Poe 1975, Pt. 5

(Continued from Poe 1975, Pt. 4)

CREEPY  69
"THE OVAL PORTRAIT"

A mere 2 months after Warren did Richard Corben's version of "The Raven"-- editor Bill DuBay put together the first of 2 ALL-POE issues of CREEPY!  In one fell swoop, Warren essentially blew Skywald completely out of the water.

CREEPY #69, and the follow-up issue CREEPY #70 (2 months later) each featured 6 POE stories apiece.  Given the level of talent involved, one could say this effectively put the final nail in Skywald's coffin.

While 5 of the stories in this issue were new versions that had been done before in earlier American comics, we now come to the 1 that made its comic-book DEBUT in Brazil...

     "THE OVAL PORTRAIT".

     This was the 3rd version of this story, following...
Taika's ALBUM CLASSICOS DE TERROR #4 (1967), and  
Gino Sansoni's HORROR POCKET #7 (1973)
     ...the latter some 2 years earlier.

The artist this time around the artist is the absolutely unique Richard Corben.
This would be the 2nd of 3 POE stories he did for Warren.

This is the 12th out of 26 Warren POE adaptations!!

CREEPY 69
cover by KEN KELLY (Warren Publishing / February 1975)

"THE OVAL PORTRAIT"  /  Version 3
Adaptation by Richard Margopoulos  /  Art by RICHARD CORBEN  /  Page 34

Page 35

Page 36

Page 37

Page 38

Page 39

Page 40

Page 41

This one has proven to be extraordinarily popular,
being reprinted more times than most.

CREEPY  25
cover by KEN KELLY   (Publicness  /  France  /  1975)

Here's a POE collection from Denmark that included 6 stories,
from CREEPY #62, 69 & 70.

GRU PRAESENTERER: KLASSISKE GYS EDGAR ALLAN POE
cover by KEN KELLY   (Interpresse  /  Denmark  /  1976)

Warren did an all-Corben collection in 1977, which included 2 of his 3 POE stories.  (They left out "The Raven", apparently, because it was in color.)

EERIE  86
cover by RICHARD CORBEN   (Warren  /  September 1977)

Here's a collection from Denmark...

GRU ALBUM  2
cover by BERNI WRIGHTSON   (Interpresse  /  Denmark  /  1977)

VAMPUS  77
cover by MALCOLM McNEIL   (Editorial Garbo, SA  /  Spain  /  February 1978)

KRIPTA  22
cover by WARMARO   (Rio Grafica Editora Globo  /  Portugal  /  May 1978)

EERIE  27
cover by KEN KELLY   (K.G. Murray  /  Australia  /  July 1978)

This book from Portugal contains 6 of the Warren POE stories from the 70s.

KRIPTA APRESENTA EDGAR ALLAN POE
cover by ??   (RGE  /  Rio Grafica Editora Globo  /  Portugal  /  June 1980)

Here we have the 1st of 5 reprint collections using the same cover (more or less).  This book collects 15 various Warren POE stories by a variety of artists, from from 1965-1976.  Ironically, while the cover clearly illustrates "The Fall Of The House Of Usher", it was done for Richard Corben's version of the story, not Martin Salvador's-- which IS in the collection, while Corben's had not been published yet at the time this collection came out!

CREEPY RINDE TRIBUTO A EDGAR ALLAN POE
cover by RICHARD CORBEN   (Toutain Editor  /  Spain  /  1980)

A year later, the German edition only included 10 of the 15 stories, and assembled those in a completely different order!

EDGAR POE
cover by RICHARD CORBEN   (Volksverlag  /  Germany  /  1981)

A sample page of the story in German!

Semic Press was at one point the largest comics publisher in Sweden.  Their edition has the same 15 Warren POE stories from 1965-1976.  Again, the cover by Richard Corben was later used by another publisher on an all-Corben collection!

EDGAR ALLAN POE  /  CREEPY SPECIAL
cover by RICHARD CORBEN   (Semic Press  /  The Netherlands  /  1982)

The American version is apparently a much thinner book, as it ONLY contains Corben material! This includes his version of "House Of Usher" (which, ironically, considering the cover, the previous versions do not), originally published by Pacific Comics, I believe, after Warren went belly-up.  (More when we get to that one.)  Ironically, a year later, the German version of this same book omitted "The Oval Portrait", because it was the only story NOT in color!

EDGAR ALLAN POE
cover by RICHARD CORBEN   (Catalan Communications  /  September 1985)

And just for variety, here's a collection of ALL of Corben's work for Warren,
only 3 stories of which were actually POE-related.

CREEPY PRESENTS RICHARD CORBEN
cover by RICHARD CORBEN   (Dark Horse Comics  /  2012)

CREEPY ARCHIVES  Volume Fifteen
cover by KEN KELLY   (Dark Horse Comics  /  February 2013)

Copyright (C) Warren Publishing  and  the various publishers.

Scan of CREEPY #69 from the Heritage Auuctions site.
Scans of CREEPY #69 interiors from the Archive.org site.
     Special thanks to Patrick Ford & David Lawrence
     for their help pointing me to that site
     and supplying me a direct link to download the scans from.
Scan of CREEPY #25 (France) from eBay.
Scan of GRU PRAESENTERER: KLASSISKE GYS EDGAR ALLAN POE
     from the ComicWiki_DK site.
Scan of EERIE #86 from my collection.
Scan of GRU ALBUM #2 from the Muuta.net site.
Scan of VAMPUS #77 from the GCD site.
Scan of KRIPTA #22 from the Gibi Classicos blog.
Scan of EERIE #27 (K.G. Murray) from the GCD site.
Scan of KRIPTA APRESENTA EDGAR ALLAN POE
     from the Gibihouse site.
Scan of CREEPY RINDE TRIBUTO A EDGAR ALLAN POE
     from the Whakoom.com site.
Scan of EDGAR POE from the Mexifast.com site.
Scan of EDGAR POE interior page from the Monster Magazine World blog.
Scans of the CREEPY SPECIAL from the Catawiki.com site.
Scan of the Catalan EDGAR ALLAN POE from my collection.
Scan of  CREEPY PRESENTS RICHARD CORBEN from the GCD site.
Scan of CREEPY ARCHIVES VOLUME FIFTEEN from the GCD site.

Restorations by Henry R. Kujawa

For more:
Read about Edgar Allen Poe at Wikipedia.

Read about The Oval Portrait Wikipedia.
Read the complete story the Poe Stories site.
See the OVAL PORTRAIT Gallery of Illustrations.

Read the Osvaldo Talo OVAL PORTRAIT adaptation!
Read the Giovanni Cianti OVAL PORTRAIT adaptation!   (coming soon!)
Read the Richard Corben OVAL PORTAIT adaptation!
Read the Elmano Silva OVAL PORTRAIT illustrated story!

Read the Richard Corben RAVEN adaptation!
Read the Richard Corben OVAL PORTAIT adaptation!
Read the Richard Corben SHADOW adaptation!
Read the Richard Corben HOUSE OF USHER adaptation!   (coming soon!)

See my Edgar Allan Poe overview at this very blog!

(Continued in Poe 1975, Pt. 6)