Vampirella #62 - Warren

Aug. 1977 - I haven't written about the sultry (but dangerous!) Vampirella in a long while, so let's see what's inside this issue, featuring a nice cover by Enrich:

First up is Vampi herself of course, in a story by Bill DuBay and Jose Gonzalez:

This story involves no less than a space alien (I mean, another one) who comes for Vampirella as she lays unconscious in an isolation ward. Meanwhile, two petty thieves are messing around with an ancient tome, and causing all kinds of havoc, like this absolutely priceless panel:

...that is classic. Nicely done, Mr. Gonzalez.

Turns out the monsters are friendly monsters--despite their appearance--and they are here to help Vampi by taking her to a place where she will be accepted. Wow, a happy ending for once!

Next is "U.F.O." by Josep Toutain and Ramon Torrents:

A reporter visits who she thinks is a mad man, claiming he has evidence of aliens. The government is more than skeptical, but this "mad man" turns out to very, very, right.

Next is probably the best piece in the book, "Beautiful Screamer", by Bruce Jones and Leopold Sanchez:

...a classic tale of sex, greed, duplicity, and murder. It reads like a classic EC Shock Suspenstory, complete with twist ending. Sanchez draws the most beautiful evil woman you ever saw.

A change of pace is next, with "Time Ticket", by Gerry Boudreau and Esteban Maroto, turning in his usual breathtaking art job:

A seductive witch offers anyone their heart's content, her price a mere seven minutes of their life. Who could say no to that?

Next is another nice change of pace, a straight ahead creeping monster story called "The Fog" by our pal Nick Cuti with art by Carmine Infantino and Dick Giordano:

...two real eggheads find themselves chased by a malevolent, killer cloud of death, but it turns out their big brains don't really help them much.

Last is "By Treason's Knife" by Boudreau and Sanchez:

...another brutal, EC-esque tale, of double-crossing and treachery on the battlefields of Libya in 1940, complete with uber-grim ending. A tough, terse yarn.

Finished off with eighteen pages of Captain Company ads (Superman and Batman radios---neat-o!), this is a superb issue of Vampirella--diverse stories, all of them very good to great, with fine art all around. A real winner of an issue.

1984 #5 - Warren

Feb. 1979 - Warren set aside the typical "Giant Boobed Space Succubuses from the Planet Sexyon" cover for a more low-key one, courtesy Patrick Woodroffe. Why do I get the feeling this issue sold less?

First up is "The Greatest Hero of Time and Space" by Alabaster Redzone (cough) and Strontium Whitehead (cough cough) with art by Jose Ortiz.

A young lad arrives at his uncle's home, and is regaled with stories of his fabulous exploits. The story features several splash page-type images, each mimicking an old-timey, pulp hero-ish adventure tale, all of them quite spiffy:

...the story ends with a giant orgy. It is 1984.

Next is "Idi and the Ratmen of Hunger Hollow", another goofy, irreverent tale by Strontium, this time with art by Estaban Maroto, followed by "Timothy Sternbach and the Multi-Colored Sunrise" by Gerry Boudreau and Alex Nino, who turns in his usual maddeningly complex and detailed art job.

Next is "I Wonder Who's Squeezing Her Now", by Nick Cuti and the crackerjack art team of Ernie Colon and Wally Wood, in a tale originally meant for the aborted Warren mag Pow!:

Next is "Luke the Nuke Brings It In" by Jim Stenstrum and Rudy Nebres, about a dim-witted space traveler.

The color feature is "Mutant World" by Jan Strnad and Richard Corben, who always brought his "A" game for his Warren stuff:

Next is "The Box!" by Len Wein, Mike Nasser, and Alfredo Alcala...no, this isn't a DC book, though you would think so from that creative line-up. The Box is a machine in charge of keeping the masses happy, which never works for long.

"Killman One", by Redzone and Herb Arnold is next, about an interstellar hitman with a tough job ahead of him...bumping off his wife!

Last is Rex Havoc and the Asskickers of the Fantastic in "The Spud From Another World or: Who Goes There?", by Jim Stenstrum and Abel Laxamana, in a goofy yet heartfelt tribute to the original short story that the classic film The Thing was based on.

A solid issue--any story with this much Stenstrum was usually a good thing, and "Squeezing" is a tantalyzing glimpse of what Pow! could've been.


The 2008 New York Comic Con is coming up, and I plan to spend at least some of my time there stocking up on some fun/cool/just plain goofy b/w magazines to talk about here. To that end, I'm going to give the blog a little break since I pretty much have gone through everything I have on my shelf.

So meet me back here on Monday, April 28th, for more black and white goodness!

Eerie #88 - Warren

Nov. 1977 - As I've mentioned before when profiling Warren's sports-themed issues, I open the magazine with a healthy dose of apathy. I don't care about sports, I generally don't like sci-fi in my Eeries, so sci-fi + sports in Eerie? Oh boy...

The cover is by Don Maitz--isn't bad, a little dull in terms of the design. I do like the alien's custom-made athletic socks.

First up is The Rook in "Future Shock", by Bill DuBay and Luis Bermejo, featuring a payoff to all the time hopping, wherein the Rook gets the chance to start a new world.

Next is "The Key", by Budd Lewis and Jose Ortiz, starring the recurring character Scallywag. There's naked chicks, ninja, dragons, magic swords...I had trouble figuring what the hell was going on here, but it sure was pretty too look at.

Next is "Deathball 2100 A.D." by Bill Mohalley, our pal Nick Cuti, with art by Dick Giordano:

It's sort of a take on Rollerball, featuring an intergalactic basketball game, but with the human players displaying an astonishing level of brutality to win. Funny in its over-the-topness, with Giordano doing the art its like an issue of DC's Strange Sports Stories written by Michael Fleisher.

Next is "Boiling Point", the first chapter of a cool murder mystery story by Bruce Jones and Leopold Sanchez--a brutal killer haunts the subways! Creepy and effective.

Last is "Junkyard Battles or: Never Trust An Electric Shaver", by Cuti and Auraleon, a darkly funny story of a brutal future where machines of all kinds have taken over.

All in all, not too bad an issue--sports is just the subject of that one story, and that one was probably my favorite of the bunch!

1984 #1 - Warren

The debut issue of 1984, Warren Publishing's infamous adults-only sci-fi magazine!

From what I've read, 1984 was meant as more of a creative outlet for Bill DuBay, with Jim Warren having less direct authority over the magazine.

By this time, running the company mostly by himself for decades had taken a toll on Warren, so it only made sense that he would start letting some of his trusted lieutenants take more control of the company's output.

And judging by this first issue, Bill DuBay certainly was putting his all into 1984--this debut issue contains no less than ten stories, and features no ads(save for two 1984-related ones). A promising start, no doubt.

On the inside cover is an editorial by DuBay, titled "Remember the Good Old Days? Who Would've Thought They'd Return...in 1984?" In it, he lays out a sort of Mission Statement for the magazine, talking about the pure thrill kids had reading the adventures of Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, and The Shadow, and how 1984 is an attempt to return to that kind of fun in comics, with a dollop of adult irreverence.

It all sounds so good, but then you get to this, the first word balloon on the first page of the first story, "Last of the Great Joy Juice", by DuBay and Jose Ortiz:

Hmm...I don't remember the word "Jizzum" in any Flash Gordon story, but I'm no expert.

I don't mean to be too harsh, and the first story--about a group of space travelers protecting the universe's last amount of biological material needed to make babies--is fun. But it's full of really foul language, a lot of it gratuitous, and it seems to be in direct conflict with the tone established in the editorial.

Next is Nick Cuti and Esteban Maroto's "Saga of Honeydew Melons", about an enterprising inventor who comes up with the ultimate robot, a stripper who is sexier than any "real" woman. And Maroto certainly knows how to deliver sexy:

Definitely an adult story, but it has charm, snappy dialogue, and a few surprises. Honeydew Melons will not stop trying to entertain!

Next is "Once Upon Clarissa", by DuBay and Alex Nino, who of course delivers an astonishingly-detailed job, told entirely vertically. It's about an artificial woman named Clarissa, and how it doesn't stop men from being men.

Next is "Quick Cut" by Wally Wood, who also really delivers an amazing art job. I love this opening shot:

...it's a classic Woody mix of childlike characters, fantasy, sex, and violence. Nasty fun.

Following that is "Bugs", a short piece by DuBay and Joe Vaultz, about interstellar vermin, and then next is the color feature, "Mutant World" by Richard Corben. I find a lot of Corben's work depressing, because it so heavily concerns itself with death, decay, and malevolence, yet the execution is so well done that I always enjoy it...sort of.

Next is "Faster Than Light" by the always-inventive Jim Stenstrum and Luis Bermejo, who also delivers a boffo splash page:

...it's about a Mister Zong and his attempts to run cruises around the galaxy, and all the problems you can run into, like being sucked out of air holes and giant space rats. Stenstrum's stories are always fun, brisk, full of irreverence yet have a light touch, and this one is no exception.

Next is "Angel!" by DuBay and Rudy Nebres, the first adventure of a gorgeous woman who learns to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Angel is certainly sexy, but at times Nebres' work is so dense I had a hard time figuring out what was looking at!

Last is "Momma, Can You Hear Me?", by Cuti and Nino, a really solid tale of a how a guy ended up as half-robot and his search for his past. Sad, but told with wit and featuring a more restrained but just as--if not more--effective art job by Nino.

A very solid start to the magazine--the sheer amount of material in this first issue is staggering--and most of the stories range from very good to superb. Whatever 1984(and then 1994) eventually turned into, it started off with a bang(several, actually).

Creepy #105 - Warren

I'm not sure what this cover by Esteban Maroto has to do with the "Spectacular Giant Holiday Issue!" tagline, but I love it anyway--especially how detailed it is, except for the comely lass' red hair, which is just a flat blob of red. Way cool.

First up is "Shrivel", by Bob Toomey and Val Mayerik, a light-hearted tale of a dragon that's eaten too much and gotten too fat to fly away and find more worthy prey. Silly but cute, except the ending is sort of a "that's it?".

Next is "Night Life" by Toomey and Auraleon. A vampire's old life comes back to haunt him in the streets of New York...beautifully drawn by Auraleon, but I had a heck of a time figuring out what these people were talking about.

Third is "Dime Novel Hero!", by Nick Cuti and Russ Heath, one of the favorite stories of Nick's that he mentioned in his interview. A western tale that is simultaneously straightforward and yet also a comment on these types of stories:

The story is crisp and scary, and there's something about Russ Heath's clean, no-frills style that gives the piece an extra oomph. Here are two panels from it, one featuring a moment of startling violence, and the other a solemn cameo by a famous cowboy:

I never was that into the Lone Ranger, but he look so cool here...I would've liked to have seen a Warren Lone Ranger magazine drawn by Russ Heath, wouldn't you?

Next is "Always Leave 'Em Laughing" by Len Wein and Alex Nino, who turns in his typically amazingly detailed, nuanced work, with an amazing splash page:

...and yes, this is story is about what it looks like...Space Clowns! A fun tale, with an ending out of a Batman vs Joker story, which of course author Wein would be familiar with.

Next is "The Sign" by Roger McKenzie and Moreno Casares, a grim story tied in to one of the seminal moments in our world's religious history.

Following that is "Visit To A Primitive Planet" by Bill DuBay and the always-great John Severin, an O Henry-type tale that is told almost entirely without dialogue. Funny and sad.

Last is "The Summoning", by Bruce Jones and Gonzalo Mayo, a great, classic scary monster story about a horrible creature that lives in the swamp, and the unwitting scientist and his improbably-built wife who stumble upon in. It has a goofy, dark humor ending right out of the ECs, and a great tale to go out on.

A very fine issue--I've stated before that I'm a little wary of all the sci-fi content in Creepy and Eerie, and this issue has a lot of it, but "Dime Novel Hero" and "The Summoning" are such classic old-school horror stories that it makes the whole issue better.

Eerie #29 - Warren

Nice, er, creepy cover by Ken Kelly!

After the anti-war editorial by Jim Warren, the magazine opens with "Loophole" by Nick Cuti and Jack Sparling, a neat tale about a group of time traveling "population controllers" who do their job a little too well. Try as I might, I can't get my head around Sparling's work--its just too sloppy for my tastes--but the story is fun and clever.

Next is another time travel tale, "The Fiend Planet", by Buddy Saunders and Dan Adkins, about some explorers who tend to shoot first, ask questions later. Not bad, but the last page gets bogged down in a lot of explanation.

Third is "The Bloodstaff", a tale of demons, vampire plants, and haunted written and drawn by Rich Buckler, who turns in a really nice art job, especially with the opening splash:

Next is "Gallery of Horror", a more traditional tale set in a spooky haunted house and even spookier paintings, is written by Saunders with art by Carlos Garzon, whose work doesn't reproduce all that well, but I just loved this open panel featuring a Wrightson-esque haunted house:

Next is what Nick Cuti mentioned as one of his favorites, "The Vorpal Sword", drawn by Tom Sutton, who knocked himself out with the opening:

"Vorpal" is a fun, goofy tale about a guy who has his love and his weapon all rolled into one.

Next is "Strange Gateway" by T.Casey Brennan and Sparling, about a guy who discovers a mirror that can transport him and his wife to a better life. It has a surprisingly simple, sweet ending, especially for an Eerie story--I almost couldn't believe it ended the way it did. A nice change of pace.

Last is "Snow Job", by Doug Moench and Sparling, about explorers on the hunt for a Yeti--but they find something else.

Not a bad issue at all, story-wise, but with three of them drawn by Sparling, I wish maybe these stories had come along either earlier in Warren's publishing history, or later.