Horror Tales #7 - Eerie Publications

Dec. 1972 - If Warren and Marvel were the DC and...well, Marvel---of the black and white comic magazine universe, you could argue that the Skywald line was the equivalent to say, Gold Key--the brand you bought when you had money left over, or the other titles you wanted more were sold out.

That would make Eerie Publications the Charltons of the black and white magazine line--pretty much bottom of the barrel (and I'm probably being a little unfair to Charlton).

Eerie's magazines were packaged by Irving and Myron Fass, and were almost exclusively made up of reprints from 50s and 60s horror comics. Behind gruesome, gory covers (the one you see above is fairly tame) were page after page of mostly very dull horror comics, featuring no writing or art credits.

This issue starts off with its best story of the bunch, The Devil's Witch:

About a woman who thinks of nothing but wealth and beauty, and is willing to kill to get them both:

I love these two panels because A)you don't see pantaloons a lot in comics, and B)I like the cartoony devils surrounding our protagonist, who is drawn fairly realistically.

The woman, after a lifetime of evil deeds, pays for her transgressions, becoming a minion of Satan.

Next is "The Corpse That Lives":

More a straight murder/thriller story than a horror one, it has a slight EC-ish feel to it. Its only six pages, but feels a little padded--there are some giant panels in this story, for no particular reason.

Next is: "The Thing In The Ring":

Its about a boxer haunted by a ghost, with a kind of nonsensical ending.

Following this is a text feature, "This Tomb Is Ours", followed by the simply-titled "Vampire":

It features, among other things, a female flying vampire crashing face first into a giant searchlight. Not as interesting as it might sound!

Next is "Weird Safari":

About a group of explorers that stumble into a pit leading to Hell, its a little more gruesome than the other stories, but still pretty much a snooze-fest.

Next is "Torture Castle":

About a family curse and set in a spooky castle, it features an absurdly abbreviated ending: the whole thing is wrapped up in one panel, almost filled to the brim with exposition, both from the narrator and one of the characters.

Last is the colorfully titled "The Old Hag's Claws of Horror":

It features sort of a Scooby Doo-ish ending, except there actually is a supernatural demon at work.

For some reason, this story's last page runs on the back cover, with it and the penultimate page separated by a page of ads. I remember when Warren would do this once in a while, and I thought it always made the issue in question look cheap and slapped together. Horror Tales feels cheap from beginning to end...sort of fitting, I guess.

Regarding the Skywalds, I've mentioned before that they never quite live up to my expectations. People speak of them so warmly, and the covers are so superb, that I always think whatever old issue of Nightmare or Psycho I buy is going to be just boffo, but I almost always am disappointed. But they're just weird enough that I keep buying them.

I'm not sure I'm going do that with Horror Tales. Sorry, Fass Brothers.

If, for some reason, you want to learn more about Eerie Publications, you can click here!



This is today's Angelique Trouvere glossy up for grabs:

...remember, all you have to do is enter the drawing is leave a comment!