Nightmare #11 - Skywald

February 1973 - The magazines produced by Skywald have been woefully under-represented here on the blog; that's mostly due to the fact that even copies in terrible condition are going for high prices on eBay and at cons--it seems that the people that didn't buy Skywald's product at the time are now realizing what they were missing, and are rectifying that original error.

But once in a while I get lucky and find a decent-looking Skywald mag for a price I'm willing to pay, and I especially wanted to get one in here during this week of new posts.

First off--the cover: a beautiful, wonderfully nightmarish image from the artist known as "Jad". Perfectly designed and executed, it made we want to get this issue and see what was inside, like a good cover should.

The first story is "The Wetness In The Out" by Al Hewetson and Pablo Marcos:

(click to see a bigger version)

This story of a homicidal murderer on the run is told in nursery rhyme; certainly and unusual structure that works fairly well. The ending is a typically gruesome-yet-morbidly funny conclusion that always seems to work, this being no exception.

Next is "Taw!" by Ed Fedory and Borell, about some explorers who run afoul of a race of murderous snow creatures:

...another "twist" ending, well executed by artist Borrell.

There's a short feature on Lon Chaney, featuring an excellent illustration by Pablo Marcos highlighting Chaney's most famous moment from Phantom of the Opera, along with some Captain Company-esque ads for merchandise.

Next is "The Beasts of Tomb Beach!" by Wayne Howard:

This is a really unusual story, in that it ends on page four, asking you--the reader--to write in and submit what you thought Mike's dream/nightmare was! Now I want to get the later issue to see what ideas were submitted!

Next is "Where Gods Once Stood" by T.Casey Brennan and Carlos Garzon:

Set in Olympus, no less, this story stands out as a nice change of tone and setting. Well drawn by Garzon.

Next is "Corridors of Caricature" by Al Hewetson and Duran:

A bunch of people get together, for an as-yet-unknown purpose. Beautifully, precisely drawn by Duran, with one gruesome ending!

After the letters page, the setting changes once again with "Where Are The Inhabitants of Earth?", by Al Hewetson and Zesar:

Very reminiscent of the sci-fi movies of the time, featuring one man trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Nothing terribly new here, but still fun, and with a weird ending.

Next is "Titan Weep" by Hewetson and Marcos (the Scorsese/DeNiro of Skywald):

...a three-page(!) tale, with a lot of high-falutin' dialog, but also featuring a gross-out "twist" ending. Don't shake hands with this Titan guy, that's all I'll say.

After some movie reviews (man, the Movie Still Industry just got decimated once VCRs showed up) is "The Horror War" by Hewetson and Borell:

This is one of those stories that starts off pretty typically, and then takes the off ramp into Crazyville. Case in point: amid all the sci-fi stuff like spaceships and kids riding things calls "Weapon Birds", we have an appearance by...President Dixon!:

Not only is it weird to have the current, 1973-era President still in office during the telling of this tale (Ha! And Alan Moore thinks he's innovative!), but in one of the panels, for no apparent reason, the artist dropped in a stat of Nixon's head (Ha! And Matt Groening thinks he's...oh, never mind), making for one goofy panel. I had a hard time concentrating on the rest of the story after that.


...whew, that's a lot packed into one issue! While the various stories vary wildly in quality, you can't say Skywald didn't give you a lot of entertainment for your sixty cents.

Nightmare #6 - Skywald

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.