Poe 1967, Pt. 2

(Continued from Poe 1967, Pt. 1)

EERIE  12
"THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH"
     (IN COLOR)

The real "golden age" of POE comics continues!

Warren, in late 1967, ran into some financial difficulties.  While Forry Ackerman's baby "FAMOUS MONSTERS" plowed on with no noticable drop in quality (that would come in the period following Boris Karloff's death), both CREEPY and EERIE lost most of their top talent, as well as their editor & top writer Archie Goodwin.  They also began having about 50% of every issue consist of reprints of material that wasn't that old to begin with.  And, as someone pointed out to me, they even began having covers appear on the wrong issues, and mis-spelled words on some of those covers.  Good grief!

As things were just beginning to go right over the edge, a real gem appeared, from one of the few NEW artists who had real talent, and must have been eager enough to work for lower page rates:  TOM SUTTON.  Several years ago, while re-reading a big chunk of my Warren collection, I was reminded that his art had apparently had a big influence on the work I did while in high school-- both in my home-made "crime" and "horror" comics.  In effect, this guy was one of my unsung heroes!

Which brings us to Warren's 5th POE adaptation:

     "THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH".

     This was the 6th comics adaptation of the story, following...
Marvel's ADVENTURES INTO WEIRD WORLDS #4 (Spring'52),  
Charlton's THE THING #2,  
Continental's CLASSICOS DE TERROR #9 (1960),  
Marvel's STRANGE TALES #83 (Apr'61), and  
Dell's Movie Classic of THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH (Aug-Oct'64),
     ...the last one some 3 years earlier.

Suffice to say, Warren's version-- by the departing Archie Goodwin & the incoming Tom Sutton-- was the most "authentic" to date.

As an aside, the cover, illustrating a scene from the 1944 movie THE MUMMY'S CURSE-- was apparently done by artist Dan Adkins to accompany a reprint of the comics adaptation of THE MUMMY'S HAND, done a few years earlier in Warren's MONSTER WORLD #2 (Jan'65).  Probably as a result of the editorial confusion going on at this time, the story appeared in CREEPY #17 (Oct'67) instead of EERIE #12 (Nov'67).  "OOPS!"  Incidentally, while Russ Jones & Joe Orlando are credited with that particular movie adaptation, I've read the art was actually done by Dan Adkins, uncredited, in his most "Wally Wood"-like mode.

As it happens, this was the very 1st Poe story I decided to add COLOR to.
I guess this just shows how much I enjoy Tom Sutton's work for Warren from this period.  Since he used intricate B&W line rendering for shading, not graytones, I figured this would actually work quite well.  The trick is to use mostly solid, "flat" colors, as well as faded-out pastels, to not get in the way of all that gorgeous linework.

When I initially set this up (on 12-25-2014), I posted both the B&W and COLOR versions, but I just don't do that sort of thing anymore.  (This page modified on 4-25-2019.)

ENJOY!

EERIE  12
cover by DAN ADKINS   (Warren  /  November 1967)

"THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH"  /  Version 6
Adaptation by Archie Goodwin  /  Art by TOM SUTTON  /
COLOR by Henry Kujawa

Page 3

Page 4

Page 5

Page 6

Page 7

REPRINTS:

You might think with all the reprints in the regular issues from late 1967-70, they wouldn't need an ALL-reprint "Annual".  THINK AGAIN!

EERIE  1970 YEARBOOK
Cover by Frank Frazetta   (Warren  /  1969)
Production Dept. composite of the covers of EERIE #2, 3, 5 & 7.

Like many American publishers, Warren stories were reprinted by a wide
variety of publishers overseas, usually in a jumbled, chaotic, haphazard way.  Ibero Mundial de ediciones in Spain was one of those publishers...

VAMPUS  12
cover by SANJULIAN   (Ibero Mundial de ediciones  /  Spain  /  1972)

Semic in Finland was another one...

SHOKKI  13
cover by R. CONWAY   (Semic  /  Finland  /  [December] 1974) 

"PUNAINEN KUOLEMA"   

("THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH"  /  Version 4)

VAMPI-COMIC  13
cover by ENRICH TORRES   (Paben Verlag  /  Germany  /  1975)

I see I'm not the only one who decided to take a whack at coloring
Tom Sutton's art...

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

EERIE ARCHIVES Volume Three
Cover by FRANK FRAZETTA   (Dark Horse  /  June 2010)

As a bonus, here's a still from THE MUMMY'S CURSE (1944),
to compare with Adkins' cover above.

Copyright (C) Warren Publishing
New color Copyright (C) 2014 by Henry R. Kujawa

Scan of EERIE #12 (1967) from the Heritage Auctions site.
Scans of EERIE #12 (1967) interiors from The Golden Age blog.
Scan of EERIE YEARBOOK (1969) from the Heritage Auctions site.
Scan of VAMPUS #12 (1972) from the  Necronomicon Delostemplarios site.
Scans of SHOKKI #13 (1974) from the Muuta.Net site.
Scans of VAMPI-COMIC #13 (1975) supplied by Ernie Laczo
     with special thanks!
Scan of CREEPY #25 (France / 1975) from eBay.
Scan of EERIE ARCHIVES Volume Three (2010) from the GCD site.
Scan of THE MUMMY'S CURSE photo from the Hollywood Metal site.

Restorations by Henry R. Kujawa

For more:
Read about Edgar Allan Poe at The Poe Museum site.
Read about Edgar Allan Poe at the Biography site.

Read about Tom Sutton at Lambiek Comiclopedia.
Read the Tom Sutton interview at The Comics Journal.

Read about THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH at the Spark Notes site.
Read about THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH at the Crime Reads site.
Read about THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH at the Slate site.

Read the complete story at the Poe Stories site.
See the RED DEATH Gallery of Illustrations.

     Audio:
Hear the Basil Rathbone recording!
Hear the CBS RADIO MYSTERY THEATER episode!

     Comics:
Read the Bill Everett RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Bob Forgione RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Manoel Ferreira RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Steve Ditko RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Frank Springer RED DEATH adaptation!
 
Read the Tom Sutton RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Nico Rosso RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Don Heck RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Robert Inwood RED DEATH illustrated story!
Read the Dino Battaglia RED DEATH adaptation!   (coming soon!)

Read the Miguel Calatayud RED DEATH adaptation!   (coming soon!)
Read the Ricardo Villamonte RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Richard Corben RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Wayne Howard RED DEATH adaptation!   (coming soon!)
Read the Esteban Maroto RED DEATH adaptation!   (coming soon!)

Read the Francisco Agras RED DEATH adaptation!   (coming soon!)
Read the Flavio Colin RED DEATH adaptation!
      (Coming soon:)
Read the John Lawn RED DEATH illustrated story!
Read the Auraleon RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Enrique Alcatena RED DEATH illustrated story!

Read the Phillipe Cazaumayou RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Alfonso Martinez RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the A.L. Pareja RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Alberto Breccia RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Daryl Hutchinson RED DEATH adaptation!

Read the Steve Leialoha RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Eric Stanway RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Ted Naifeh RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Horacio Lalia RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Gris Grimly RED DEATH illustrated story!

Read the Stanley Shaw RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Erik Rangel RED DEATH adaption!
Read the Wendy Pini RED DEATH adaptation at the Masque Musical site!
Read the Julio Azamor RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Jean-Louis Thouard RED DEATH adaptation!

Read the Alineromero9 RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Sabaku-No-Sarri RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Eric Stanway RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the David G.Flores RED DEATH illustrated story!
Read the Richard Corben's 2nd RED DEATH adaptation!

Read the Turner Mark-Jacobs RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Edu Molina RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Terrance Lindall RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Pete Katz RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Gareth Hinds RED DEATH adaptation!

Read the Uka Nagao RED DEATH adaptation!

     Misc.:
Read the Tom Sutton RED DEATH adaptation!
Read the Tom Sutton HOUSE OF USHER adaptation!

See the CHRONOLOGICAL list of Edgar Allan Poe stories!
See the ALPHABETICAL list of Edgar Allan Poe stories!

(Continued in Poe 1967, Pt. 3)

Poe 1967, Pt. 1

(Continued from Poe 1966, Pt. 3)

EERIE  11
"BERENICE"

The real "golden age" of POE comics continues!

Warren was the small empire of magazine publisher James Warren.  Freed from constrictions of the Comics Code due to its B&W magazine format, editor Archie Goodwin managed to recruit the cream of the old EC artists, including Jack Davis, Joe Orlando, Al Williamson, Angelo Torres and Reed Crandall, as well as Gray Morrow and Frank Frazetta.  After doing his final comics story in CREEPY #1, Frazetta switched over to cover paintings, carving an entire new career for himself in the process.

When CREEPY became a success, Warren decided to add a 2nd title... EERIE.  The name had been previously used by Avon, Ziff-Davis, Hastings Associates, I.W. Publishing / Super Comics, and, in England, by Thorpe & Porter and Alan Cass.  An "ashcan" edition consisting of reprints from CREEPY was rushed together to secure the Trademark when it appeared someone else (probably the VERY tacky Eerie Publications) intended to make use of it.  As a result, confusingly, there never was an official EERIE #1.  But starting with #2, it followed the same format of CREEPY.  In fact, in its early years, it's hard to say if there was any criteria whatsoever to determine if some stories would wind up in one magazine or the other.

Mixed in with new stories were a nice spattering of adaptations of classic works, among them those of Edgar Allan Poe.  In the late 60s, 6 of these appeared, the first 3 in CREEPY, the other 3 in its brother magazine, EERIE.  I feel safe in saying that despite the high caliber of some of the versions seen before this, these may have to rank among the BEST ever done.

Their 4th offering...

     "BERENICE".

      This was the 2nd comics version of this story, after...
Outubro's CLASSICOS DE TERROR #24 (1962)
     ...5 years earlier.

The art this time was by Jerry Grandenetti.  He started out as an assistant to Will Eisner on THE SPIRIT, before developing his own distinct, unique, and I might say, "demented" style. The unrelated cover painting was by Joe Orlando, who started out in the 50s doing a lot of work with science-fiction artist Wally Wood.  This would be his ONLY cover for Warren.

Archie Goodwin, meanwhile, didn't so much "adapt" this story to comics as do an "illustrated" version of the story, with much of the original text INTACT.  Enjoy!

EERIE  11
cover by JOE ORLANDO   (Warren  /  September 1967)

"BERENICE!"  /  Version 2

Adaptation by Archie Goodwin  /  Art by JERRY GRANDENETTI  /  Page 21

Page 22

Page 23

Page 24

Page 25

Page 26

VAMPUS was a Spanish version of CREEPY.
This story appeared in its 1st "Annual"...

VAMPUS EXTRA VERANO 1972
cover by JACK DAVIS   (Ibero Mundial De Ediciones  /  Spain  /  1972)

Dark Horse started as a small "independant" comics publisher in the early 80s "direct market" boom, and remains, currently, one of the FEW survivors of that brief, glorious period. In 2008, they began a series of reprints of CREEPY and EERIE, licensed from James Warren, who had gotten back the rights to those series following a lawsuit with Harris Comics, who had earlier acquired them via a bankruptcy auction.  "Berenice!" does not appear to have been reprinted before 2010, some 43 years after its 1st appearance, although in the meantime, Warren wound up doing a completely different version of it.

EERIE ARCHIVES Volume 3
cover by FRANK FRAZETTA   (Dark Horse  /  June 2010)

Copyright (C) Warren Publishing.

Scan of EERIE #11 (1967) from the Heritage Auctions site.
Scans of EERIE #11 (1967) interiors from The Golden Age blog.
Scan of VAMPUS EXTRA VERANO (1972) from the Tebeosfera site.
Scan of EERIE ARCHIVES Volume Three (2010) from the GCD site.

Restorations by Henry R. Kujawa

For more:
Read about Edgar Allan Poe at The Poe Museum site.
Read about Edgar Allan Poe at the Biography site.

Read about Berenice at the Old Style Tales site.
Read the complete story at the Poe Stories site.
See the BERENICE Gallery of Illustrations.

     Audio:
Hear the Vincent Price recording!
Hear the CBS RADIO MYSTERY THEATER episode!

     Comics:
Read the Flavio Colin BERENICE adaptation!
Read the Jerry Grandenetti BERENICE adaptation!
Read the Edegar & Ignacio Justo BERENICE adaptation!
Read the Carlos Moro BERENICE adaptation!
Read the A. Carrasco BERENICE adaptation!   (coming soon!)

Read the Ricardo Villamonte BERENICE adaptation!
Read the Isidro Mones BERENICE adaptation!
     (Coming soon:)
Read the D. Cebello BERENICE adaptation!
Read the Richard Corben BERENICE adaptation!
Read the Omar Hirsig BERENICE adaptation!

Read the Alineromero9 BERENICE adaptation!
Read the Jose Pimentel Neto BERENICE adaptation!
Read the Nelson Evergreen BERENICE adaptation!
Read the Jack Bertram BERENICE adaptation!
Read the Luca Frasca BERENICE adaptation!

     Misc:
Read the Jerry Grandenetti HOUSE OF USHER adaptation!
Read the Jerry Grandenetti BERENICE adaptation!

See the CHRONOLOGICAL list of Edgar Allan Poe stories!
See the ALPHABETICAL list of Edgar Allan Poe stories!

(Continued in Poe 1967, Pt. 2)

Poe 1965, Pt. 8

(Continued from Poe 1965, Pt. 7)

CREEPY  6
"THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO!"

The real "golden age" of POE comics continues!

Warren was the small empire of magazine publisher James Warren.  CREEPY was his first all-comics magazine.  Freed from constrictions of the Comics Code due to its B&W magazine format, editor Archie Goodwin managed to recruit the cream of the old EC artists, including Jack Davis, Joe Orlando, Al Williamson, Angelo Torres and Reed Crandall, as well as Gray Morrow and Frank Frazetta.  After doing his final comics story in CREEPY #1, Frazetta switched over to cover paintings, carving an entire new career for himself in the process.

Mixed in with new stories were a nice spattering of adaptations of classic works, among them those of Edgar Allan Poe.  In the late 60s, 6 of these appeared, the first 3 in CREEPY, the other 3 in its brother magazine, EERIE.  I feel safe in saying that despite the high caliber of some of the versions seen before this, these may have to rank among the BEST ever done.

Their 2nd offering...

     "THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO".

     This was the 5th comics version of this, following...
EC's CRIME SUSPENSTORIES #3 (Feb'Mar'51),  
Gilberton's CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED #84 (Jun'51),
Continental's CLASSICOS OF TERROR #1 (1960), and
Dell's Movie Classic of TALES OF TERROR (Feb'63).

It strikes me that Reed Crandall may have modeled his version of Fortunato on Peter Lorre, his wife on Joyce Jameson, and Montressor on Basil Rathbone.

CREEPY  6
cover by FRANK FRAZETTA   (Warren  /  December 1965)

"THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO!"  /  Version 5

Adaptation by Archie Goodwin  /  Art by REED CRANDALL  /  Page 22

Page 23

Page 24

Page 25

Page 26

Page 27

Page 28

Page 29

I've noticed a trend in adaptations over the years to either add more personal drama, or tack on "poetic justice" at the end, to ensure a criminal gets what's coming to him, in case they didn't in the original.  For the 2nd time in a row in a Warren version, the murderer winds up coming to a nasty end, even though, in this case, he got away scot free in the original story.

REPRINTS

Warren ran into some financial difficulties in the late 60s, resulting in the loss of most of his best talent and a 2-year period where both CREEPY and EERIE consisted of at least 50% reprints of material that wasn't that old yet.  "The Cask Of Amontillado!" was reprinted only 29 months after its original appearance.

CREEPY  20
cover by ALBERT NUETZELL   (Warren  /  May 1968)

VAMPUS  1
cover by KEN KELLY
(Ibero Mundial De Ediciones  /  Spain  /  September 1971)

MACABRE  1
cover by ENRICH   (Semic Press  /  Netherlands  /  [1973])

By the time this story was reprinted again, Warren's main competitor, Skywald, had come and gone, and Warren had done another adaptation of the same story.  The reprint of this version appeared 6 months later, together with a reprint of "Hop-Frog", in an ALL-Reed Crandall reprint collection.  The cover, a paste-up department composite of Crandall art, is a bad idea when it comes to coloring line-art intended for B&W.  I can't believe then-editor Bill DuBay actually let this cover go thru, with Crandall's name MIS-SPELLED.

CREEPY  74
cover by REED CRANDALL   (Warren  /  October 1975)

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.

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

This French magazine has 5 different POE stories reprinted.

FANTASTIK  2
cover by SEGRELLES   (Campus Editions  /  France  /  March-April 1981)

This 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.  Here they did a "CREEPY SPECIAL" that reprinted 15 Warren POE stories from 1965-1976.  Oddly enough, the cover was a reprint of one that had been used by another publisher on an all-Richard Corben collection!

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

Dark Horse started as a small "independant" comics publisher in the early 80s "direct market" boom, and remains, currently, one of the FEW survivors of that brief, glorious period. In 2008, they began a series of reprints of CREEPY and EERIE, licensed from James Warren, who had gotten back the rights to those series following a lawsuit with Harris Comics, who had earlier acquired them via a bankruptcy auction.  "The Cask Of Amontillado!" made its appearance in the 2nd collection-- oddly enough, with the SAME cover painting from the issue it originally appeared in.

CREEPY ARCHIVES Volume 2
cover by FRANK FRAZETTA   (Dark Horse  /  December 2008)

Copyright (C) Warren Publishing.

Scan of CREEPY #6 (1965) from the Heritage Auctions site.
Scans of CREEPY #6 (1965) interiors from The Golden Age blog.
Scan of CREEPY #20 (1968) from the Heritage Auctions site.
Scan of VAMPUS #1 (1971) from the GCD site.
Scan of MACABRE #1 (1973) from the Eboek site.
Scan of CREEPY #74 (1975) from the Heritage Auctions site.
Scan of CREEPY RINDE TRIBUTO A EDGAR ALLAN POE (1980)
     from the Whakoom site.
Scan of FANTASTIK #21 (1981) from the Bethedique site.
Scan of EDGAR POE (1981) from the Mexifast.com site.
Scan of EDGAR POE (1981) interior page from the Monster Magazine World blog.
Scans of the CREEPY SPECIAL (1982) from the Catawiki.com site.
Scan of CREEPY ARCHIVES Volume Two (2008) from the GCD site.

Restorations by Henry R. Kujawa

For more:
Read about Edgar Allan Poe at The Poe Museum site.
Read about Edgar Allan Poe at the Biography site.

Read about Reed Crandall at Lambiek Comiclopedia.
Read about Reed Crandall at the Steve Stiles site.
Read about Reed Crandall at the Comic Book Historians site.
Read about Reed Crandall at the Pulp Artists site.

Read about THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO at Spark Notes.
Read about THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO at Cliff Notes.
Read the complete story at the Poe Stories site.
See the AMONTILLADO Gallery of Illustrations.

     Audio / Video:
Hear the WEIRD CIRCLE radio episode!
Watch the Bela Lugosi-Romney Brent SUSPENSE TV episode!
Hear the Basil Rathbone recording!
Hear the CBS RADIO MYSTERY THEATER episode!

     Comics:
Read the Graham Ingels AMONTILLADO adaptation!
Read the Rudy Palais AMONTILLADO adaptation!
     Read the Iger Shop AMONTILLADO sequel!
Read the Gedeone Malagola AMONTILLADO adaptation!
Read the Fran Matera AMONTILLADO adaptation!
Read the Reed Crandall AMONTILLADO adaptation!

Read the Osvaldo Talo AMONTILLADO adaptation!
Read the Juan J. Aguilar AMONTILLADO illustrated story!   (coming soon!)
     Read the Frank Brunner AMONTILLADO sequel!
     Read the Cirilo Munoz AMONTILLADO sequel!   (coming soon!)
Read the Maro Nava AMONTILLADO adaptation!
Read the Martin Salvador AMONTILLADO adaptation!
Read the Guido Del Carpio Rivera AMONTILLADO illustrated story!

Read the Don McGregor / Mike Golden AMONTILLADO adaptation!
Read the Arturo Cassilas AMONTILLADO adaptation!   (coming soon!)
Read the Noly Zamora AMONTILLADO adaptation!
     (Coming soon:)
Read the Pablo Marcos AMONTILLADO illustrated story!
Read the Anne Toulmin-Rothe AMONTILLADO illustrated story!

     Misc.:
Read the Reed Crandall TELL-TALE HEART adaptation!
Read the Reed Crandall AMONTILLADO adaptation!
Read the Reed Crandall HOP-FROG adaptation!

See the CHRONOLOGICAL list of Edgar Allan Poe stories!
See the ALPHABETICAL list of Edgar Allan Poe stories!

(Continued in Poe 1965, Pt.9)