Creepy #13 – Review

By: Josh Simmons, Dan Braun, Peter Bagge, John Habermas, Cullen Bunn & Archie Goodwin (writers), Dean Haspiel, Bagge, D.W. Frydendall, Lukas Ketner, Tyler Crook and Reed Crandall (art), Nate Piekos & Bagge (letters)

The Story: More short horror stories from Uncle Creepy…

Review: This is another issue where the new Creepy stories don’t quite measure up to the reprinted classic story (Note: There is always a reprinted classic in contemporary Creepy).  The problem these new stories have is that they’re a little too cartoony in their artistic style and that cartooning is often incompatible with anything being truly horrific or unsettling.

The classic reprint in this issue (The Squaw, by Archie Goodwin & Reed Crandall, reprinted from Creepy #13, February 1967), shows how a serious tone can make an outwardly silly story “work”.  The Squaw sees a young couple in Europe on their honeymoon – who are characters only in the sense that they give the reader someone to see the unfolding story through.  They meet a loudmouth American businessman on vacation named Elias.  Why honeymooners want to hang out with a solo male tourist isn’t really explained, but Elias is basically the popular stereotype of Teddy Roosevelt: full of piss and vinegar, seeking danger, talking about animals he’s shot…..  The trio sees a mother cat playing with her kitten and Elias decided to toss a rock at the cats to scare the cats as a joke….except the rock crushes the kitten.  Oh….how the mother cat is pissed off, but she’s just a silly cat.  What can she really do to big man Elias?  Later the group tours the torture museum and Elias insists on getting inside one of the devices just to see what it was like.  You know….he wants ADVENTURE!  Of course, this is a terrible idea and as readers, we KNOW something bad will happen.  As the museum assistant is holding the jaws of the apparatus open and allowing Elias to experience the adrenalin rush of almost being skewered to death, the CAT shows up and claws the assistant’s face, the apparatus slams shut, Elias dies horribly and karmic justice is served.  The End!

Creepy #11 – Review

By: Gilbert Hernandez, J. Torres, Dan Braun, Peter Bagge, Alisa Kwitney, Archie Goodwin & Jamie S. Rich (writers), Hernandez, Amy Reeder, Bagge, Zullo, Johnny Craig and Joelle Jones (art), Hernandez, Reeder, Bagge & Nate Piekos (letters)

The Story: What do you want me to say?  You know what Creepy is!  It’s a black and white anthology horror comic.

Review: If you had to draw up a checklist for a great issue of Creepy it would look like this: (a) zero stories that suck, (b) great black and white art, (c) “Oh, Henry!” endings galore and (d) one stellar story.

The only place this issue stumbles a little is that it doesn’t have that ONE story that really sticks out.  Everything is very, very good, but nothing quite rises to that level of awesomeness that it can carry the entire $4.99 issue by itself.

Creepy #7 – Review

By: Joe Lansdale, Keith Lansdale, Dan Braun, Bill Morrison, Martin Salvador & Archie Goodwin (writers), Guus Floor, Patric Reynolds, Wilfredo Torres, Steve Skeates & Steve Ditko (artists) and Nate Piekos (letters)

The Story: Uncle Creepy is back with three new tales of terror and two old reprints from the Creepy archives.

Review: This isn’t a “bad” issue of Creepy, but it does commit the cardinal sin of an anthology: It doesn’t have a singular story that sets your socks on fire.  Probably the closest to excellence that this issue comes is with the second story: “The Shroud” by Dan Braun and Patric Reynolds.  This snappy little story involves a young couple that visits an auction and acquires a creepy shroud with a demonic face on it.  It’s kind of an evil-looking Shroud of Turin.  That’s just not going to turn out well!  Reynolds’ art is crisp and the only thing holding this story back is that it ended kinda suddenly.  My two cents is that they could’ve ditched a panel or two of people nagging the guy to get rid of the shroud and had another couple panels at the end.

The other two new stories aren’t bad, but don’t do anything to stand out.  “Mud” was an interesting concept, but the art was too… well… muddy for me to really enjoy it that much.  “Bloodsuckers” was also just okay.

Dark Horse gives us TWO old reprint stories in this issue.  On one hand, it DOES expose readers to the excellence of those old Warren Publishing Creepy magazines.  Whether you collect the single issues (like me) or buy the archives that Dark Horse is publishing, those are MUST READS for any horror fan.  On the other hand, neither of these two stories are picked from the A-list of old Creepy material and it seems a little cheap to sell us a “new” comic that is 40% reprint material.

Creepy Comics #6 – Review

By: Joe R. Lansdale, Christopher A. Taylor, Alice Henderson, Dan Braun, Craig Haffnet, Archie Goodwin (writers), Nathan Fox, Jason Shawn Alexander, Kevin Ferrara, Garry Brown, Neal Adams (artists), Nate Piekos (letters) & Shawna Gore (editor)

The Story: Another issue of the reborn horror anthology from Dark Horse.

What’s Good: If you’re not getting Creepy, you’re doing comics wrong.  This issue nails the formula again by giving us 5 short-stories of horror goodness with excellent black-and-white art.

With anthologies, the overall grade is mostly related to (a) how good the “good” stories were and (b) how sucky were the “bad” stories.  The weakest of this issue’s stories (“Mine”) was still pretty cool and had great art and the high points (“Commedia Del Morte” & “Fair Exchange”) were really awesome.  Perhaps Dark Horse shouldn’t get full credit for Full Exchange by Archie Goodwin and Neal Adams since this is reprint material from the original 1960’s Creepy Magazine, but Commedia Del Morte was a real tour de force.  After reading Commedia Del Morte, you’ll see clowns as both scarier and more heroic than you ever did before.

Another thing that is precious about Creepy is that no one is trying to launch a new creator-owned series off any of these tales.  Even though I generally enjoy anthologies like Dark Horse Presents or Strange Tales from Vertigo, you know that those stories are usually pitches for ongoing series OR they are pitches that no one liked quite enough to turn into an ongoing series.  That’s never a problem with Creepy, there are just outstanding short stories with a definite ending.  Even when the concept is cool, the story has an ending.  Someone could easily turn the concept for Commedia Del Morte into a miniseries, but I strongly doubt we’ll ever see that.  Even though I enjoy continuity based superheroes as much as anyone, there is something special and powerful about these Creepy stories’ ephemeral nature.  And, these stories are basically timeless.  Go read the 60’s Creepys if you doubt me and compare how fresh they seem compared to Batman of that same era.