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 #10 – Review

By: Doug Moench, Dan Braun, Peter Bagge, Matt Weinhold, Jim & Ruth Keegan, Bob Jenney & John Arcudi (writers), Kelley Jones, Bagge, Darick Robertson, Richard P. Clark, the Keegans, Jenney and Richard Corban (art), Nate Piekos, Bagge & Keegans (letters)

The Story: Creepy goes all Lovecraftian

Review: There is a segment of the comic readership that goes ga-ga over Lovecraft.  Personally, I’ve never really gotten it; I’ve read some Lovecraft recently and just thought it was “okay”–not “bad”, not “great”–just “okay and I never need to read more of that.”  The other thing I’ve observed about Lovecraft as an outsider is that his fans have the most hardcore fringe that I can think of online.  Seriously, these people put comic fans who fight about old versions of the Captain America uniform to shame.  They put Republicans and Democrats fighting about gay marriage to shame.  They put sports fans to shame.  So, I will candidly say that when I open Creepy #10 and see that it is an all-Lovecraft issue, my brain says, “SHIELDS UP!  ARM PHOTON TORPEDOES AND READY THE PHASER BANKS!”