Found on UK newsagent's stands in the early 1980's was this horror comic magazine. Published every Monday, it lasted for 15 issues and then was absorbed into the larger-selling anthology, EAGLE. Notable here is a script written by a young Alan Moore and ex-Vampi alumnus José González.
SCREAM!
Vol. 1 No. 1
March 24, 1984
IPC Magazines Ltd.
Editor: "Ghastly McNasty"
Cover: ?
Pages: 32
Cover price: 0.22 GBP/about 30 cents USD
CONTENTS
"The Dracula File"
Script: Gerry Finley-Day
Pencils: Eric Bradbury
Inks: Eric Bradbury
Letters: John Aldrich
"Monster"
Script: Alan Moore
Pencils: Heinzl
Inks: Heinzl
Letters: Paul Bensberg
"The Thirteenth Floor"
Script: Alan Grant (as Ian Holland); John Wagner (as Ian Holland)
Pencils: José Ortiz
Inks: José Ortiz
Letters: Mike Peters (credited)
"Tales From the Grave: The Undertaker"
Script: Tom Tully
Pencils: Jim Watson
Inks: Jim Watson
Colors: ?
Letters: Tim Skomski
"A Ghastly Tale!"
Script: ?
Art: ?
"Fiends And Neighbours"
Script: ?
Art: ?
"At Death's Door: Library of Death"
Script: Barrie Tomlinson
Pencils: Cam Kennedy
Inks: Cam Kennedy
Letters: Mike Peters
"Terror of the Cats"
Script: John Agee
Pencils: José González
Inks: José González
Letters: Peter Knight
To be honest, I really don't see any resemblance between the art in the cat story credited to "Gonzalez" and the art produced by Jose "Pepe" Gonzalez for the various Warren magazines, even when he had time to get more detailed and photo-referenced with the work.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it's true that pre-Warren he worked for these British publications, not only for IPC (as here) but also Fleetway and D.C. Thompson, doing romance stuff for '60s girls' mags like JACKIE.
And since the Grand Comics Database puts this story in his credits, I guess it's the same "Gonzalez"-- even though it's just odd-looking for him.
That quibble aside, this was a fun find and thanks for posting it!
-- hsc
I could be wrong, but from what I was able to find, he's one and the same. Perhaps this is the style that he fell back on to quickly dash out something for these publications.
ReplyDeleteActually, I was thinking the opposite-- the work on these pages is more complex that what Jose Gonzalez often used to deliver for Warren. His VAMPIRELLA stories used to have a "sketchier" inking style, particularly in early issues, and everything was more simplistic-- a lot of open space in backgrounds, and characters clearly drawn from imagination rather than suggesting that photo reference may have been used.
Delete(Mind you, this isn't a criticism, just a way of describing that style-- and I loved his early VAMPIRELLA work.)
Admittedly, Gonzalez' late-period Warren work-- the later stories and those full-page Vampirella pencil portraits and that Incest-themed story in 1984-- tended to be more heavily detailed, as well as more realistically drawn and photo-referenced. (Wouldja believe that the scantily-attired male character "The Walker of Worlds" Vampi met in the last Warren issue was referenced from *a gay porn mag*?)
But still, there's something about the inking style in SCREAM that's what's throwing me-- it looks different enough that I have to wonder if Gonzalez was inked by another artist.
-- hsc
I think the best answer for the Gonzalez art is that it was inked by someone else. Similar to Warren, the UK used overseas agencies (brokers) for a lot of European artist's work and most of it came from Spain. The only particular thing I remember reading about Gonzalez' art while he was working for the Spanish version of the Eisner & Iger Shop was his "clean" lines and "ultra-realistic" women. Certainly doesn't fit the description we see here! It's also possible that the editor (Dez Skinn?) might have thought that type of work wouldn't reproduce well and had it re-inked. It's a stretch, but the answer may turn up somewhere when we least expect it . . .
ReplyDelete