In this issue's "Dear Uncle Creepy" letters page, a young Bernie Wrightson pens a note asking about Frank Frazetta's absence from drawing comic strips. He refers to Frazetta as "the Edgar Rice Burroughs of the pen and brush" and also calls "The Damned Thing" (the adaptation of the Ambrose Bierce short story scripted by Archie Goodwin and drawn by Gray Morrow in the previous issue) "indescribably delicious", a take-off that Baby Boomers might remember as the ad phrase for the Mounds candy bar. Uncle Creepy (probably Goodwin who takes over as editor from Russ Jones in this issue) replies by saying that Frank is busy working for people that pay him with money! In truth, this was the period that Frazetta was getting a lot of jobs for book covers and poster work that paid him a lot more than Warren could have! He even published the cover of this issue as a wall poster with the title "Count Dracula".
Other notables are Frazetta's Uncle Creepy portrait as an element of the first Creepy Fan Club ad and a full-page ad for the first issue of BLAZING COMBAT. On the contents page, the story "Grave Undertaking" is erroneously printed as "Grave Understaking", similar to the misprint of the aforementioned Bierce story "The Damned Thing" as "The Damn Thing". So, both Jones and Goodwin get the editor's gong!
And lastly, in my opinion, the images below by Angelo Torres from the story "Untimely Tomb!" make for one the the most effective and frightening consecutive three-panels ever in horror comics. A mini-masterpiece!
CREEPY
Vol. 1 No. 5
October 1965
Warren Publishing Co.
Publisher: James Warren
Editor: Archie Goodwin
Cover: Frank Frazetta
Pages: 60
Cover price: 35 cents
CONTENTS
"Creepy's Loathsome Lore (Zombies)"
Script: Archie Goodwin
Art: Angelo Torres
"Family Reunion!"
Script: Archie Goodwin
Art: Joe Orlando
"Untimely Tomb!"
Script: Archie Goodwin
Art: Angelo Torres
"Sand Doom"
Script: Archie Goodwin
Art: Al Williamson
"The Judge's House!"
Script: Archie Goodwin (adaptation of Bram Stoker story)
Art: Reed Crandall
"Grave Undertaking"
Script: Archie Goodwin
Art: Alex Toth
"Revenge of the Beast!"
Script: Archie Goodwin
Art: Gray Morrow
Thanks for posting this!
ReplyDeleteI always enjoy seeing classic issues of the Warren comics-- I used to have a near-complete collection that went up to about mid-1978, but lost them all in a move a while back. (They were taking up too much physical space anyway, and I prefer online scans these days because it allows better study of the art.)
But again, you've accidentally credited a Joe Orlando piece to Angelo Torres-- what *IS* it with you and poor Orlando? LOL! Just kidding!
(However, there was this reader in the early days of CREEPY that was convinced that "Archie Goodwin" was actually Joe Orlando editing under a pseudonym, since that was coincidentally the name of a character in Rex Stout's "Nero Wolfe" stories.)
"Family Reunion" gives a good opportunity to compare Joe Orlando's usual art to the stories ghost-penciled by Jerry Grandenetti, like "Under the Skin" in your recent posting of EERIE # 3. It's still strong work, but much less imaginatively laid out.
One touch worth noting is the three Cartwright brothers are a nod to the Cartwrights of the then-hugely popular TV series "Bonanza"-- here we have eldest Aaron (Adam), middle son Horace ("Hoss") and youngest son "Young Jack" ("Little Joe"). While "Young Jack" vaguely suggests a dissolute version of Michael Landon, Orlando resisted making the other two brothers resemble Pernell Roberts and Dan Blocker, thaough "Horace" is the biggest brother.
"Sand Doom" features typically fantastic Al Williamson art, including an opportunity for a little cheesecake. Interestingly, he uses the same stippled shading film here to represent "sand" that he uses in "The Lighthouse" in EERIE #3 to represent "fog"!
Also, when depicting the vision of the dead priestess giving "Whitey" his final warning, Williamson throws on a gradiant white shading film overlay to break her image up into coarse halftones-- an effect Neal Adams later used in one panel of "Fair Exchange" in EERIE #8! (At least, I *think* that's how this effect was achieved, though I suppose it could've been something like Craftint. At any rate, it's an effect that's had my attention for over 50 years! LOL!)
And speaking of Adams, the basic plotline of "Sand Doom" (macho guy intrudes on sacred area and defiles it; guy has bad encounter with priestess and gets cursed; guy kills her and some of her animal minions in order to escape; guy gets transformed by the curse into the animal he killed) got recycled by Archie Goodwin for "A Curse of Claws!" in CREEPY #16, illustrated by Adams (with the iconic "Cat Girl" cover painting by Frazetta).
That three-panel sequence in "Untimely Tomb!" (a typically great Torres job) was indeed memorable; in fact, the center panel showed up in a later issue as a little spot illo accompanying some message like encouraging readers to write the lettercol.
Also, several images from Torres' work on this story and Alex Toth's work on "Grave Under(s)taking" were used by Estaban Maroto as reference for his story "The Viyi" that appeared in DRACULA and was reprinted (with a new script and lettering) in the color section of CREEPY #51.
(And considering the twist ending of the story, maybe "Understaking" was a "Freudian slip" pun?)
Love this blog! Keep up the GREAT work, John!
Whoops! Forgot to sign that, but by now you know it's probably me if it's THAT lengthy an anonymous post! LOL!
ReplyDelete-- hsc
Interesting observations all. You are definitely well-read and have a discerning eye for details. I was astounded by the wealth of information in David Horne's "Gathering Horror" tome. I lost touch with him some years ago, so I don't know if he appended any of his information or not. Maybe there wasn't anything left to append! I'm lucky to have a signed copy as well as a reference copy that I use often with the Warren material.
ReplyDeleteI, too, periodically come across panels/art that is familiar and occasionally post it under the "Sinister Simulacra" title here. It seems to me that more than once I have read about artists keeping a "swipe file", so it's not uncommon.
Yes, Williamson provided some early Warren eye-candy and we'd see a lot more when Vampirella began publishing a few years later. I think I might have mentioned that when I was doing a lot of drawing years ago I used a bit of screen overlay -- I want to say it was called Formatt, but it might have been a Letraset product. I still have some buried somewhere and will have to dig it out some day. Man, what a pain in the neck to use!
So far as the Orlando/Torres conundrum, I must confess I've have some sort of weird mental block concerning those names for some inexplicable reason. Thanks for keeping me straight. YAHHHHHH!!!