NO CAPTAIN (CO.) FROM CASTILLE

Jim Warren set his sights on Spain for an untapped combination of market, budget, and talent that had yet to be seen in the world of monster 'zines. He hired a stable of artists to draw for his comic magazines that was virtually uparalleled in the day.

It comes as no surprise then, that the fifth issue of the Spanish language version of FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND, entitled, FAMOSOS MONSTERS DEL CINE (August 1975), contains advertising for other licensed Warren publications.

First published in 1971,VAMPUS was the first of three Spanish versions of CREEPY. Running for 77 issues, it contained an assortment of reprints from CREEPY, EERIE, and VAMPIRELLA, along with a letters page, a fan page with fan art that had been sent in to the magazine, text stories with illustrations by Auraleon (as did at least one issue of FAMOSOS MONSTERS DEL CINE), and an occasional non-fiction piece on monster movies a'la FAMOUS MONSTERS.

Another weirdly-titled Spanish/Warren product was entitled RUFUS, the Spanish version of EERIE. Believed to have begun publishing as early as 1973, RUFUS ran for 56 issues. It contained stories from both EERIE and VAMPIRELLA (with Vampi's images removed). David Horne reports that later editions even included material from Skywald (PSYCHO, NIGHTMARE) and DC Comics (!).


Cover art from U.S. CREEPY #66.



VAMPIRELLA was yet another Warren publication that found its way to "revistas" in Spain. This series, first published in 1974, ran for 38 issues. It also included stories from the other Warren comic 'zines, as well as illustrated short stories and articles about monster movies. All three revistas used Warren cover art and all had two or more issues that were called "Yearbooks".


Cover art from U.S. VAMPIRELLA #29.



Again according to Horne, a company calling itself "Moebius" sold some monster-related merchandise in various issues of these magazines. There were also ads for the 6-foot Jack Davis Frankenstein poster (see below) and the 6-foot Jose Gonzalez Vampirella poster. The Warren mail-order business CAPTAIN COMPANY was absent from the Spanish publications. How lucky for them! If you thought we had it bad, could you imagine the wait that the Spanish Monster Kids would have had to endure?!