This was the issue of Vampirella that Joe Jusko remembered so fondly buying as a kid, so when I saw it(with its awesome cover by Enrich) available on ebay for just a couple of bucks I couldn't resist. I mean--sexy babe, creepy skull; what's not to like?The inside covers are filled with a two-page sequence called "Mind-Benders!" by Bill DuBay, about a woman caught under the spell of one of the first hallucinatory drugs and how it drove her mad...or maybe just allowed her to see things we can't?
The Vampirella story is "Slitherers of the Sand!" by Chad Archer and Jose Gonzalez. Vampirella and her pals("The Vampi Gang") find themselves stranded in the desert, where tensions mount and she must defend her friends against Coujnt Dracula, even though she has fallen in love with him! Will she choose her friends over the only other person who truly understands her?
Next is "The Tomb of the Gods" by Esteban Maroto, about a warrior named Altik who gives up everything to become a legend. Maroto didn't make small points in his stories.
Third is "Paranoia" by Steve Skeates and Luis Garcia, about a man unsure who or what--if anything--is out to get him. Garcia's art works perfectly with this claustrophobic tale set entirely in one man's mind.
Next is a text piece called "Puppy Love!"(a "Vampirella Short-Short Shocker!") featuring some spot illustrations by Rich Buckler, and then last is "The Vampiress Stalks The Castle This Night" by Don McGregor and Felix Mas, a really unusual tale of a couple who stop at a creepy castle and are stalked by a female vampire.
That setting is, of course, pretty typical, by Mas' art is full of unusual angles, design work, and heavy lights and darks. Cartoony yet still very weird:
...not that there's anything wrong with McGregor's story, its just that Mas really gives it a very different feel. Nicely done, and a solid issue overall!
1 comment:
Only four stories in an okay, but not amazing issue of Vampi. The slug in Slitherers of the Sand was certainly one of the more bizarre creatures we'd see in Vampi's serial. Chad Archer was an alias or Steve Englehart, which I believe was only used for this issue. Rather an "Eh" segment for Tomb of the Gods. Garcia's story, as always was the best art in the issue, although the story was quite poor from the usually good Steve Skeates. This was Garcia's last original story for Warren; very depressing that the best artist who ever worked for them had left by early 1973. At least we got some reprinted stories of his in Vampi a few years later :P "Vampiress" is highly regarded in the Warren Companion, as one of the top 25 Warren stories and with multiple images from it on the inside front & back covers, although I've never particularly cared for it. While not an absolute hack like T. Casey Brennan, never particularly cared for McGregor's writing for Warren, often too political for my tastes.
-Quiddity
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