The recent business hiatus of the EC Archives (Gemstone had to shut down it's Missouri office) has pushed me over the edge towards collecting the new Warren Archives (Creepy was first, vol. 1 and 2 are out, followed by Eerie, with one volume out).

Those magazines were great. The world was a better place with magazines like that existing. And in the mid-1960's, they hired some of the best artists in the biz. Former EC guys like Wally Wood.

More discussion to follow when my first one comes, but for now I want to tell everybody that Tales of Wonder is running a half-price sale on Creepy Archives, volume 1.

http://talesofwonder.com/product-exec/p ... c/1,23,153

It's not AmazWAN, but it's 8 dollars cheaper than Amazon. So maybe just this once you can make an exception. Or get it from AmazWAN.

At this time we will now post Creepy and Eerie covers.

My only problem is why a B&W magazine got the Archive treatment. Aside from color reproductions of the covers, there's no real reason why this wasn't released in a ESSENTIAL/SHOWCASE style format.

I'm buying 'em, cuz I'm stupid that way, but I would have preferred a cheap B&W reprinting of it, not the deluxe treatment... especially when there's really not a lot of the really good stuff. The editor leaves shortly in the run and the magazine limps along with lots of reprints afterwards. I'm not sure how many of these volumes they're planning, but I'd have a hard time justifying the price tag once the story quality takes a massive hit.

I was introduced to The Spirit through the Warren mags back in the day.

In fact, I still have a few.

I'm planning on staying mostly in the mid-1960's, when some of the all-time greats were helping out.

There's talk of a Blazing Combat archive from Fantagraphics, but it's mired in delay. That would be great.

Warren mags were also where I was introduced to Vampirella.

Some of you youngsters may not even be aware that she existed before the 90's.

Back cover ads for that comic were why I had to hide my Warren books.

I don't remember the name of the comic magazine in question, but I remember getting hold of book that had a sexy lingerie ad in the back. We're talking crotchless panties and pasties sort of thing. We used to always trade in our comics, but I always made sure that one survived the purges

Neat little site:

http://www.geocities.com/hollywood/1940/

I never picked up any of Warren's comic magazines, but I did get some issues of Famous Monsters Of Filmland, this being one of them:

I received my Creepy Archives Vol. 1 today. Very attractive volume. I can't wait to read it. I will finish up my last EC Archive (alas) and perhaps Creepy soon.

I have all three so far and the art in them is absolutely stunning. After hearing about some of these artists and their Warren art for years now, it's fun to actually see what the fuss is about.

Eerie Vol 1 (Eerie Mag 3) has a story called THE LIGHTHOUSE by Goodwin and Williamson and another called THE MONUMENT by Goodwin and Toth that are so funky fresh that I'm thinking about scanning them and putting them on my wall for inspiration.

I received my Creepy 2 and Eerie 1 today (the only ones out so far).



Because of Trevor's comment, I pulled this one out and read it right way. He's right. That right there is an all-time classic. Great story, beautiful Ditko art. Recommended. It's about an occult book collector who becomes obsessed with obtaining a particular volume. But is he ready for what it contains?

I read this last night. Great story. As an artist, Ditko works less for me than the other regulars, but even then it's heads above more comic art.

This story reminded me of a House of Mystery story that I read in Best of DC when I was a kid called, "The Mouse or History."

José "Pepe" Gonzalez—definitive artist for Vampirella—died last week.
Here's a banner I made for the Indy Comics board:

As these archives have been coming out, I've been buying the original issues as people
(and one of my local comics shops) have been dumping them.

What I'd really like to have is an archive of just the Ditko stuff from Warren. He did a lot
of grey-wash work for them that would fill up a nice volume on its own. But, as it is, his
work will span about 5 or 6 archives of Creepy and Eerie. So, it's cheaper for me to buy
the originals at this point.

Just a quick bump of this thread to document that Hi-Jinks and I received our copies of Blazing Combat and they are fantastic. Handsome volume with great art, great stories. The first one has a Vietnamese waterboarding scene in it -- how topical today!

(And no, Hi-Jinks and I don't live together -- we posted in the Archie Goodwin thread that we had both received ours are our separate houses).