hellllo, ebay!
This unusual item was a real treat for me to discover--my pal Craig Wichman(still don't have an acronym made up yet for people who contribute to this blog, dammit) sent it to me to read over and post about.
I'm not sure if this was put together in conjunction with some Holmes film; if it was it doesn't mention it--or any--of the movies, save for a poster of the 30s Hound of the Baskervilles film.
What the magazine(released in 1977) does have is a lengthy biography of Arthur Conan Doyle, along with some info on the "real" Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Joseph Bell of Edinburgh University. It also has a new Holmes mystery "The Adventures of the Mad Midwife", the classic Holmes tale "The Speckled Band", and an unrelated mystery tale "A Visit From A Stranger"(which features some really nice uncredited b/w art accompanying it).
It also has a long article/history on the Baker Street Irregulars, a real-life group of Holmes' enthusiasts and amateur detectives. When you get to the directory of all the current Holmes fan groups, all over the world, page after page of them, you start to realize Harry Potter has nothing on Sherlock Holmes!
There's also a color section about William Gillette, who played Holmes on stage over 4,000 times(!), a Holmes trivia quiz(I could answer exactly none), plus "The Strand Portfolio", a reproduction of some selections from The Strand Magazine, which was the first place to publish Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. Here we get some other original fiction, including a piece called "The Lost Legion" by Rudyard Kipling!
This is a dream publication for any Sherlock Holmes fan--one-hundred pages long, crammed with all sorts of detail on the great detective. But it's a visual treat even for people who aren't Holmes fans, since it contains a whole lot of beautiful single illustrations, many by Luis Dominguez, like this one:
...I mean, that's a nice illustration! And there's almost a dozen more just as beautiful.
A really cool book, and even though I'm not that huge a Holmes fan, I'm so glad Craig generously shipped it over to me so I could get a look at it. Thanks Craig!
"Super Special Summer Giant"? Does any phrase guarantee comics fun more than those? And why have those words pretty much disappeared from comics nowadays?
Anyway, I thought a sweltering July would be a perfect time to talk about an Eerie "Super Special Summer Giant" so here we go...
After the beautifully odd and somewhat erotic cover by Ken Kelly(the woman doesn't exactly look that bothered to be in that creature's tentacles) we open with "24 Hours to Hell!" by Bruce Bezaire and Jose Ortiz. It's about a blackmarket drug that turns its users into a raving, zombie-like mob. Great black and white storytelling by Ortiz, and the mob is suitably horrrible and terrifying.
Next is "Nightfall" by Bill DuBay and Bernie Wrightson, which is a classic monsters-in-the-closet story with simultaneous humor and horror, something of course Wrightson excelled at. An understated classic.
Third is "Exterminator One", about a robot who once was a man who is now programmed to be an assassin. By DuBay and Paul Neary, it's a fun old-school "twist-ending" sci-fi tale where things never turn out the way you or the characters expect.
Next is the color section of the book, "Childhood's End" by Budd Lewis and Rich Corben. It stars that sad, Frankenstein-esque "Child" character, in a tale of kindness rejected and tragic misunderstandings. Corben's work is of course beautiful and the color is picture-book-like, which fits the tale perfectly.
"The Man Hunters", by DuBay and Wally Wood, is also in color, and is about two heroic space explorers who land on alien world and confront a classic Wood-esque alien, replete with multiple tentacles and drooling jaws. The man disappears and the woman--his wife--comes to a horrible realization. This story ends where a lot of Hentai might begin, I think...
Back to black and white, we get "The Unholy Creation", by Steve Skeates and Leopold Sanchez. A sad, sad tale of man, about to start a new life with his bride, becomes the victim of a horrible set of experiments. Beautifully told, but depressing as all get out. Thank god Skeates didn't write Aquaman like this!
After a whole bunch of Captain Company ads(ooh, I never get tired of looking at that stuff!), we get one more story, "Interlude", by Gerry Boudreau and Isidro Mones, about two longtime adversaries--Dr. Archaeus and Miles Sanford--that is the last chapter in an ongoing scheme of revenge. It ends violently and ruthlessly, but stories of revenge never really end...
There's also fun back cover by Wrightson, promoting the "Nightfall" story that is wonderfully creepy...er, eerie.
I was going to talk about another issue of Eerie today, but this was so cool I couldn't wait to post it.
This is an original painting, just finished by the uber-talented Mike Manley on his drawman blog. He was posting it in stages, as he does for other ones, but for this wolfman one he went the extra mile and dummied up his very own Creepy cover! Mike was generous to allow me to post it and show it off here.
I so would've bought this off the newsstand.
I has talked about the last issue of Creepy awhile back and so I thought it was past due to talk about the end of Eerie, too.
I've always been interested in final issues, final episodes(I've watched final episodes of TV shows I've never watched previously...weird, I know). So I purposely sought out these final Warren publications to see how they ended their legendary runs.
Of course, this is a final issue only on a techincal sense, in that there was never an Eerie #140, but Warren didn't know that at the time, so this issue doesn't have any special "goodbye" content. Heck, even poor Cousin Eerie's face is obscured by a blurb. Sheesh!
Anyway, the cover is by the legendary Kelly Freas, about the issue's main feature, an adaptation of A.E. Van Vogt's "Voyage of the Space Beagle!" by Rich Margopoulos and Luis Bermejo. It's about the lone survivor of an alien race that comes across pesky--yet delicious--group of human space explorers, who foolishly let it aboard their ship. The story continues into Part 3, which appears after the color insert.
The insert was Warren's experiment in "color comics", a standard-size comic story bound into the inside of the magazine. The story in this case is "Infinity Force" by Bill DuBay and Rudy Nebres. A group of space travelers discover a mysterious metal that allows them to travel back in time, where they run the risk of destroying all of humanity.
I never fully understood what the point of these color insert sections were--they looked and read like regular Warren stories, yet they were in a regular comics size, sort of stitched dead center into the rest of the magazine. Weird.
"Space Beagle" Part 3 picks up here, with the hunt for the mysterious, muderous alien continuing. The crew of the Beagle do find a way to defeat the alien...maybe.
And...that's it. We get some fun Captain Company pages(Star Wars stuff, posters, Biotron, Warren back issues, even some DC Comics...never did understand that), and then Eerie is officially history.
While I enjoyed the "Beagle" story just fine, I could never quite accept all the sci-fi that appeared in Eerie. I thought the stories should be more...eerie. Y'know, ghosts, monsters, demons, or just people gone plum loco. But at this point, Warren Publishing was responding to trends, not creating them, so if kids wanted sci-fi, that's what they got. Poor Cousin Eerie seemed out of place in his own magazine.
"[I have confiscated] many issue of Mad, Cracked, and the occasional Crazy." - Principal Seymour Skinner
As is usual with The Simpsons, that pretty much sums up Crazy's legacy, doesn't it? Most kids who grew up reading the above magazines usually bought Crazy when they either couldn't get the other two, or had a little money left over.
Not to suggest Crazy was bad or anything--in fact, when I bought this debut issue, I was surprised at the awesome talent Marvel had lined up for it--Roy Thomas, Marv Wolfman, Don McGregor, Tony Isabella, Vaughn Bode, Harlan Ellison, Steve Skeates, Jean Shepherd(!), and Len Wein as writers, Ross Andru, Mike Ploog, Kelly Freas, Herb Trimpe, and Basil Wolverton doing the art! Wow!
We get "Kung Fooey" drawn by Mike Ploog, a one-page team-up called "Breaking and Entering Pandora's Box" of Ellison and Wolverton, a segment called "The Daily Survivor" which pre-dates The Onion by a few decades, a fumetti starring Roy Thomas, and another starring Dick Giordano and Neal Adams!
There's also Mad-esque shots at the auto industry, cigarettes, a parody of The Poseidon Adventure, Bob Foster's "Moosekind" strip, and another fumetti--this time called "Foom-etti"--starring Marv Wolfman, photographed by Vince Colletta!
You can feel some of the Marvel regulars really having fun cutting loose here, and there is some genuinely funny stuff in this first issue. Like a lot of Mad's competitors, they were aiming for an audience just slightly older than Mad. Considering Crazy ran over ten years, it's clear the magazine was fairly successful financially as well as creatively.
Masters of Terror was one of Marvel's last attempts to craft an anthology of horror stories for the b/w format; it obviously didn't work sales-wise, this second issue was its last.
When I first saw this cover, I thought this magazine was devoted to doing long-form adaptations of classic horror and sci-fi novels--that's something I would've read, at the very least. This nice, paperback book-esque cover is by Dan Adkins, "based on a drawing by Jim Steranko."
After a fun, self-deprecating editorial by MOT editor Tony "The Tiger" Isabella, is the opening feature, "The Invisible Man", is adapted by Ron Goulart, Val Mayerik, and Dan Adkins. It's a nice version, H.G. Wells' basic grabber of a tale filtered through the Marvel House of Ideas.
Next is Robert Bloch's "The Man Who Cried Werewolf!" by Gerry Conway and Pablo Marcos, a pulpy, sexy werewolf tale with one of those twist endings. Third is a text feature about H.G. Wells, "Science Fiction Pioneer."
Fourth is "Dig Me No Grave!" by Roy Thomas, Gil Kane, and Tom Palmer, adaptd from the story by Robert E. Howard, an author Thomas was obviously familiar with. It's about two men who find themselves involved in a mysertiou Satanic cult's plans for the recently dead body of a colleague of theirs. Beautifull, moody work by Kane and Palmer, with a grabber of a final image.
There's a page of Plop!iesque "Terror Toons" by Stu Schwartzberg, that seem to come from some high school newspaper--they're pretty amateurish looking, sandwiched inbetween work by Gil Kane and the artist of the next story, "The Music of Eric Zann!", the legendary Johnny Craig!
The story was originally a H.P. Lovecraft tale, written by Roy Thomas. Mysterious music fills the air, driving a man who grows obsessed with it slowly mad. Craig does a great job, as he used to do in all those old ECs, portraying a man gripped by madness.
Next is "Pickman's Model", another Lovecraft tale adapted by Thomas and Tom Palmer. A man tells a tale of a painter he has met who is able to create horrorific images of evil, all too realistically rendered. Great creepy fun, with a really nice art job by Palmer.
Don and Maggie Thompson contribute a text feature called "Time Out for Terror", all about being scared. The final story in this issue and the series is "The Roaches", adapted from the story by Thomas Disch by Gerry Conway and Ralph Reese, which had appeared in Monsters Unleashed! just two years earlier. A bookish, lonely woman learns to communicate with the little buggers of the title and develops a really unhealthy relationship with them. Ick.
And, sadly, that was it for Masters of Terror. Sure, it was made up of all reprints, most of which had just appeared a short time earlier, but what's the point of starting any magazine if you're going to cancel it after just two issues? MOT coulda been a contender!
Have we talked about Tales of the Zombie yet? No? Good, then let's talk about Tales of the Zombie.
This issue is confusingly numbered "Volume 2, No.1" on the indicia, but a quick trip to the GCD reveals that this is actually the fourth issue, cover-dated March 1974, presumably making this the first issue produced in that year, hence that weird multiple-volume thing you used to see in old comics(remember back when Action Comics would say "Volume 37" or something? As a kid, I was confused as hell by that). Ok, ok...enough postal-regulation talk. Let's get to the zombies, shall we?
After the nice spooky, "ta-daa!" cover by Boris Vallejo is Simon Garth starring in "The Law and Phillip Bliss", by Steve Gerber and Pablo Marcos. A myserious talisman calls Simon Garth back to his "home" in New Orelans, where he is attacked by a cult led by a voodoo preistess named Katanya. After fifteen pages, the story abruptly stops, to be continued on page fifty-three. So until we get there, we have...
...an article on the newest James Bond film, Live and Let Die, which used voodoo as a backdrop. Oddly, even though the review(by Don McGregor) features stills from the film, starring Roger Moore as Bond, the illustrations that appear in the article are of Sean Connery. McGregor has a very negative review of Moore as Bond.
Next is "The Drums of Doom!", by Gerry Conway, Rich Buckler, Vic Martin, and Win Mortimer, a ghoulish tale about a guy who crosses a practicer of voodoo, as in Don't. It even ends with a classic EC-esque "Choke!" exclamation by one of the characters.
There's a text article on "Neo Witchcaft" by Lin Carter, complete with photos of ritual sacrifices! Fun!
There's a one-page feature by Tony "The Tiger" Isabella and Ron Wilson called "Courtship by Voodoo", and then "Nightfilth Rising" by Doug Monech and Win Mortimer, about a guy who rises from the grave. I wonder what old-timer Mortimer thought about all this material featuring zombies and voodoo priests...
After that is "Four Daughters of Satan" by John Albano and Ernie Chua, about four female convicts who show up at a castle run by a werd old woman who is in the business of oh-so helpfully providing cadavers to the local doctor. Again, fun! Nice creepy art job by Chua.
The Simon Garth tale resumes, picking up the back story of the aforementioned Phillip Bliss, whose life was ruined by a conspiracy of crooked lawyers, and how he has spent his whole life in an attempt to get back at them. Phillip happens to be in the possession of an amulet that makes Simon Garth think Bliss is his master! This leads to Simon showing up in a court, and handing out some mindless revenge in the name of his master. A totally crazy, insane tale--and I've only hit the highlights!
It's been a little while since we talked about the massive fun that was Rampaging Hulk--I mean, how can you look at this cover by Jim Starlin and not want to read the story inside?
Even though the cover says "Night of the Soul-Stealer" the story, by Doug Moench, Keith Pollard, and Jim Mooney, is called "Night of the Wraith!" It opens with Hulk smashing stuff, which is always a good way to start any Hulk story.
Hulk is traveling with Rick Jones and the myserious alien woman known only as Bereet(or"Bird Woman" as Hulk likes to call her), when he "spatial distorter pouch"(yes, you read that right) suddenly explodes with light, and weird creature--the one from the cover with the giant eyeball for a head--comes out of it.
Hulk attacks it(of course), but it can seemingly turn itself into mist, which makes Hulk mad, screaming "Bah! You cheat!" The creature envelops the Hulk and knocks him out. But Bereet manages to defend herself and the creature retreats.
Bereet explains Mr. Eyeball is from her home planet, and how its here to kill her. They follow its trail to a city on the Adriatic Sea, where the creature takes control of the Colossus of Rhodes, which then comes alive and gets to fight the Hulk! Don't say Doug Moench didn't know how to write stories with Hulk-size spectacle! I mean, Hulk vs. The Colossus of Rhodes--how can you ask for more?
Hulk destroys the Colossus(!) and the creature moves on, assuming the shapes of animals, and even Bereet herself, who it attempts to make turn on the Hulk! The Hulk uses a space-gun-type-machine on the now-evil Bereet, which drives the creature from Bereet, ridding the planet of it, seemingly forever. Bereet, Hulk, and Rick Jones wake up in a beautiful, new, alien-looking flower patch, and Bereet states "The dark fog is gone...and the souls of my dead creations have found a new purpose...a new resting place...here on Earth." And, for once, we get a happy ending to a Hulk story.
The second feature stars The Man-Thing, "Among the Great Divide!", by Steve Gerber, Jim Starlin, and Bob Wiacek. It opens with Man-Thing coming across a dessicated corpse, which might even be a better opening volley than the Hulk story had.
Man-Thing is attacked by a weird, animalistic swamp woman, which after a page or two he manages to fend off. He then comes across a small pocket of the swamp which seems to house a family of ghosts, surrounding a mysertious woman named Andrea who, you guessed it, seems to be gripped by multiple personalities. The story follows Andrea out of the swamp(I guess it's hard to find things to do with the Man-Thing, since he by nature wasn't as communicative and ambulatory as Swamp Thing) and into a local salloon, where her weird behavior gets her noticed by the other patrons.
There's an odd one-page sequence chronicling Andrea's life, which consists of one image surrounded by text. She's then grabbed by some goons from the saloon, who drag her back to the swamp, where some of her multiple personalties bust for and start defending her(yeah, this is a Steve Gerber story, all right)!
This of course spills over to the attention of the Man-Thing, who helps fend off the goons. The weird swamp woman reappears and attacks(we now know she, too, is a figment of Andrea's imagination), and he fends her off, forcing Andrea to face all her delusions. Andrea staggers off to a local hospital, in a hopeful attempt to come to grips with all that has happened(good luck with that), and the Man-Thing slowly decends back into the swamp, the whole episode basically meaning nothing, since the Man-Thing "has no emotions of his own, [he] cannot feel elation...or pride...or even relief."
Gee, thanks. Now I'm depressed. And we wonder why the Man-Thing never quite took off?
But the ad for next issue promises fun, fun, fun, with The Hulk taking on....IronMan!! (I gotta pick that one up!)
I'm still in a savage mood, so I thought we'd continue with Marvel's other savage magazine, Savage Tales! Garrrr!!
First off--beauty of a cover by Neal Adams(gee, how many times have I typed that?)--exciting, drawn within an inch of its life, and brilliantly composed. It took me, like, a full minute after looking at this to discover the wooly mammoth about to stomp on our buxom damsel in distress! (women's shirts on Marvel b/w covers never seem to have much structural integrity)
After an uncredited pin-up on the inside cover(on first blush, I'd say it looks like John Romita inked by Marie Severin; since they were both Marvel staffers I imagine they needed to throw a page together quickly, and who better than the legendart Romita and Severin to do it?), we open with the lead Ka-Zar story, "The Damnation Plague!" by Gerry Conway, John Buscema, and Tony DeZuniga.
The story involves a plague(duh) that infects Ka-Zar's Savage Land home, and he races to find the people infected and contain it. We also get a re-cap of Ka-Zar's origin, all wonderfully executed by Buscema and DeZuniga. The only problem is--the story stops mid-stream. Why? Well, according to an editorial at the bottom of the final page, a kidney infection sidelined DeZuniga, and he couldn't complete inking the rest of the story!
So Marvel was forced to slot a reprint in place of the second half of the Ka-Zar story, putting the lie to the "All-New Adventures" blurb on the cover, which Marvel cops to.
After this unusual sequence of events, we get an editorial about Ka-Zar courtesy Roy Thomas, a history of Marvel's newest feature, Brak the Barbarian, and then "Fangs of the Black Orchid!" by unknown, Al Wiliamson, and Ralph Mayo, reprinted from Jann of the Jungle #16(1957). While I would've preferred to see the second half of Ka-Zar, you do get some nice Williamson art and a guy almost eaten by a giant plant, so that should count for something.
Next is "Dragonseed" starring Marok the Merciless, by Len Wein and Steve Gan. Mark demands an old wizard use his powers to give him an army to plunder with, but he finds that you sometimes don't want what you think you do. It ends with a sort of EC-esque "gag" ending which I found fairly funny, since it has an ironic quality not seen in most of these "savage adventure" type stories.
Ka-Zar is back in the next story, "The Night of the Looter!" by Stan Lee and Buscema, reprinted from Savage Tales #1(boy, that "all-new adventures" is really taking a beating.) A man and a woman invade the Savage Land in a tank(!) looking for treasure, convincing a group of ape-like savage men that they are gods and they must do their bidding. When Ka-Zar attempts to stop them, the woman tries to seduce Ka-Zar(getting almost nude in the process, Buscema drawing one of his most sultry villainesses), but he doesn't fall for it, and rejects her.
They try again, but the treasure that is Vibranium melts their tank(!!) and the ape-men suddenly realize these two are not "gods", and drag the woman away. Now this is where things get grim, as the woman, Carla, is dragged away, the husband goes after her, realizing his folly.
When he and Ka-Zar find her, she is facing down in a pool of water, dead, and naked. Now, she wasn't naked when she was kidnapped, so....yeesh! Stan Lee wrote this? A solid adventure/morality tale, but also a fine example that Marvel was willing to push the envelope with the b/w magazines in a way they never could've gotten away with in the regular color line.
Considering that SSOC ran longer than every other Marvel mag combined, it shouldn't be so under-represented here. So I picked this one out of the box, not even remembering what the story was, I just loooove the cover, by Joe Jusko.
It's sexy, well designed, and funny as hell--if the title of the piece isn't "My Barbarian's Back(And You're Gonna Be In Trouble)", then by Crom it should be!
The story, by Chuck Dixon and Gary Kwapisz, is titled "Emerald Lust", which is not a porn film set in Ireland, but a Conan tale featuring Valeria and Red Sonja, with everyone's favorite barbarian caught in the middle!
After a sequence with a poor sod riding his boat, frozen to death, we find Conan with a beautiful lass who reveals, post-conquer, that she is the local Chieftan's daughter. Crom! Women...
Of course, a gang of the chief's subjects attempt to apprehend Conan for doing so, and no points for guessing it doesn't work. We then catch up with Valeria, who tells a tale of a beautiful emerald to a group of drunken barbarians. We the cut to Red Sonja, who has been hired by the aforementioned chieftan to hunt down "a big oafish Cimmerian with hair as black as his heart." Sonja starts to guess who this might be...
Conan, looking to board a ship, runs into Valeria and he vouches for her, but not before a kiss, a slap, and a threat to cut Conan a new mouth. Ah, romance! They leave in search of this emerald that is of unimaginable wealth, to a land of freezing water and glaciers.
It's here they run into another ship, with Sonja aboard, which has been chasing Conan. It's here that Valeria and Sonja get into a battle over Conan. Valeria thinks Sonja wants Conan as a mate, and she can't convince Valeria that it's just for a buck. Their battle involves swordfights, thrown punches, and spilling over the side of the ship into the frozen water. As this is happening, they discover the emerald is no more than a giant piece of ice, it's green color being from the seafoam around it. As Conan demonstrates, a chunk of this great emerald melts away in his hand...
Then one of the glaciers starts to collapse, sending giant shards of ice into the water and the ships, sending everyone scattering, some to their deaths. Conan, Sonja, and Valeria find themselves together on a small chunk, where they have to get along to survive. The women's resistance is worn down, and they're forced to both sleep aside Conan for warmth. Ah, this story could've gone so many ways from here...
Anyway, they wake up the next day looking to find land, and instead they run into giant, killer walrus-type monsters and killer sharks. Crom! All this because Conan put his sword in the wrong place!
They get caught in a blizzard, and that looks like that's gonna be it. Luckily, the blizzard passes, and they all wake up, Valeria and Sonja ready to kill each other all over again. All for a piece of ice...
A really fun tale, full of humor and great characterization and high adventure. Kwapsiz uses the black and white very well, and the story is a pleasure to look at, as are all the sexy women populating the tale...
There's also a King Kull portfolio, feauring various moments from KK's life, all by Steve Carr and Al Williamson. We get to see Kull take on a weird amphibian monster, a fiery-sword-wielding skeleton, a giant monster, and even behead a guy right in front of us! Good, bloody fun. There's also three additional Conan pin-ups, which are also bloody and barbaric.
From the great cover til the end, by Crom this is a really fun issue(sorry, once you start talking like Conan it's hard to stop)!
Another new mag I haven't talked about before--Vampire Tales(plus I wanted to find something appropriate for Friday the 13th!).
Back issues of this title are a lot more expensive to find than you'd expect, at least compared to other from that time, like Dracula Lives! and Monsters Unleashed. Is there a huge Morbius fanbase still out there, keeping prices up?
The creepy cover, upside-down cross and all, is courtesy "Hescox", whose work I'm not familiar with. All I know is, it suredly wouldn't fly nowadays. That makes it cooool.
After a letters page and the b/w magazine's equivalent to Bullpen Bulletins, we get the Morbius tale "Death Kiss" by Doug Moench and Sonny Trinidad. A crewman stumbles upon a box which he thinks carries cargo, but actually houses the Living Vampire, Morbius! Morbius bites into the guy's neck, killing him for the trouble. Immediately, Morbius is Mortified(ha!) that he has lost control and killed again and hides elsewhere on the ship. He is discovered by the sexy and mysterious Morgana St. Claire, who not only knows who Morbius is, but helps him escape to her state-room!
It gets even crazier from there--turns out Morgana is a vampire hunter(what are the odds?!), there's an attack on Morbius, he falls into the ocean, wakes up on an island, populated by a blood cult! Great, crazy, where-is-this-going-next fun. Transporting a Spider-Man villain into the more adult b/w format and making him the protagonist was a pretty cool idea, and ahead of its time. DC would of course take Swamp Thing down a similar route, to huge success.
The one other story in this issue is "Hobo's Lullaby" by John Warner and Yong Montano, about a vampire who gives a train-traveling hobo a bite. This starts a hideous, horrorific chain of events which leads to a bloody, savage battle between newly-infected vampires and stake-wielding police. Pretty brutal stuff--not particularly explicit in its gore, but definitely more intense than the usual Marvel horror fare.
I enjoyed this issue very much, especially the Morbius story. I would love to get other issues of this title once the prices settle down a bit!
No theme or purpose stated from posting this book--it was a case of reaching into the ol' b/w box and seeing what I pulled out.
This was another one of those one-shot Warren collections they did a lot of in the late seventies, which made total sense to do since they had so much good material in their back catalog, so why not pick the best and put it together?
The well-drawn but a little dull cover is by Patrick Woodroffe, and then the book opens with "Killer Hawk" by Bill DuBay and Wally Wood. A classic tale Mars vs. Earth tale, full of Wood spaceships, space suits, heroic men, and buxom women.
Next is a text article about Battlestar Galactica, called "All About Galactica", yet titled "Star Warriors, Alert! Battlestar Galactica Girds Its Loins!" Loins....? And this was pre-Tricia Helfer Galactica!
The next story is "Star-Slaughter", by Richard Margopoulos and Ramon Torrents, is a fanciful tale of a robot who has grown tired of being Humanity's plaything. Following that is "Star-Bright Lantern 909", by Gerry Boudreau and Jose Ortiz. It's the tale of a very lonely space lighthouse keeper. Very lonely. Ortiz drew some amazingly beautiful and nobile women, a fine example of which is in this story.
"The Time Eater!" by Jack Butterworth and Paul Neary is next, an interesting tale about the mystery that is time itself. Bruce Jones and Al Williamson do the honors on "Mothers Knows Best!", a funny take on what Christmas might be like in the future.
The final story is also by Jones and Williamson, "Now You See It...". One of Warren's best, it's the story of a couple trying out their new little toy which allows the user to enter whatever world they dream of. Holy holo-deck! This story gives Williamson to draw all kinds of fun stuff, like dinosaurs, futuristic landscapes, and comely women.
The sci-fi theme even extended into the Captain Company ad section, this time selling only science fiction stuff, like Star Wars bedsheets(I had those!), Shogun Warriors(I had those, too!), and lots of Close Encounters of The Third Kind tie-ins. Nice touch, Warren!
Now this is more like it! Nothing like a good demonic-possession cover, again courtesy Bob Larkin.
This issue features Satana, The Devil's Daughter--and lots of her! The first story, "This Side of Hell" by Tony Isabella and Enrique Romero, stars the comely Satana as she combats demons at the Gates of Hell. Beautiful art by Romero, who manages to make Satana sexy yet creepy.
This is immediately followed by an editorial with a pic of Tony alongside a woman dressed as Satana! Man, it was good to work in comics in the seventies...
Next is "Fright Pattern!" by Jack Younger, Syd Shores, and Wayne Howard, a definitely more traditional horror tale about a woman whose nightmares have a terrifying way of becoming real. Next is a Satana text story, "Doorway to Dark Destiny" by Chris Claremont, with some nice spot illustrations by Pat Broderick and The Crusty Bunkers, including a priceless one of Satana snuggling up to a male friend as he makes breakfast! He has a worried look on his face, which is understandable...
"Deathwatch", by Gerry Conway and Yong Montano, about a guy who wakes up to find it's the first day after The End of the World. That's such a can't-miss set-up for a story, and this one works pretty well, putting you in the shoes of the main character as he tries to adjust to his new reality.
Next is our cover star, Gabriel, Devil-Hunter, in "To Worship the Damned", who is called to confront some demons at Stonehenge. By Doug Moench and Sonny Trinidad, it's a fun, creepy tale of sexy babes and horrific evil.
This is also comes with a Gabriel poster(on the inside covers) by none other than Neal Adams! He's holding a giant bible which he has thrust at the reader. What would some kid's parents think if they saw this hanging in their kid's room? Would they be relieved, or worried?
A lot of this material was reprinted in the third issue of the British version of this mag, called Demon! It didn't include the Adams poster, or the pic of Tony and the real-life Satana, thereby taking out the most fun stuff!
This was Marvel's most across-the-bow shot at the type of magazine Warren was doing at the time. Other ones, like Dracula Lives! and Doc Savage, were more Marvel-style, from starring one central character to the way the stories were told.
The cover is by Bob Larkin, and it's an interesting hybrid between the type of horror they wanted to do and the more safe, almost cartoon-ish approach they were known for. I mean, that girl doesn't look that scared, really, and the big skull in the foreground, bathed in golden light, looks like something off of a Hardy Boys book cover. Not to say its a bad cover, but it's a bit benign for the Warren-esque horror Marvel was trying to emulate.
After a genuinely horrorific frontspiece by Alfredo Alcala(featuring a topless succubus, a rotting corpse, a zombie, and assorted demons), this issue opens up with "Rats!" by Gerry Conway and Ralph Reese, about a miserable, mean little man who refuses to kill any rats. Living in New York City in the seventies, that's a tough standard to maintain.
Next is a text piece about the new mag, called "The Hint of Horror", and then a prose story by George Alec Effinger called "Heartstop" with cool spot illustrations by Walt Simonson.
The next comic story is "The Last Man!", which is a reprint tale about a homicidal murderer who is convinced Earth is under attack by flying saucers. Its uncredited, but its a tight, fun little five-page tale. Fourth is "His Own Kind!" by Roy Thomas, Val Mayerik, and Mike Esposito, adapted from the story by Thomas Disch. It's a fanciful tale told by a woodnymph about a werewolf and is nicely rendered by Mayerik.
Conway and Ernie Chua handle "The Nightmare Patrol" about an army patrol that runs into a ghoul while in Vietnam. As if being in Vietnam wasn't bad enough!
Next is "In The Shadows of the City" by Steve Gerber and Vincente Alcazar, a grim, mood-drenched tale about the paranoia that sets in while living in New York City. I have no idea if Gerber was in fact living in the Big Apple when he wrote this, but I wouldn't be surprised; the story feels like something a writer would come up with in the middle of a hot summer night, when its eerily quiet and you can't sleep.
Not a bad start to the magazine, even if the contents are sorta all over the place, from grueshome horror to sci-fi fantasy to psychological dread. But there was more after this issue, so we'll see later how well Haunt of Horror kept the scares going...
I've been anticipating this ever since I first heard about it--writer/artist David Yorkovich's magazine-sized tribute book to comics writer Bill Mantlo, who was in an accident in 1992 and has been in institutionalized care ever since.
Every so often I think of some comics writer or artist I read as a kid, and wonder what are they doing now? Comics, like a lot of entertainment-related industries I guess, is pretty brutal to its non-superstar veterans, many of whom toiled for average wages at best and no plan for the future. Once a comic company stopped liking someone's work, that was it--let's get the next hungry generation in here!
So when I read in TwoMorrows' Back Issue! a little while back what had happened to Bill, I was deeply saddened. So a benefit project sounded like a great idea, and I couldn't wait to read it once it was published.
First off, it seems only appropriate that this book is magazine-sized, since Mantlo's first published work was for Marvel's b/w line, but also because the extra size gives the presentation more "heft", rather than have it be a standard comic. I'm glad David Yurkovich went for this look, I think it works well.
It opens with an intro from Bill's brother Michael, and it's a touching read, hearing about them growing up reading comics together and how Bill probably saved his brother's life--literally.
What follows is a detailed chronology of Mantlo's writing career, which was spent almost entirely at Marvel. From their b/w magazines like Deadly Hands of Kung-Fu to his work on Marvel Team-Up, IronMan, The Human Fly, Incredible Hulk, and Spectacular Spider-Man, it's all here in vivid, sometimes blunt detail. Mantlo wasn't shy about expressing his distaste for some of the artists drawing his stories--which makes for interesting reading, since you don't feel there are punches being pulled.
Then it moves onto the work Mantlo is most known for and had the most creative control over, ironically two of the titles--Micronauts and Rom: The Spaceknight--were originally conceived as just toy tie-in books, and we know how usually awful those are(Crystar, anyone?). But Mantlo really cared about what he was doing, and worked hard with his artist collaborators(people like Michael Golden, Mike Mignola, Butch Guice, and Sal Buscema) and within the sometimes maddening bureaucracy at Marvel to deliver the best product possible.
It also touches on his other work like Cloak & Dagger, Rocket Raccoon, Alpha Flight, Vision & Scarlet Witch, and even his rare DC work, like Invasion! While I have to admit, sometimes I thought Mantlo came off a little rude in some of his critiques about people he worked with and for, I ultimately think it was a good move to not edit or try and smooth down some of the rougher edges--you get a good sense of the real man behind all these stories: someone who worked very hard, and cared deeply about his craft, but was frequently disappointed with the end result or all the interference getting there. So much so that during the mid-80s, Mantlo pursued a law degree and eventually became an attorney, writing for Marvel on the side.
It was in 1992 that he had his accident, and it's heartbreaking to read of it, and how he lives his life now terribly diminished. I read in Back Issue! that his brother and other family does read him the fan-mail he receives and they think he appreciates it. I can only hope this magazine tribute generates a lot more of it.
In addition to family photos and lots of comic art, there are three prose fiction pieces he wrote, one that Yurkovich illustrates, called "Aftermath." They are in turn silly and surprisingly melancholy; it's almost as if Mantlo was expressing feelings here that he never could in, say, Spider-Man Vs. Hulk At The Winter Olympics.
There's also a brief but touching story about how he helped comic creator Colleen Doran with free legal help in her battle to retain ownership of her comic A Distant Soil. It's a great story to hear of someone helping someone else out so selflessly like that.
A solid tribute, and an absolutely worthwhile cause. I mentioned it before, but if you haven't ordered one of these for yourself, pry a measly $7.50 out of your wallet and go here.
On a more personal note--I used to have over 15,000 comics, collected over the course of my child and young adulthood. To help pay for art school, I sold almost all of them off, and saved just one longbox worth of JLAs(my favorite title). But over the years, I've gone out and hunted down about another few hundred of the ones I used to have--beloved stories I missed being able to read again. And one of them was The Incredible Hulk #261, written by Bill with art by Sal Buscema.
Bruce Banner wakes up on a Easter Island, and runs afoul of the supervillain The Absorbing Man. The story is entirely about these two, and about how Banner is pushed around by the thuggish Absorbing Man. There's a sequence where he forces Banner into this dark, tight tunnel; so dark and tight that Bruce becomes afraid he might "Hulk out" in there, but become lodged in a way that not even the Hulk could break out, and he would suffocate.
That whole idea--that the Hulk could die from something as non-cosmic and mundane as getting stuck in a crawlspace--was so terrifying to me as a kid that I never forgot it. And when I went back and bought the comic again, it worked just as well as it did twenty-five years earlier. Now that's good writing. That was Bill Mantlo.
Hmm, I think I need to write a letter...
Ok, we finish up our two-day Skywald extravaganza (courtesy my pal Craig Wichman, who suggested the membership designation F.O.R.K.--Friend Of Rob Kelly. Hmm, I dunno...) with Nightmare #6, sporting a quite beautiful Jeff Jones cover.
After a creepy(oops!) frontspiece about Medea by Mike Kaluta, we get a letters page and a short interview with Jones, and then the Love Witch is back, in "The Battle of The Living Dead" by Marv Wolfman and the unusual art team of Ernie Colon and Jack Abel.
Ok, when talking about the Love Witch story in Psycho, I wondered who this Jack Purcell guy who drew like a sloppy Ernie Colon. Well, I guess the joke was on me since it's obvious that was Ernie Colon, perhaps trying to bang out the story on a tight deadline. Here there's a lot of smoothing out of Ernie's naturally loose and ragged line, but the spark of life he brings to all his work is still evident. Also evident in this story? Well...boobs! The Love Witch is nude a lot in this story, much more than you saw in most Warren stories, especially for 1971! Take that, Vampirella!
Next is the ongoing feature "The Living Gargoyle", this time by Jerry Siegel(misspelled "Siegal" here...I wonder if there's a metaphor for how the comics industry treated this man and its unending inability to ever spell his name right?) and Carlos Garzon, who does a beautiful job here, with great layouts, interesting angles, and a great use of lights and darks. The dialogue is pretty ehh("The statue is looking at me hatefully!"), but I think it says something about companies like Skywald and Warren, who occasionally employed the near-destitute Father of Superman, mainly because they felt he deserved better. If only one of these guys was running DC.
Third is the sad tale "Broke Sparrow" by Larry S. Todd, about a helpless alien found by some humans who they try, and fail, to take care of. Even though you know where the story is going, anyone with compassion for the helpless creatures of the world can't help but feel for the poor little alien in this tale.
Next is a text feature on Boris Karloff(just how many text features was Karloff the focus of, between Skywald, Marvel, and Warren?), with some nice photos of him in one of his more obscure roles, Fu Manchu.
"Corpse by Computer!" by Bob Kanigher and Doug Wildey, is about a guy who builds a computer to run his life but didn't plan on it getting jealous, so much so it impales the guy's girlfriend on the opening page! I bet Bob didn't even bother submitting this to DC.
"The Cosmos Strain" is a tight little tale(six pages) by Steve Stern and Kaluta, about two space explorers who make the ulimate sacrifice to save the universe from the title evil bug. It allows Kaluta to draw the evilness itself as a full page, and it looks like a Ditko version of a Yes album cover. Very EC-ish and a good read.
Pat Boyette does the honors on the final story, "The Geek!" about a guy keeping a weird little creature holed up in his cabin as a sort of pet. The kind of pet that kills people, removes their heads, and digs up corpses, but still...
So far from what I've read, these Skywald books were better than their reputation sometimes suggested. I thank Craig again for the chance to look some of 'em over, and I know this won't be the last time we look at Skywald's output.
