High-quality reprints of Herbie are always welcome, but the Dark Horse project that truly has The Keeper rummaging through his wallet is the upcoming Creepy Archives series.
Creepy, for those of you too young to remember the halcyon days of the ’60s and ’70s, was the black-and-white horror/sci-fi/fantasy magazine. The book - along with its sister publication, Eerie - was the true successor to those legendary EC Comics of the ’50s - gruesome, yet often imaginative, tales beautifully illustrated by some of the best artists in the business.
In fact, some of the stories were too gory for the young Fortress Keeper’s tastes. Yet the books - produced by the now-defunct Warren Publishing group - were so different from the DC & Marvel fare we usually purchased that we couldn’t help but follow the exploits of Uncle Creepy and Cousin Eerie.
This somewhat unwilling patronage lasted for about a year until our interest in horror comics waned. At that time, the Keeper thought he would finally leave Warren’s magazines behind.
However, two distinct events instead transformed us into lifelong fans.
In 1974, Warren published a new title that shone like a beacon from the newsstand: The Spirit Magazine. We had heard of The Spirit through the Steranko History of Comics, but never enjoyed the pleasure of reading a full story.
Suffice to say, we were hooked by the first page of the magazine’s first story.
The stupendous art provided the initial attraction, but we were soon equally captivated by the story. Never had we seen a “super-hero” tale that appeared so … mature.
It was an eye-opening experience that, to be quite honest, has never quite been equaled for our money.
Of course, Will Eisner’s brilliance didn’t necessarily have much to do with the remainder of Warren’s line. Shortly after The Spirit Magazine was published, though, we found another intriguing magazine in the back-issue bins at San Francisco’s legendary Comics & Comix.
The book lacked a cover and wasn’t in the best of shape, but the splash page promised great things …
The promise of “Blazing Combat“ certainly sounded exciting, and we noticed that Archie Goodwin - who was responsible for the Manhunter revival and some great Batman stories - wrote and edited the entire issue.
We bought the magazine figuring it would at least be as good as Sgt. Rock, then ran smack dab into a story called “Landscape.”
Written by Goodwin and drawn by Joe Orlando, “Landscape” is simply one of the most powerful anti-war stories the Keeper has read in any medium. The remainder of the issue was similarly strong, and suddenly your humble host found himself compelled to find out more about Blazing Combat and other Warren magazines.
We learned that Goodwin helmed Creepy, Eerie and Blazing Combat (which drew a great deal of controversy for its anti-war stance) from about 1965-67.
Those books (many of which featured covers drawn by Frank Frazetta) were legendary for their high standard of quality, which inspired you-know-who to make a candlelight oath and spend the rest of his comics-collecting career tracking down Goodwin’s output for Warren.
Years later - through a combination of back-issues and Internet scans - we’ve come close to achieving our goal but still have a ways to go. Along the way, we’ve encountered great stories accompanied by eye-popping artwork from the likes of …
and Tom Sutton (on Vampirella, which started out as campy fun and received a more serious make-over by Goodwin in later issues).
All of these stories hold dear places in the Keeper’s four-color heart, so we’re quite excited to learn Dark Horse’s first Archives edition will reprint issues 1 to 5 of Archie Goodwin’s Creepy.
They’re great comics, and we hope that Dark Horse eventually gets around to Eerie, Blazing Combat and … yes … Vampirella as well.
Then, at last, our long, long quest will finally conclude and your friendly neighborhood Fortress Keeper will rest easy.
At least until the next long, long quest begins.
I was excited to see that Creepy is finally getting published in book form, although I don’t know if my I’ll be able to afford to buy it.
I’d much rather DarkHorse went the DC Showcase route, and published it in a more affordable format.