Poe 1974, Pt. 4

(Continued from Poe 1974, Pt. 3)

CREEPY  62
"THE BLACK CAT"

5 years and 2 months after their last POE adaptation, Warren Publications finally got back into it.  Perhaps someone finally noticed what Al Hewetson was doing with all those Spanish (and South American) artists over at Skywald, and thought, "Hey, why don't WE get some of that action?"  Before too long, they would get back into it-- BIG-time.

Starting off, their 7th POE story was...

     "THE BLACK CAT".

     This was the 12th version of this story, following...
Charlton's YELLOWJACKET COMICS #1 (Sep'44),
EC's THE HAUNT OF FEAR #15 [1] (May-Jun'50),  
St. John's NIGHTMARE #12 (Apr'54), 
Outubro's CLASSICOS DE TERROR #14 (1961),  
Dell's Movie Classic TALES OF TERROR (Feb'63),  
Taika's PAGINAS SINISTRAS #3 (1966), 
Novaro's VIDAS ILUSTRES #195 (Oct'68), 
Gino Sansoni's I CLASSICI A FUMETTI #17 (Sep'69),
Ibero Mundial's DOSSIER NEGRO #17 (Aug'70),
Ibero Mundial's MAESTROS DEL TERROR #3 (1970), and
Edrel's REVISTA DE TERRROR #13 (1972)
     ...the last one some 2 years earlier!

The art for this was by one of the great MASTERS of horror comics art of the 1970s and 80s, Bernie Wrightson.  He really made his rep on DC's SWAMP THING, and a decade later, adapted George Romero & Stephen King's anthology film CREEPSHOW as a full-color graphic novel. In between he did a lot of work for a variety of publishers, including Warren.  ENJOY!

CREEPY  62
cover by Berni Wrightson (layout) & KEN KELLY (painting)
     (Warren Publishing  /  May 1974)

Frontispiece by BERNI WRIGHTSON

"THE BLACK CAT"  /  Version 12
Adaptation & Art by BERNI WRIGHTSON  /  Page 1

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4

Page 5

Page 6

Page 7

Page 8

Page 9

Page 10

Page 11

Page 12

THE REPRINTS.

VAMPUS  36
cover by Berni Wrightson (layout) & KEN KELLY (painting)
     (Ibero Mundial de ediciones  /  Spain  /  1974)

MAS ALLA DEL TERROR  2
cover by ??   (Editorial MoPaSa  /  Argentina  /  1976)

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)

N. Scott Robinson (of the Globo Comics FB group) supplied me a nice scan of this one-shot's cover, along with the name of the publisher & the year of its release, and added the following:

"Indonesian comics, for the most part, need to be classified by main character as the series, and then story title as the issue # as most do not have numbers and even when they do, you need the story title to be clear.”

KUCING HITAM   ("BLACK CAT")
cover by Berni Wrightson (layout) & KEN KELLY (painting)
     (Toko Buku Maranatha  /  Indoesia  /  1977)

Here's one of Warren's all-reprint issues that interrupted the run of their books (the separate "Fearbooks" having sadly become a thing of the past).

CREEPY  103
cover by Walt Simonson (layout) and KIM McQUAITE (paniting)
(Warren  /  November 1978)

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)

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

HJEMSøGT
cover by ENRICH   (Interpresse  /  Denmark)

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)

Frontispiece from the CREEPY SPECIAL

Pacific Comics was one of the early "independant" comics publishers that was heavily involved in the "Direct Market" in the early 1980s.  One of their mini-series collected the works of Berni Wrightson, with COLOR added!

BERNI WRIGHTSON: MASTER OF THE MACABRE  1
cover by BERNI WRIGHTSON   (Pacific Comics  /  June 1983)

BERNI WRIGHTSON OBRAS COMPLETAS  1
cover by BERNI WRIGHTSON   (Toutain Editor  /  Spain  /  1992)

Dark Horse Comics was another "independant" publisher that started in 1986 and, astonishingly, has managed to survive to this day, mostly through licensed titles.

CREEPY PRESENTS BERNI WRIGHTSON
cover by BERNI WRIGHTSON   (Dark Horse Comics  /  September 2011)

CREEPY ARCHIVES  Volume Thirteen
cover by MANUEL SANJULIAN   (Dark Horse Comics  /  June 2012)

Copyright (C) Warren Publishing.

Scan of CREEPY #62 from the GCD site.
Scan of CREEPY #62 frontispiece from the Heritage Auctions site.
Scans of CREEPY #62 interiors from The Golden Age blog.
Scan of VAMPUS #36 (1974) from the GCD site.
Scan of GRU PRAESENTERER: KLASSISKE GYS EDGAR ALLAN POE (1976)
     from the ComicWiki_DK site.
Scan of KUCING HITAM (1977)
     supplied by N. Scott Robinson with special thanks!
Scan of CREEPY #103 (1978) from the GCD site.
Scan of CREEPY RINDE TRIBUTO A EDGAR ALLAN POE (1980)
     from the Whakoom site.
Scan of HJEMSOGT (1981)
     supplied by Morten Lykkegaard with special thanks! 
Scan of EDGAR POE (1981) from the Mexifast.com site.
Scan of EDGAR POE interior page from the Monster Magazine World blog.
Scans of the CREEPY SPECIAL (1982) from the Catawiki.com site.
Scan of BERNI WRIGHTSON: MASTER OF THE MACABRE #1 (1983)
     from my collection.
Scan of BERNI WRIGHTSON OBRAS COMPLETAS #1 (1992) from ??.
Scan of CREEPY PRESENTS BERNI WRIGHTSON (2011) from the GCD site.
Scan of CREEPY ARCHIVES VOLUME THIRTEEN (2012) from the GCD site.

Restorations by Henry R. Kujawa

For more:
Read about Edgar Allen Poe at The Poe Museum site.

Read about THE BLACK CAT at Spark Notes.
Read the complete story at the Poe Stories site.
See the BLACK CAT Gallery of Illustrations.

     Audio:
Hear the Peter Lorre MYSTERY IN THE AIR episode!
Hear the Basil Rathbone recording!
Hear the Norman Rose CBS RADIO MYSTERY THEATER episode!

     Comics:
Read the Bill Allison BLACK CAT adaptation!
Read the Johnny Craig BLACK CAT adaptation!
Read the St. John Publishing BLACK CAT adaptation!
Read the Luiz Saidenberg BLACK CAT adaptation!
Read the Fran Matera BLACK CAT adaptation!

Read the Juarez Odilon BLACK CAT adaptation!

Read the Editorial Novaro BLACK CAT adaptation!

Read the Gino Dauro BLACK CAT adaptation!
Read the Miguel Gomez Esteban BLACK CAT adaptation!   (coming soon!)
Read the Arturo Arnau BLACK CAT adaptation!   (coming soon!)
 

Read the Claudio Seto BLACK CAT adaptation!   (coming soon!) 
Read the Berni Wrightson BLACK CAT adaptation!
Read the Ricardo Villamonte BLACK CAT adaptation!

See my Edgar Allan Poe overview at this very blog!

(Continued in Poe 1974, Pt. 5)