The Weird World of Eerie Publications - 2010

Since starting this blog back in 2007, I have of course had the opportunity to explore all kinds of magazines that I normally would never have come across. Some have been good, some have been bad, and some are just friggin' crazy.

Case in point: the output of Eerie Publications, an outfit that managed to survive for decades, producing thousands and thousands of pages of material...most of it totally crap. But it was the kind of crap Eerie Pubs produced that made it memorable, something author Mike Howlett explores in his new book, The Weird World of Eerie Publications.

Eerie produced magazines like Tales of Voodoo, Weird, and Horror Tales--fairly generic names but as you can see from the covers, Eerie took the idea of gore to a whole new level:

The book opens with an intro by the legendary Steve Bissette, who talks about discovering these magazines as a kid and falling in love with them, all the while knowing they were mostly garbage. And maybe that's the key--I never saw a single Eerie magazine on a newsstand when I was a kid, so I didn't have that attachment that forms instantly when you discover something that expands the horizons of your wee little kid mind.

But Bissette and Howlett clearly had that moment, and Mike goes on to explore Eerie--both its output and the story of the company itself--in exhaustive detail. He covers virtually every conceivable angle of the Eerie Pubs story, from detailed analysis of the stories (most of which were reprints, with parts redrawn by staffers to make them more gory), biographies of the people who made them (like the gun-toting Myron Fass, who ran the operation), and highlights some of the absolutely jaw-dropping dark alleys that Eerie traveled, all in the effort to make a buck (there's a cover here to a magazine called Mobs and Gangs that is so foul I can't believe it made it out of the printing press).

The book is stuffed to the gills with artwork, featuring beautiful reproductions of all the lurid Eerie covers, as well as a lot of the grubby-looking interiors:

As the book goes on, Howlett's enthusiasm for his subject is so captivating and infectious (a perfect word for Eerie Pubs) that you find yourself wanting to track down some of these magazines for yourself, even though you probably know (as Mike cheerfully admits) you'll be disappointed with the results.

Ultimately, The Weird World of Eerie Publications works as a way for the rest of us non-Eerie fans to immerse ourselves in the world without the crushing disappointment of the mags themselves. As soon as I was finished the book, I wanted to go back to the beginning and start again, revisiting Myron Fass' amazing story all over again. Anyone with an interest in black and white comic magazines should pick this book up, you won't be disappointed...though you might end up a little queasy!

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!



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