The Warren Report Issue 53: June 1974

Jack-Issue number two of The Spirit is even better than issue number one! It features a beautiful, new cover by Eisner that illustrates themes from the story "Powder Pouf" without actually illustrating a particular scene. The letters page includes praise from Alex Toth, Wally Wood, Neal Adams, and Robert Bloch! Quite a lineup. There is a one-page interview with Eisner in which he reveals that he passed on the original "Superman" when it was submitted to his shop.

The first three stories are superb. "Heel Scalloppini" is a timely political story of an elected official who won't crack down on the violent people who got him elected until the Spirit helps him have an epiphany and re-discover his conscience. "Powder Pouf" (a title not actually displayed on the stunning splash page) features a gorgeous woman who is vicious and violent; a mild mannered ex-con named Bleak seems aimless at first but ends up helping the Spirit capture Powder. "The Fallen Sparrow," originally published the week after "Powder Pouf," continues the story and follows heroic Bleak and his girl Sparrow, who was jailed for a crime she didn't commit and who had the unfortunate luck to end up sharing a cell with Powder Pouf. These three stories can stand with the best of any comic stories I've ever read and demonstrate why The Spirit section was a comic aimed at the adults reading Sunday papers.

One other story in this issue hits the heights: "The O'Dolan," which features plenty of the always-welcome Ellen Dolan, the Commissioner's beautiful daughter who is hopelessly in love with the Spirit. This tale includes Irish humor and another ghost (like last issue) who really is a ghost and not a trick. In a number of the stories in this issue, Eisner (and Grandenetti, whom the GCD credits as co-artist on every story and who probably did backgrounds and/or inks) makes great use of a technique where he draws a character looking straight at the reader, a look of surprise or shock on his or her face, which is lit in high contrast.

Less successful (but still great) is "Silken Floss," with the beautiful doctor of the title; the closest things to clunkers this time out are "The Tragedy of Merry Andrew," told in verse like "Casey at the Bat" with images that contradict the high-minded captions, and "UFO," a weak satire of Orson Welles with a real man from Mars. "Wanted: Mortimer J. Titmouse" is this issue's color section and it features a quick appearance by the Octopus's purple gloves, grasping at the formula for the atom bomb. Even the lesser Eisner Spirit stories are worth reading!

Peter-I may come off as a dolt admitting this (though I've never been shy of my doltery in the past), but my favorite Spirit stories are those without complex plots and lots of annoying words. Eisner was a great storyteller, yes, but I think his greatest achievement was being a storyteller who didn't lean on the word as much as the visuals. "Heel Scalloppini" is way too wordy for my Spirit palette and it's hard to follow as well. Not so the pair of "Powder Pouf" tales, which are a lot of fun and display a good sampling of the subtle Eisner humor. The rest of the contents are equally enjoyable (man, "The O'Dolan" has a killer splash), but if I had to pick one from the batch it would be "Wanted: Mortimer J. Titmouse," and not just because it's the color section this time out. I love the cameo of the Octopus (okay, so it's just his hands) and the open-ended climax. There's no silly wrap-up, just a big question mark. Interestingly enough, the face of the Octopus was never shown during Eisner's newspaper run of the strip, and it would not be until 1966 (and the second issue of Harvey's short-lived The Spirit comic book) that we'd get an origin tale. 

Vampirella and Pendragon are in Venice, performing at a party on the yacht of Hollywood mogul Zymer Z. Sull, a man of particularly vile taste and rude habits. Meanwhile, Count Umberto and his daughter are pining for the days when they threw huge galas. They invite several of their old friends to their castle for a party but, alas, all their friends are long since dead. What to do? The Count decides to invite Sull and his hangers-on, since the yacht is parked not far from the castle. Vampi and Pen tag along with the arrogant Sull, since Pen insists they're being paid for the privilege.

Once they all get there, Sull's friend, singer Sammy Bleecher, takes over by talking the Count's daughter into doing a striptease atop the piano. When the Count objects, Bleecher decks him. Suddenly, the butler enters and announces the arrival of the "old friends" Umberto had invited. Bleecher hits on the masked Principessa Di Pozzi, asking for a dance, but insists on unveiling her beauty. To his surprise, beneath the mask is a skull. The shock drives Bleecher mad, but Sull pulls a pistol and threatens the Count unless he 'fesses up that the whole thing is a charade. Vampi, having seen quite enough from the bloated Sull, sinks her teeth into the man's neck and sucks him dry. The party continues on, with the Count trotting out the rotten corpse of his own dead wife. Vampi and Pen throw up their hands and sigh, "When in Venice..."

"Carnival of Death" is one really dumb, meandering mess. We've seen the Sull and Bleecher type-characters one too many times in this series and there's no real explanation for the revival of the corpses. Is the Count some kind of miracle worker? A landline to the other side? Vampi is resigned to stand in the background, uttering awful dialogue like "I'm going to stop the degradation of that poor, stupid woman!" and biding her time until the obligatory "When Vampi gets frazzled, she gets thirsty!" Who the heck would hire a third-rate Vaudeville act for a floating orgy and how much is Sull paying? Vampirella has certainly been a good series to check your brain at the door, but "Carnival of Death" is the one where you should halt before you enter and turn around.

Eccentric billionaire Howard Albert Black has come a long way to see Mrs. Jenkins's niece, "Miranda." You see, Black has a thing for marrying "special" women, like those with only one arm or one leg or no temper. Miranda is very special indeed; she's half praying mantis! Though Black offers Mrs. Jenkins one million dollars for the honor of her niece's hand in marriage, the old woman scoffs and tells him he knows not of what he wishes but she'll let him have an audience with Miranda if he'll leave immediately thereafter. 

Black meets the gorgeous girl, gets an eyeful of her raptorial legs, and talks Miranda into leaving with him. When Mrs. Jenkins discovers her niece has fled the nest, she scurries to Black's house, only to discover Miranda having her new husband for dinner. Well, thank you, Captain Obvious. How can a climax such as this be a surprise if you shout the clues all through the running time? I'll dispense with my usual "misogynistic comic book writers of the mid-1970s" lecture, as this tripe really isn't so much "regrettable" as just plain stupid.

Fleur the witch teams up with Richard, Earl of Parlan, when both are arrested and condemned as witches by Chelidonius, the Witchfinder General. Through witchery and skill with a dagger, the pair escape, but Richard has a surprise for Fleur as they flee the dungeon. There's nothing original going on in "Fleur: From the Spain of Legend," but it sure looks good. In the same way fifty unrelated paintings in a gallery look good. Ramon Torrents can dole out the posed nekkid chicks all right, but there's not a lot of cohesion from panel to panel. It all just melts together into a near-incomprehensible goop. But a pretty goop. "Fleur" will return a few more times over the next half-decade.

Say what?

"Black and White Vacuum to Blues" continues the disturbing trend of Warren editors giving the nod to pretentious pap filled with silly-ass one-liners (Helter-skelter, hectic legs joggle-bog the clownie down the stone stairwell! Drac-flak hard to hack?) and random incidents. Sometime in the near future, TV shows featuring violence and comedy are acted out on our television sets for the entertainment of the stupid masses. We've gotten that message before, Doug. I know, I know, even after your last diatribe, Adam-12 and The Waltons retained their massive audiences. Got some news for you, buddy: John Q. is gonna watch what they like no matter what you or Harlan have to say, so can you whip us up a story about a vampire whose neighbor is a werewolf? Incidentally, I would never have guessed the art was by Maroto; only goes to show that Esteban is Muy Especial in black-and-white.

Fed up with her nowhere marriage, a woman throws her lazy husband down an open elevator shaft but is then cursed with dreams of a murderous hunchback and a fall from a high cliff. After cashing the life insurance check, the woman heads out for a drive in her sports car but meets with disaster on a cliff road after seeing the hunchback of her dreams and taking the high dive to the rocks below. I must be completely dense, because I can see no point to the plot of "Recurrence!" other than that murder is a bad thing. Steve can't even seem to tie the loose ends up; who is this hunchback? Is he the dead man's State Farm policy writer? A road worker who wandered away from his job site to grab a quick jog? Skeates ends his bewildering tale with the equally bewildering message: "Life is a series of connected and similar events... a cycle... a wildly spinning cycle!" Where's the proof?  Deja Vu All Over Again Department: Jose Bea reboots his classic final panel of "The Blood-Colored Motorbike" (Creepy #61) for the climactic car crash of "Recurrence!"

Gunned down by his best friend during a blizzard, a (dead?) man carries an elk back to his wife, starving in their cabin. In the meantime, his best friend heads back to the cabin and, upon arrival, decides the woman looks good enough to eat. My synopsis might be sketchy but so is this script. If you had said to me Wrightson/Jeff Jones, I'd have said "Sold, no matter the quality!" hence my fairly-high rating despite not knowing what the hell is going on in "Cold Cuts." Pretty much the description for most of the stories this issue.-Peter

Jack-There's not a single story in this dreadful issue that I can recommend. "The Carnival of Death!" is decent but Vampi and Pendy are essentially playing the roles of Statler and Waldorf as they stand in the wings, watching and commenting on events. Vampirella eventually puts the bite on a bad guy, but there's no conflict or danger and it's over in two panels. "Cold Cuts" is written by Wrightson and illustrated by Jones, so it has star names, but it's a confusing six pages that are beautifully rendered.

"Miranda" starts out looking like another story that continues the unfortunate Warren fascination with amputees but goes nowhere surprising, though the final panel is gruesomely effective. The other three stories are truly from hunger. "From the Spain of Legend!" reads as if Jacobson was handed ten pages and told to make up words to go along with the pictures, "Recurrence!" has Bea's always-spooky art and not much else, and "Black and White..." is a complete disaster, entirely due to Moench's utterly horrible script. Maroto's art is great but the words are a mess. DuBay's color is vivid but can't rival Corben's and looks like standard comic book coloring on good quality paper. This is an issue to forget!

A dead African-American man known only as the Spook is told that a Creole woman is using voodoo to raise an army of ex-slave zombies to kill white slavers. The Spook finds the woman, busy with her naked ritual dance with a big serpent, and wipes out numerous zombies before ending the whole thing by knocking the naked woman into a fire.

Terribly over-written as only Doug Moench can, the oddly-titled "Stridespider Sponge-Rot" is as rotten as its moniker. The endless captions are filled with prose such as: "Expectancy hovers in the air like a darkling cloud gathering the fury of storm. The Creole woman makes a slight, impatient gesture... and the drums intensify in response!" Maroto's art is sketchy and his inability to tell a coherent story is amplified by Moench's nonsensical words. I'm sorry to say this is just the first entry in a new series!

Hunter sets the nuclear missile to go off in an hour and blow up his part of the world. The Blood Princess leads him to Ofphal's chamber in the castle, and Hunter confronts his father. The Blood Princess shows Schreck where his weapons are kept and Schreck dons Hunter's outfit to go demon hunting. As the hour counts down, Hunter tells his father that they all are about to die, but the missile fizzles. Ofphal kills Hunter and Schreck kills Ofphal. The series ends with Schreck and the Blood Princess walking out into a newly demon-free world.

The final, untitled installment of the Hunter series may be its best yet, though it's only tangentially a horror story. Neary's art seems more in line with hero comics and the narrative followed predictable but entertaining comic book tropes. Still, the eight-page package is enjoyable and the end is satisfying; I'm impressed that DuBay chose to kill off his hero and let the minor characters survive.

A duo of Scotland Yard detectives investigate the case of a fellow policeman whose head is lopped off and delivered to his wife in a box. It reminds them of a similar case years ago, when a madman cut off pieces of his victims' bodies and delivered them in nice packages. They caught that killer and hanged him, so is this a copycat? The detectives locate the son of the man who was hanged and arrest him, but they have to let him go when another beheading occurs while the suspect is in custody.

"Hide from the Hacker!" is as good as it is due to the talents of Tom Sutton, an artist we really need to see more of in these mid-'70s Warren mags. He knows how to tell a story in an entertaining way through pictures, and his gruesome panels don't shy away from violence but don't glorify it either. He just seems to know how to present horror without making it offensive.

When Dr. Barton Clervel's wife dies and he is left alone and without a "Child," he decides to make one out of spare parts. He stitches together a boy and brings it to life and, after some initial revulsion, becomes a loving father and raises the boy. The child shows his strength and propensity to violence when two crooks try to rob his father; this ability resurfaces when his father's landlord kills him to get the house, which sits over an oil deposit. The child kills the landlord, hangs his body from the swing set in the yard, and sets out to see more of the world.

Greg Potter writes a moving story that avoids needless sensation, and Corben does a great job bringing it to life in pictures. Contrast his color scheme with that used by DuBay in this month's Vampirella and see why Corben was considered such a master.

A crook known as Graak and some friends break into the old Foley place looking for treasure and have to reckon with "The Terror of Foley Mansion!" Yes, "It" is back again, sensing something is wrong at the homestead and digging its way out of its grave to shamble over to go on a killing spree. It kills one after another until they're all dead, then shambles back to the warm grave. When the rightful owners arrive at the house, there is quite a mess to clean up.

Another It story by Carl Wessler follows the pattern of those before it: little explanation or motivation, lots of purple prose and people getting killed. I have to compliment Jose Gual, though--his art is terrific. He really knows how to draw a shambling, bony corpse. I thought it was a little much when It plucked out the eyes of one of the crooks, but I guess you have to take the gross with the disgusting when reading horror comics.

Dr. Archaeus murders Sir Robert Cawling-Byrd IV in the street and Detective Miles Sanford thinks he's worked out a pattern to the murders: they follow the song about the twelve days of Christmas! He resigns after his boss scoffs. Archaeus makes a mask of Sir Robert's facial features, then kidnaps Morgan Grenville (another juror) and murders his lady friend at the opera. Archaeus puts the Sir Robert mask on Grenville's body and makes "A Switch in Time...," substituting it for Sir Robert's at the funeral, after setting off the bomb as a distraction. No one, including Sanford, realizes that Grenville was buried alive.

The Dr. Archaeus series continues to be fun, though this entry is a bit convoluted. I had to read it twice before I understood what happened. The ending is subtle, which is not a word I often use to describe Warren horror comics, and the art by Mones fits the narrative--it's nothing special, but it's good enough. This issue of Eerie is much better than this month's issue of Vampirella.-Jack

Peter-Never one to shy away from pretension, Doug Moench clobbers us over the head with a lame title (but so evocative of those world-saving "authors" of mid-'70s' superhero comics) and more Moenchian bon-bons (Somewhere nearby, a toad grates the silence with its obscene mating call...), but neglects to give us even the bare skeleton of a story. I won't cast aspersions on Moench's later assertions that he had no idea "spook" was a derogatory term when he jumped headfirst into a series about an African-American voodoo man. Well, I might be just a little suspicious. Anyway, Maroto's art is way too sharp for this mediocre script; it's like having Alan Parsons produce The Carpenters. The title could have simply been shortened to "Rot" and that would be perfect.

I liked this issue's "Hunter," despite the confusing finale (due, I think, to Neary's very-small, action-packed panels) and the silly countdown in each caption; that timing doesn't really make sense if you pay attention to it. Neary's art is fabulous and DuBay manages to weave his way through each potentially pretentious hallway (imagine if this series were written by Moench or McGregor), giving us the closest Warren will get to cloning the Marvel sci-fi series. As most of you know, this is not the last we'll see of Hunter. "Hide from the Hacker" is easily this issue's apex, thanks mostly (as Jack stated) to the incredible talent of Tom Sutton, but let's give credit to Steve Skeates as well. Skeates manages to drum up that ol' 1880s London vibe to perfection and leaves us wanting more. We'll get more soon but, alas, minus Tom Sutton.

"Child" is a rare misfire for Corben, but that's due to Greg Potter's script, a patchwork of every Frankenstein film ever made. Why doesn't the scientist ever think to name the child? And the visual of the big little galoot actually made me laugh rather than gasp. "The Terror of Foley Mansion" is a poor follow-up to "It!" (from Creepy #53), but it makes no sense to make what is clearly a one-off into a series. Jose Gual is a competent penciler but he ain't no Sutton, and neither is Wessler. I really wanted a few more panels showing us how this rotting skeleton digs his way back into his grave. Did he leave the lid open? The fourth Dr. Archaeus installment shows that the good doctor still has a little steam in his stride. I have to say I didn't think Boudreau could keep my interest in a series that might have grown samey in the hands of a lesser writer, but Gerry manages to find ways to inject lots of humor into a grim subject.-Peter