Last year I had a few requests for more wicked Warren posts, and since nothing specific was mentioned title-wise, I guess that leaves it up to old Mr. Karswell to continue with my-- errr, his own choice process of creepy curation! And okay, since half of the country is currently chilled to the bone under mountains of snow and extremely frigid, icy temps, let's see what happens to one lovely young lady in a similar, shivery predicament-- only trapped with a rather unpleasant fellow, to boot! Beautiful, sketch-style artwork from "Jay Taycee", aka legendary Johnny Craig who also wrote the script, from the April 1966 issue of Creepy #8, and highlighted with a terrific Gray Marrow vampire cover painting! But first up, and since we're stalkin' / talkin' vampires, let's see where it all began with one bloodthirsty lil babe from Planet Draculon-- va-va-va-voom it's awesome Vampirella in her September 1966 debut collector's edition issue appearance via Vampirella #1! Forrest J. Ackerman script. Tom Sutton story art. And freakin' Frank Frazetta cover and ad art, all adding up to one helluva great origin issue, as well as THOIA double fear-ture post! Sink in...
I always thought Tom Sutton was really channeling Wally Wood. In fact when I picked up that issue back in the day, I thought it was W.W.
ReplyDeleteAh, Forrie. I think a lot of professional authors might have questioned their instinct to start a story about a deadly drought off by putting their main character in a long and wasteful shower. Surely he could have come up with some other way to get her clothes off for page one? Maybe strip poker?
ReplyDeleteI do like Sutton's vision of Draculon quite a bit. I love fantastical cities, and this one--clearly more inspired by mad labooratories than Krenkel--is a nice example.
Of course, everything pales in comparison to the art in that Johnny Craig classic. The splash, that fireside chat, every piece and part of that is just deliriously good men's mag illustration. It's always so nice to see an artist doing light well. But that devil! What a pedantic hair-splitter! "I didn't do this to live in his house, you little fool! I did it to live in his body in his house! Jeeze!" So my question is, just what was wrong with her body again? Not a dang thing, so far as I could tell. How far down the LGBTQ+ letter chain does it take to get to the bit that denotes "only attracted to mayors"?
Whatever did Second Story Nameless Villainess do to tick off the townspeople, anyway? She doesn't believe in mind control so she's not a witch, and grin the mayor's "brazen hussy" comment it doesn't sound like she's a killer or a thief, so...what? Did she just sleep around a bit? That might have been a crime back in the day.
ReplyDeleteYes, I'm surprised that the story seems to "punish" her at the end for "brazen hussy" reasons (?).
ReplyDeleteOf course, immediately after Luke possesses the mayor, she immediately wants to run the town as her revenge, so maybe that's the main reason for what happens to her, or the only one.
(Though I can think of worse people to run a town that its "floozy.")
Maybe I'm as glad as anyone else that the serious version of Vampirella came along, but I can never help liking this early, tongue-in-cheek version.
> Vampirella
ReplyDeleteYeah, Forrie was not what you'd call ... a competent writer. Sutton, on the other hand, is a very competent artist and I suspect he did a lot of work bringing this story up to snuff.
As Mr. Cavin points out, starting a story about a planet in an incredible world destroying drought with a shower scene is ... well, not what I'd call good writing.
The cheesecake art, on the other hand, the whole point of this, is excellent. A couple issues in and Vampirella would get a lot more serious. I loved Vampi, outside of Creepy and Eerie it retained the most EC-ish of stories, while Creepy and Eerie went on to try other (and perfectly fine) types of fiction. The Vampi stuff was never my favorite, but the backup stories were.
> The Mountain
Craig was one of the artist at EC that did his own writing, but like a lot of folks, in the horror field he was outclassed by Ghastly and Davis, yet outclasses pretty much everybody else not counting some of the Atlas artists.
Here, though, he's thrown away his advertising like clean style for a (looks like produced directly from pencils) style that is still undeniably Craig (especially in the female faces) but also really well suited for horror. The splash, the lighting with the fire (and with the non-subtle hint that the devil was here), and just everything, it's great. It's an incredible piece of work.
We got a bit of Craig work at Warren but he was so slow we never got enough.
BTW: No underwear on this devil!
BTW I've asked many times for one specific story from Eerie and if this is another time you printed something and I forgot it I'm going to be really embarrassed. That said, I sent you the issue even so I know you have it!
ReplyDeleteEerie 71, "Mordecai Moondog"
It's one of my favorite Eerie stories yet it BREAKS everything you are supposed to do in a comic story, so I have no idea why it always enchanted me, but I'd be interested to hear what other people think!