Creepy: The Classic Years
God bless the used book store. It's an American institution. Sure they have their faults, ranging from glowering, paranoid owners who look like something out of Deliverance, to books clearly labeled as "Antique'' that aren't even a decade old but are priced as if they were the Declaration of Independence.
Overlooking that, there are few things more satisfying than buying something for just a few dollars that you either would have had to blow hundreds of dollars on or wait months to recieve from some guy on eBay or some shadowy slime-coated figure who lurks on the upper reaches of the Amazon(.com).
"20% OFF EVERY THURSDAY!"
Case in point, I just got Tim Lucas's legendarily overpriced book on Mario Bava for just $5.00, as well as a copy of the criminally out-of-print collection of Warren magazine comics Creepy: The Classic Years for about a dollar. Sure beats buying up the recent Dark Horse hardcover reprints that only reprint four issues and cost like $50 a piece. Both are a great way to waste a day after it starts raining. While I never really warmed to Warren's various horror comics magazines like Creepy, Eeerie, Vampirella(though I imagine warming up to Vampirella herself was the fantasy of many a young horror fan at the time) the same way I did EC, they were a continually reliable showcase of excellent art so long as you knew what issues to look for.
Thankfully, Creepy: The Classic Years is one of the few "Best Of" collections that actually delivers the goods(well, mostly). While it reprints the work of ackowledged masters of the comics medium such as Toth, Ditko, Colan etc, it also includes the work of such obscure also-rans like Donald Norman and Jeff Jones, whom even the introduction describes as "Dark Horse" candidates for inclusion in this book. Does their obscure work fit for a "Definitive" collection? Well, yes and no. But before I get into that, let's see what ghoulish delights await.
First up is Frank Frazetta's Werewolf from Creepy#1, which has the distinctions of being both the last story Frazetta ever did for comics, as well as the only werewolf story I've ever read that's set in Africa. It also has the distinction of not being narrated by familar Creepy-host Uncle Creepy, but by some grim reaper character named Julius, who was never seen again following this story. Oh well, it was the first issue and I guess they wanted to see what characters would stick. Despite all of this distinction, the art work is uneven and the story is predictable. I know, I know. Uneven art by Frazetta? Sadly, yes. It ranges from masterfully composed to extremely sketchy, with the cartoonishness amped up to a ridiculous extreme at times. The story involves a mean-spirited big game hunter and mercenary who is assigned to take down a monster in an African valley called Gonteekwa that is said to pass on it's curse to whoever kills it. You can guess the rest from there. While it's cool to see that the monster in question isn't a traditional werewolf, the most intertesting thing I can say is that while the story seems to have been ripped off from Atlas's Gorilla Man story from Men's Adventures #26, the retelling of Gorilla Man's origin in the recent comic Agents of Atlas seems to derive elements from Werewolf; notably the protagonist's surly appearence.
Much better than Werewolf is Anglo Torres's Dark House Dreams. People familiar only with Torres's work in Mad will be shocked to learn how adept at horror stories he was. Loosely based off of Lovecraft's Dreams in the Witch House, Dark House involves a young surrealist painter named Richard Vane who decides to use the deserted mansion of a centuries dead warlock named Matthew Gaunt(a dead ringer for Max Schreck) for inspiration. Then he begins having strange dreams. Torres's work here is excellent, from his cinematic use of different angles to the way he effortlessly adjusts his art style from realistic to surreal to fit the mood. His well-placed use of blacks and negative space gives a real feeling of dimension to this yarn, which is appropriate for a story about bridging the gap between dreams and reality.
Up next is Reed Crandall's Coffin of Dracula, which oddly enough, is a two-part serial. It also has the distinction of being one of the best sequels(at least in concept, if not in execution)to Bram Stoker's novel. Jonathan Harker may have survived his bout with the Count, but his job as a solicitor has put him and Mina in the grasp of another lecherous nobleman; one Adrian(a man after my own heart) Varney. Nice to see that writer Archie Goodwin was familiar with real horror literature, what with the reference to Varney the Vampire. Adrian has invited Jonathan and Mina to his costume party, but first goes to retrieve a coffin to use as a prop to go along with his vampire costume, which consists of nothing more than typical 19th century evening attire with a cape(vampires were apparently already identified with capes and widows peaked-hair back then). For some reason, he decides to lay down inside the coffin, which somehow causes him to become posessed by Dracula's spirit, and you know what that means...
An intriguing sequel, Coffin cleverly uses several plot holes from the novel for twists in the story and has an amusing take on how the powers of a vampire would work on someone if they were a ghost posessing a human. What keeps this story from being genuienly great, however, is how rushed and reliant on coincidence it is, so there's never any suspense generated. Too bad. This could really have gone somewhere. Also, rather depressingly, the book goofs and credits this story to Torres, despite clearly being signed by Crandall. A shame, because other than being somewhat stiff and overly reliant on a wash effect, this is one of Crandall's best art jobs.
The next story is Johnny Craig's The River, a fairly typical "criminal gets his comeuppance'' story where you'll guess the ending the minute it's mentioned where the story takes place. The art here is really murky, and looks nothing like Craig's usual work at all. He really was at his peak back in the EC days. Curse of the Vampire, however, more than makes up for The River's banalities. Beautifully drawn by Neal Adams, and boasting a genuinely clever twist, this has a raw ferocity that, when combined with Adams's legendary photorealism, makes it genuinely frightening.
Up next is Alex Toth's Grave Undertaking, which gets my nomination for "Worst variation on the Burke & Hare legend ever told". Toth's overruse of craft-tint makes the art incomprehensible. Next is Gene Colan's Fitting Punishment, which is one of the more nonsensical stories in the book, though it does boast a truly gruesome ending. This was obviously a story Colan had a ball drawing, as he masterfully delineates each scene with sometimes overly excruciating detail, but while uasing a wash effect with no solid blacks or straight lines that gives the story a painterly quality. Next is Donald Norman's effort called Heritage of Horror, and it genuienly makes you mad that he didn't get more work in comics, as he has an extremely effective(if somewhat loose) technique involving a scratchboard, which gives a suitably medieval quality to the story, which is about a woman married to a man descended from a long line of medieval headsmen. The ending is a masterpiece of sick humor and makes the story the funniest(intentionally) in the collection.
Coincidentally, this story about a headsman is followed up by Jerry Grandenetti's adaption of the Washington Irving classic The Adventure of the German Student. As much as some people credit Graham Ingels or Berni Wrightson for their work in horror comics, in my opinion, neither came as close to piling on the nightmare fuel as Jerry Grandenetti. He was a trained architect, and contributed to many of the famous "building" layouts in The Spirit. But being an architect didn't keep his work grounded in reality or ''straight'' looking. Quite the contrary, his work is the most off-kilter, abstract, hallucinatory work ever seen in comics. Like German expressionist cinema on acid. It often gives the impression of having been drawn by a deranged child. Each panel is a distorted nightmare. This story is probably hnis masterpiece, and the sole reason to get this book. I also gotta admit that I love how he succeeds at making the undead girl look both ethereally sexy and creepily repellant at the same time with her swirling black hair, skeletal face and large eyes. She bears quite a resemblance to the titular character of Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, as well as to Burton's designs for Lydia in the old Beetlejuice cartoon. Burton said in interviews that he never read superhero comics as a kid, but stories like this make me wonder if he read horror comics.
Probably the best story in the book(besides Al Williamson's satirical The Success Story, which I covered once before) is Joe Orlando's Image of Bluebeard, which is yet another story of romance gone wrong involving decapitations. The ending comes off as a genuine shock, the references to the original Perrault story are finely woven in, and the artwork is gorgeous. My only beef with it is that Olrando makes the female protagonist too pretty, when it's an important plot point that she's supposed to be plain-looking. All in all though, it's a fabulous story.
Other memorable efforts include Steve Ditko's hallucinatory deal with the devil story Second Chance and Alex Toth's The Stalkers, which features aliens; a sci-fi device, yes, but by no means do their inclusion make this any less a horror story. The Jeff Jones story, Angel of Doom, is interestingly inked and designed, but the art style is too amateurish and loose. It feels like it was intended as some sort of underground comic. My guess as to why it was included was because the protagonist; a barbarian named Thane, would eventually score his own sporadically published series in various other Warren comics. The plot is some bizzare Conan-style nonsense with an anti-religion message that feels forced. it is by no means the silliest story in the book, however. That honor goes to Gray Morrow's beautifully illustrated Wardrobe of Monsters, which features some of the most screwed up monster lore ever, as well as a protagonist who keeps shouting "HAAAAA!" for some reason, even in thought balloons.
For what it's worth, the story is about an archeological expedition who finds the ancient egyptian mummies of(not making this up) Satan, Count Orlok, a werewolf and the Frankenstein Monster. In Egypt. As mummies.
"Now wait just a minute here, that monster lore is all wrong..."
Do I even need to explain how screwed up that is? The story then takes a leaf out of Robert Bloch's short story The Opener of the Way, and it gets sillier from there. As I pointed out in my review of Opener a few days ago, that story seemed to be a favorite of various Warren writers, as an entire series was later built around the concept.
Still, one must take the bad with the good, and the overall quality of this collection is still astounding, and all serve to give you a feel of what Warren horror comics were about. My only question about the selections isn't about the stories at all, but the cover.
Rather than reprinting any of the actual Creepy covers, the book instead features a beautiful, but bizzare Mike Kaluta painting on the cover of a man being ravaged by scantily-clad female forrest spirits and elementals. I can't find an image of the cover online, but did find the painting itself. So that'll have to do. As for why they went with that paticular cover, my guess is that because Harris Comics(the company that owns the rights to Waren magazines, particularly Vampirella)'s big selling point is sex, they felt they wouldn't dissapoint their usual readership.
Oh well, all in all this is a fun volume and worth hunting down if you don't want to search for the actual original magazines. Too bad they never put out a companion collection like this for Eerie.