Eerie Publications:

An Index and Collector's Guide

 

 

 

 

Keith Smith

with Gene M. Broxson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Version 2.0

Last Updated: Aug 26, 2011

Corrections and Comments can be sent to Keith Smith (astrp3@yahoo.com).


Eerie Publications Index   

 

Introduction

 

            From 1965 to 1982, Eerie Publications of New York produced almost 300 black and white horror comic magazines. In their time they were among the most violent and bloody comics that had yet been produced. The covers, which were especially gory, were replete with scenes of dismemberment, torture, and the copious flow of blood. By modern standards, they were rather tame, but in the 1970s they were anything but. They were also some of the most reviled, disparaged, and ignored comics ever produced. And not by parents (or at least not just by them) but by comic collectors, writers, and sellers. Eerie Publications' output was dismissed as worthless, its writing and art execrable (especially compared to rival Warren). For those who loved them, however, they were a pleasure, even if a guilty one. Which is not to disparage the competition, chief rival Warren among them. Warren had the polish as well the cream of the crop in horror writers and artists. Their best stories were gems, masterworks of the genre. Eerie was much more low brow. If Warren was Alfred Hitchcock or George Romero, Eerie was Herschel Gordon Lewis or Lucio Fulci. But as much as I love Warren's work as now - as a 12 year old horror comics fan, Eerie Publications did one thing that Warren didn't - they scared the bejeezus out of me.

            After Eerie closed its doors in 1982, their output was quickly forgotten. Back issues were relegated to flea markets and quarter bins and the purchase of them would often illicit derisive snickers at comic shop sales counters (if they sellers had even heard of them). In recent years, however, Eerie Publications has seen something of a comeback in the collectors market and back issues (especially the rare high-grade ones) have begun to climb in price. Perhaps this is due to some kind of low-brow nostalgia or perhaps to changes in popular culture. With splatter and gore films becoming more critically accepted, Eerie Publications may have attained a certain grindhouse chic. For whatever reason, these magazines are now being collected and this guide is a reflection of that.

 

            This guide includes the following sections:

  1. Introduction
  2. A (Very) Brief History of Eerie Publications
  3. Main Index (for each issue I have (currently all but 20), this section gives date, volume and number, page count, price, cover credits, and a listing of each story with page count, artist, original source, and brief description. Some issues also have notes/comments.
  4. Appendix A - Eerie Checklist. A condensed listing of all the horror comics published by eerie with date, volume and number, page count, price.
  5. Appendix B - Artists and Personnel: Brief bios of the artists whose work appeared in Eerie's pages followed by a listing of other personnel who worked at the company.
  6. Appendix C - Artist Cross-Index: Stories indexed by artist and issue in which they first appeared.
  1. Appendix D - Story Cross-Index: All stories indexed by title, listing each issue in which they appeared (including reprints).
  2. Appendix E -Pre-Code/Reprint Cross-Index: Stories indexed by the original pre-code source (when known). Listed in order by publisher then by title.
  3. Appendix F - Miscellaneous Lists and Trivia: A list of my personal favorites

 

            NOTE: This is a work in progress. I have yet to obtain a complete collection of Eerie Publications issues (I believe I lack 16 of 291). I also still continue to identify the original sources of these stories. Any corrections, comments, additions can be sent to me at astrp3@yahoo.com.

 


Acknowledgements

 

            Many sources were used in compiling this information but two stand out in particular: Gene M. Broxson (for his numerous additions and his 2-part article on Eerie in the British fanzine From the Tomb #s 22 and 23) and Mike Howlett, the dean of Eerie researchers and author of the monumental Weird World of Eerie Publications .Many of the art credits come from Mike, especially the identity of the cover artist Bill Alexander, Additional thanks to the Golden Age Comics website (goldenagecomics.co.uk) for providing access to hundreds of scanned comics that would have been too expensive to obtain otherwise.
A (Very) Brief History of Eerie Publications

 

            The history of Eerie Publications is little known and has been all but ignored by comic book historians and writers (Mike Howlett aside). While this index is not intended to be a detailed history of the company, a brief summary is in order.

            The two main forces behind Eerie Publications were likely Myron Fass and Robert W. Farrell, both veterans of the comic book biz, Farrell had been involved with comics for decades, starting out in the 1930s as a writer for the Iger Shop (Jerry Iger's New York studio that produced art for a host of comic publishers) and was later a business associate of comics publisher Victor Fox. Farrell was best known, however, as a publisher in his own right at companies like Superior and later his own Farrell comics (aka Ajax, Four Star etc). Ajax/Farrell produced a number of comics, including four horror titles: Fantastic Fears (later just Fantastic), Haunted Thrills, Strange Fantasy, and Voodoo. These titles used art from Iger Shop, including reprinted material published by Farrell at his earlier companies. After the comics code was imposed in 1955, Ajax/Farrell dropped their horror line, only to take another try at it in 1957 and '58 with four new titles (Strange, Midnight, Dark Shadows, and Strange Journey) that reprinted many of the company's earlier horror stories in watered-down (and sometimes unintelligible) code-approved form. In 1958, these titles were dropped and Farrell moved on to publishing the ­Mad knockoff Panic. This was likely when the nucleus of people that led to Eerie Publications was formed. Working with Farrell on Panic were veteran artist Carl Burgos (creator of the original Human Torch for Timely/Atlas, later Marvel Comics) and Irving Fass, brother to Myron Fass.

            Born in 1926, Myron Fass started in comics in the late 1940s as an artist, primarily in the horror genre (though he also did work in western and romance books), He worked for a number of publishers, but most of his work was done for Toby, Ribage, Gleason, and especially Atlas where he did at least two dozen stories between 1952 and 1954, almost all of them in the horror genre. In 1955 and '56, Fass appears to have done his last work for Gleason on titles like Black Diamond Western, but he soon left comic book art behind (mostly) for the field of magazine publishing. In 1955, inspired by William Gaines, he launched the humor magazine Lunatickle (published by Fawcett's Whitehouse Publications) and the following year he took over as editor of the cheesecake digest-sized magazine Foto-Rama (Arena Publishing Corp.). His first try at a horror themed magazine was 1959's Shock Tales. At his own Tempest Publications, Fass began publishing magazines he'd picked up from other publishers, such as Eye, Photo, and the "original newspaper magazine" Quick in the early-mid 1960s. From these beginnings, Fass would go on to establish a pulp magazine empire (Tom Brinkman's BadMags website calls him the "Demon God of Pulp") producing everything from men's magazines to teenage music magazines to true confession magazines to unexplained phenomena magazines. Fass was as colorful as his magazines and stories about him are legion. He was known for brandishing a sidearm in his office, and once delivered a legendary beating to partner Stanley Harris in front of the entire staff (after which Harris left to form his own Harris Publications) In addition to his magazines, Fass also produced some color comics starting in the late 60s. The most well known was probably Captain Marvel (unrelated to the Fawcett superhero of the same name, though Fass would later sue Marvel when they came out with their own Captain Marvel). Based on an idea by Carl Burgos, Captain Marvel first appeared in a 68-page book of that name cover dated April 1966 under the MF Enterprises banner and featuring a Burgos-drawn origin story. The title lasted just three more issues. Fass's Countrywide Publications also produced the teen humor comic Henry Brewster featuring art by the legendary Bob Powell (who would later do the art for the cover of the 2nd issue of Eerie Publication's Weird).

            The catalyst for Fass's entry (or reentry) into the horror comics field was likely the publication of the first issue of Warren's Creepy in 1964. After the imposition of the comics code in 1955, the horror comic market collapsed, with a number of publishers leaving the field entirely. Those that did stay changed their content to a bland assortment of fantasy and semi-horror material. Atlas continued a number of its horror titles until eventually switching over to monster titles. American Comics Group continued their inoffensive Adventures Into the Unknown (though without the vampires and werewolves). DC's continued its House of Mystery but switched it to a fantasy and later sci-fi title. By 1960, the horror comic market had shriveled. In the mid 1960s, however, horror comics saw a comeback. Under Joe Orlando's editorship, DC switched its fantasy titles back to pure horror. Charlton and Dell/Gold Key launched a spate of titles, and a number of other companies entered the market. At the top of the heap, however, was Jim Warren's Warren Publishing. In the early sixties, Warren struck upon an idea to skirt the comic code's restrictions by producing horror comics in black and white magazine format (magazines not being restricted by the code) aimed at adults. The idea had been tried before. E.C.'s ill-fated picto-fiction line had seen a handful of unsuccessful issues in 1955 and '56 and the one-shot horror anthologies Eerie Tales and Weird Mysteries had appeared in 1959, but none of these lasted. Creepy was a different story. The magazine was an immediate success, a fact that likely didn't go unnoticed by Myron Fass.

            Eerie Publications got its start in 1965 (the Overstreet listing of Tales of Terror by Eerie Publications in 1964 is apparently erroneous and is believed to refer to Charlton's horror fiction magazine Tales of Terror From the Beyond) with the publication of the first issue of Weird (v1n10, cover dated Jan 1966, but likely on the newsstands in October of 1965). The magazine was apparently slated to have a different title. In 1965, Warren launched their second horror title Eerie. The first issue was a small "ashcan" edition (a low-distribution prototype edition not intended for general release) containing just four stories. The issue had been assembled in a reported 20 hours, after which a copy was sent by courier to Washington D.C. and a reported 200 copies rushed by two other couriers to be hastily distributed in four neighboring states. The reason for all the rush? A "rival publisher" was planning on introducing a horror comic magazine with the same title and Warren needed to establish a copyright/trademark on the title ASAP. While I have never heard anyone at Warren say definitively that it was the case, that publisher is believed to be Myron Fass (Russ Jones said that he thought it Fass). Assuming this is true (and given the numerous incorrect "facts" that have been published about Eerie Publications it may well not be), Fass quickly changed the title of his book to Weird and published them under the Eerie Publications banner (the name perhaps a dig at Jim Warren).

            An early mention of Weird came in an advertisement in the 2nd run of Robert Farrell's Panic v2n11.Farrell's association, however, didn't end there. He was listed as the publisher in the first four issues of Weird, but perhaps an even more important contribution came via the art. With one exception, the art in the first issue of Weird consisted entirely or reprints of horror comics produced by Ajax/Farrell in the 1950s. Indeed, with only one other exception, ALL of the stories produced by Eerie Publications prior to the December 1969 issues consisted of such art. (The two exceptions were Frankenstein, the first story in the first issue of Weird, penned by Carl Burgos and the second was The Bloody Stream, a reprint of The One That Got Away from Gillmor's Weird Mysteries #8 that was printed in the first issue of Horror Tales, cover dated November 1969). The art in these early issues would often be altered to make it even gorier than it had been originally. The extent to which this was done has, in my opinion, been somewhat exaggerated. It often consisted of nothing more than adding a few drops of blood here or an open sore there. Some stories, however, bore more significant alterations. Oddly, Eerie Publications sometimes published versions of stories from Ajax/Farrell's code-approved titles of 1957 and 1958 rather than the original pre-code versions, on occasion even adding back in gory effects removed for code approval. This may have been because Eerie was working from the original art, which had been altered to produce the code-approved versions. Despite the retread art, Weird evidently sold well enough that Eerie began to expand its line. In 1968, Eerie issued a second title called Tales From the Crypt. The title lasted a single issue (as you can imagine, there were reportedly legal issues with the name) before being renamed Tales of Voodoo.1969 saw the biggest expansion in Eerie's history with four new titles appearing: Horror Tales, Terror Tales, Tales From the Tomb and Witches Tales. The Ajax/Farrell reprint era lasted until December of 1969 (though the stories would continue to be reprinted for a number of years). It seems that Farrell himself left the company not long after its start. By the fifth issue of Weird, the publisher is listed as Mel Lenny (believed by Brinkman to be advertising manager Mel Lenowitz).

            With the December 1969 issues, the second (and most significant) phase of Eerie's history began as they began to print stories containing original art. The artists can be broken into two large categories. First were American artists. Many of these were Atlas veterans who probably came to Eerie by way of Carl Burgos and/or Myron Fass (or maybe not). Among these were Larry Woromay, Chic Stone, and Dick Ayers. The latter two are probably the best known of the Eerie artists with their work being particularly gruesome. Ayers was a legendary artist, whose career included work at Magazine Enterprises (where he drew the original Ghost Rider) and a long stint at Atlas/Marvel. At Eerie, his work was marked by gallons of blood, brutal violence, and (especially) eyeballs popping out of their sockets (something he refused to do until Fass suggested he go and see Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch.) Chic Stone (known best for his inking work on Marvel's superhero titles) did only a handful of stories for Eerie but they were if anything, even more brutal than Ayers' (Voodoo Terror and Blood Bath have to be seen to be believed). Other American artists included Hector Castellon and Ezra Jackson. Jackson, best known as an inker, was also Eerie's art editor. Contrary to popular belief (the "fact" even appears on Eerie's wikipedia entry) Ezra Jackson was not a pseudonym for Myron Fass but apparently was indeed the American golden age comic book artist. While Carl Burgos didn't pencil any more stories for Eerie, he did serve as editor of the line until the mid-70s. The second source of artists for Eerie was Argentina. A score of Argentine artists worked for Eerie during this period, providing the bulk of their art. The common link among them may have been the Argentine publishing company Editorial Columba where many of them seem to have worked. Among the Argentine artists were Walter Casadei, Oscar Fraga, Domingo Mandrafina, Cirilo Munoz (not Carlos Munoz as has been reported elsewhere), Enrique Cristobal, Ruben Marchionne, Alberto Macagno, Torre Repiso, Oswal (born Osvaldo Walter Viola), Oscar Novelle, Mariana(?) Cerchiara, Felix Saborido, Eugenio Zoppi, and Martha Barnes. Many of these artists went on to greater fame, especially in Europe. A number of other artists worked at Eerie, about whom I know next to nothing. Primary among them were the artist who signed his work as Antonio Reynoso who may or may not have been Argentine and Oscar Stepancich, who was Argentinian. While the art from this period may have been new, the stories were anything but. With only three possible exceptions, all of the 850-odd stories that Eerie produced in this period were what I call "reworks" of pre-code stories from various publishers. They featured new art (and new titles), but the scripts were virtually identical with the original, with only minor changes made. Even the layouts were often near carbon copies of the originals. Why this was done is anybody's guess, but it seems likely it was a cost-savings measure, perhaps to avoid having to pay for a new script (I don’t know what Eerie's rates were, though Dick Ayers mentions that he was paid $27/page).  Cover artists are even less known, but included Novelle, Faba (who did covers for Skywald), Xavier Villanova, and Troy Lanz. Standing head and shoulders above them all is Bill Alexander, whose art, more than any other, defined Eerie Publications. Their names may be forgotten, but their work is unforgettable. Eerie's often stomach-turningly gory covers are by far the thing most remembered by those who remember Eerie at all. More than a few fans have reminisced "The covers were the best thing about them", or "The covers were the only good thing about them." (opinions with which I predictably disagree).

            In late 1970, Eerie went on a brief sci-fi kick with most of their covers switching to sci-fi themes in 1971 . They also launched a pair of new titles, Weird Worlds and Strange Galaxy, both of which featured sci-fi themed stories (though still reworks of pre-code material). In mid 1971, Eerie began including text stories and articles in their titles. Not surprisingly, these were often reprints of either classic horror stories or material pulled from early pulps like Weird Tales (also not surprisingly, Eerie changed the titles of these stories and rarely credited the original authors). By the end of 1971 the two sci-fi titles were gone and the covers were back to their normal horror themes (if Eerie's covers can be said to be in any way "normal".) 1971 had seen the most Eerie titles yet, with 44 issues appearing with 1971 cover dates. 1972 was almost as good with 39 issues appearing. During this period, Eerie also began to heavily (VERY heavily) reprint material from earlier issues, including covers and text stories. Not every story was a reprint (though it often seemed that way) and most issues contained 2-4 original stories in addition to the reprinted stories. While Eerie had reworked pre-code stories from a number of publishers, the Ajax/Farrell stories they printed had thus far been straight (or near straight) reprints. That would change in 1974 as the company began reworking the Ajax/Farrell stories that they'd already reprinted, with new art (then sometimes reworking them yet again with still different art) .

            In 1975, Eerie seems to have undergone a major shake-up (actually, it was the horror comic magazine market itself that underwent a shakeup as Skywald, Marvel, and Atlas/Seaboard also stopped publishing horror comic magazines that year). After three February issues in 1975, the next Eerie title wouldn't appear until April of 1976, launching the third and final stage of Eerie's history. When the tiles did resume, things had definitely changed. The number of titles was pared back to three with Witches Tales, Tales of Voodoo,  and Tales From the Tomb biting the dust. The personnel listed in the masthead were also different. Myron Fass and his business associate Stanley Harris were listed as publishers with Irving Fass as "executive director" and Roy Mosny, Robert Califf, and Roger B. Marshall replacing Carl Burgos as editors. The magazines were also bigger at 68 pages instead of the old 52, though production was cut back from bi-monthly to quarterly. Horror Tales even produced  four 116-page "jumbo" issues. Despite the changes, the stories remained the same - and how. Most (and eventually all) of the stories of this period were reprints of stories that had been printed in pre-1976 issues   Some stories were reprinted half a dozen (or more) times, often with two (or three) different titles. In 1979, a pair of new titles appeared: Weird Vampire Tales and Terrors of Dracula. Though they appeared under the Modern Day Periodicals banner, they were clearly the work of the same company. The new titles consisted entirely of reprints of earlier stories (even the covers and special features were reprinted from earlier issues).

            Not surprisingly, given their content, the new titles, and Eerie Publications itself, didn't last long. The horror comic magazine market was imploding, taking Eerie along with it. Industry leader Warren outlasted Eerie, but not by much, and by the end of 1983, their three horror titles had disappeared (later to be revived, oddly enough, by none other than former Myron Fass partner Stanley Harris). Eerie Publications didn't make it to 1983. The last Eerie title was Weird Vampire Tales v5n3, cover dated March 1982 (but likely on stands in late 1981). With that issue, the Eerie Publications comic "empire" (if one may call it that) was no more.

            


Main Index

 

            This section makes up the bulk of this document. For each issue (that I currently own), the following information is provided: The issues title, number, date, # of pages, and price and any known information about the cover (i.e. the artist and reprint info for covers that were reprinted. This is followed by a listing of each story and feature in the issue, with title, page count, artist (if known), the pre-code story on which the story was based (if known) and a brief plot summary. For artist credits, a single question mark indicates an uncertain credit (though for some of these I am 90% sure they are correct). A double  question mark indicates a VERY uncertain credit. When identifying the original source, "reworked" indicates that the story was printed with essentially the same script as the original but entirely new art. "Reprinted" indicates that the story was reprinted with its original art (though often with some changes and additions). Full information for a story is given only the first time it appears, subsequent appearances will just note that it is reprinted along with the first time Eerie printed the story. If a story was merely retitled, without changing the art, it is listed as a reprint.

 

            "Iger Shop" in the art credits means the story was drawn by the "Iger Shop", Jerry Iger's New York City comic art studio that produced art for a number of publishers, including Ajax/Farrell.

           

            Titles are listed in the order they were introduced and for each title, issues are listed in order (with placeholders for issues I'm missing).
Weird

 

1. Weird v1n10, Jan 1966, 52pp, $0.35
    Cover: Carl Burgos

  1. Intro (1p, Carl Burgos, inside front cover)
  2. Frankenstein (8p, Carl Burgos, Roger Elwood)
    Original?
    An updated version of the Frankenstein story told from the monster's point of view.
  3. Coward's Curse (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Haunted Thrills #8 (Ajax, April 1953)
    A young couple vacationing in Spain stop for the night at an old monastery, where they are abducted by demonic monks bent on torture.
  4. Deadly Pickup (5p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Voodoo #16 (Ajax, July-Aug 1954)
    While driving late at night, a doctor and his wife come across a girl with a horrible chest wound and attempt rescue her - only to get a deadly surprise.
  5. Doomed (6p, Iger Shop/additions by Carl Burgos)
    Reprinted from Voodoo #15 (Ajax, May-June 1954)
    An executioner who delights in his work and collects the heads of his guillotined victims gets his comeuppance.
  6. Devil's Bride (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Haunted Thrills #16 (Ajax, July-Aug 1954)
    After a woman leaves her fiancé for a new man, the fiancé leaps to his death, but he soon returns from the grave as a bloodthirsty ghoul and inflicts her with "Satan's Disease".
  7. Creatures From the Deep (5p, Iger Shop)
    Reprint of Beasts of the Bog, Voodoo #4 (Ajax, Nov 1952) - may have been reprinted in Voodoo #17 (Sep-Oct 1954) as Creatures From the Deep
    A British captain is stationed to the Irish bogs where his ancestor ordered the massacre of a group of peasants - peasants who return in the form of the "bog people" seeking vengeance.
  8. The Terror of Akbar (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Strange Fantasy #10 (Ajax, Feb-Mar 1954)
    A professor from the "Smithson Museum" is delighted when he receives a pair of mummy's eyes from Cairo, but his delight turns to horror when the eyes' owner returns to claim them.
  9. Trumpet of Doom (7p, Robert Hayward Webb)
    Reprinted from Haunted Thrills #14 (Ajax, Mar-Apr 1954)
    A homeless man named Gabriel finds a trumpet in the local dump and becomes convinced he must use it to call sinners to repentance by calling forth the dead from their graves.

            This first issue of Weird differed in many ways from subsequent issues. The inside front cover featured art previews from two of the stories inside introduced by "Morris, the Caretaker of Weird". Morris would last a dozen issues, but the art previews would not, appearing only in this one. The preview page also says "Watch for 'Suspense' and 'Shock' 'New'…that dare probe unknown horrors!....On Sale SOON at your Newsstand." It is unclear if 'Shock' and 'Suspense' were planned new titles or not, but if so, they never appeared.

            The opening story, Frankenstein was one of (at most) four stories that appear to be originals created specifically for Eerie Publications. The story was signed by Burgos and associate editor Roger Elwood. Overall, the issue is a decent, if not spectacular, one, especially considering that Eerie had yet to start producing its own art and tackling pre-code publishers other than Ajax/Farrell. Frankenstein, Coward's Curse, Devil's Bride, Creatures From the Deep, and Deadly Pickup are so-so (with the last marred by an all-too-predictable ending).  The three remaining stories, however, are delightfully bizarre examples of the kind of offbeat stories that were Ajax/Farrell's best. Terror of Akbar could have been a very pedestrian attempt at a mummy story, but the idea of featuring the mummy's disembodied eyes provides an odd twist. Trumpet of Doom is perhaps the most bizarre story, featuring a Christ-like figure (perhaps God himself) arriving to save the world from an army of the living dead summoned by a trumpet playing tramp. Doomed may be the best story in the issue. The idea of an executioner requesting that he be allowed to keep the severed heads of his victims is wild enough and the idea that his request is granted is even wilder (if unrealistic). Things get wilder still when the disembodied heads (apparently) return to pursue the ne'er-do-well en masse. A weak ending somewhat detracts from this otherwise excellent story.

 

2. Weird v1 n11, April 1966, 52 pp, $0.35

    Cover: Bob Powell

  1. Untitled feature on odd facts (1p, Carl Burgos, inside front cover)
  2. Web of the Widow (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Haunted Thrills #16 (Ajax, July-Aug 1954)
    Things look grim after an Egyptologist is bitten by a deadly "temple spider" while exploring a pyramid but they look up when a mysterious woman arrives from nowhere to cure him - at least until he finds out that she has an unnatural fondness for the eight-legged creatures.
  3. Scream No More, My Lady (5p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Fantastic #10 (Ajax, Nov-Dec 1954)
    A psychiatrist treats an actress who has been typecast as a vampire so often that she fears she is becoming one.
  4. Fangs of Fear (5p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Strange Fantasy #12 (Ajax, June-July 1954)
    A stranger dedicates himself to keeping tabs on a man who is bent on leading an invading army of rats.
  5. I, The Coffin (5p, Robert Hayward Webb)
    Reprinted from Fantastic Fears #7 (Ajax, May-June 1954)
    The life story of a coffin, narrated by the coffin itself.
  6. Murder On the Moor (7p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Haunted Thrills #10 (Ajax, July 1953)
    On the eve of his execution, a murderer escapes from prison into the British moors where he murders a witch and her cat - only to find out that they don't stay dead.
  7. Be My Ghost (5p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Fantastic Fears #8 (Ajax, July-Aug 1954)
    Desperate for money, a newlywed husband takes a job as executioner, only to be given the unenviable job of executing his own wife.
  8. Monster in the Mist (5p, Robert Hayward Webb)
    Reprinted from Haunted Thrills #17 (Ajax, Sep-Oct 1954)
    A Scotland Yard detective summonses the ghosts of Roman legionnaires to combat an ancient monster created by Druids.
  9. Night of Terror (5p, Iger Shop/additions by Carl Burgos
    Reprinted from Voodoo #16 (Ajax, July-Aug 1954)
    After a quarrel with his wife, a man decides to teach her a lesson by running out of gas near a "haunted" house. But the joke turns to terror when the couple encounter a dead body and an ax-wielding maniac inside.
  10. Little Red Riding Hood and the Werewolf (6p, Myron Fass?)
    Reprint of Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Werewolf, Fantastic Fears #2 [#8] (July 1953)
    A twist on the classic fairy tale.

 

            With just the second issue, things have already begun to change. The issues starts with a cover by golden-age and pre-code horror legend Bob Powell (and a painted one at that, one of the few that Powell did). Powell's most well-known pre-code horror work was for Harvey but he also did horror work for St. John, Ziff-Davis, Charlton, Fawcett, and Atlas. As mentioned in the introduction, Powell was working for Fass at this time on the Henry Brewster teen humor comic. The preview of internal art is gone, replaced by a feature on macabre facts (example: "Coffin rings when dug out of a grave…will cure rheumatism.") introduced by a horror host Morris (though he doesn't give his name).
             Another uneven mix of Ajax/Farrell stories. The last story was narrated by "The Old Crone" - one of a small handful of Ajax attempts at creating an E.C.-style horror host (the idea of grisly versions of classic fairy tales was another concept popularized by E.C.) Fangs of Fear and I, the Coffin provide two more examples of the publishers off-the-beaten-path stories (though the idea of a talking coffin was used by another pre-code publisher) and for that reason are my favorites.

 

3. Weird v1n12, Oct 1966, 52pp, $0.35
    Cover: Bob Powell

 

  1. Untitled odd facts feature (1p, Carl Burgos, inside front cover)
  2. The Blood Blossom (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Fantastic Fears #1 (May 1953)
    While working in Japan, an archaeologist unearths a 2000-year old lotus seed. Ignoring the warnings of local officials, he plants the seed and is horrified when it blossoms in to a man-eating carnivorous plant.
  3. Heads of Horror (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Voodoo #14 (Ajax, Mar-Apr 1954)
    A jilted husband gets revenge by shrinking the heads of his wife and her lover to miniature size, while keeping them both alive.
  4. Swamp Haunt (6p, Joe Doolin?)
    Reprinted from Haunted Thrills #5 (Ajax, Jan 1953)
    A bayou-dwelling woman enlists the aid of a witch to rid herself of an unwanted lover, the foolishly decides not to pay up and reaps the consequences.
  5. Cry From the Coffin (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Strange Fantasy #8 (Ajax, Oct 1953)
    A man struck by a car and presumed dead remains alive but paralyzed throughout his autopsy and funeral.
  6. Fanged Terror (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Haunted Thrills #18 (Ajax, Nov-Dec 1954)
    A policeman investigates a series of brutal murders committed by a one-legged, three-toed demon.
  7. Black Death (5p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Fantastic Fears #4 (Ajax, Nov 1953)
    A newlywed couple shipwrecked on a desert island encounters a colony of ravenous giant ants.
  8. Nightmare (8p, Iger Shop)
    Reprint (?) of Dream of Horror, Strange Fantasy #9 (Ajax, Dec 1953)
    After a series of nightmares involving severed heads, a man discovers that anything he wishes for comes true. Things seem to be going swimmingly when he wished his wife and mother-in-law to Hades, but the nightmares return and he discovers that his wishes were granted by an evil relative - an executioner during the French Revolution who now seeks a human head to replace the one he lost.
  9. Rest in Peril (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Strange Fantasy #6 (Ajax, June 1953)
    A philandering husband drives his wife insane and has her committed to an insane asylum so he can indulge in an affair with a younger woman, but when they begin to see her ghost, things don't seem so rosy anymore.

 

            For whatever reason, there was a 6-month gap between this issue and the previous one. The legend "Terror… Shock… Suspense…" is added above the title with this issue. I found this issue a bit weaker than the first two with a number of lackluster stories. Cry From the Coffin featured the timeworn plot of a man buried alive while Nightmare's plot was convoluted and implausible. Heads of Horror included the bizarre (or was it ridiculous?) sight of a pair of lovers with comically undersized heads. The Blood Blossom and Black Death featured two of my favorite plot devices - man-eating plants and giant ants (the latter theme being especially popular in pre-code horror likely due to the influence of the film The Naked Jungle).

 

4. Weird, v2n1, Dec 1966, 52pp, $0.35

    Cover: Carl Burgos??

  1. Untitled odd facts feature (1p, Carl Burgos, inside front cover)
  2. Tiger-Tiger (7p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Haunted Thrills #18 (Ajax, Nov-Dec 1954)
    A two-timing husband tries to lure a tiger into killing his tiger-tamer wife so he and his lover can collect the insurance money, but he succeeds only in injuring her - and it arousing her ire as she transforms into a tiger to exact revenge.
  3. Nightmare Island (5p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Voodoo #15 (Ajax, May-June 1954)
    After a couple's plane crash lands on a desert island, they are forced to spend the night in the home of a reclusive scientist - where there discover he is experimenting with giant rats.
  4. Three In a Grave (8p, Iger Shop/Additions by Carl Burgos)
    Reprinted from Haunted Thrills #8 (Ajax. Apr 1953)
    A henpecked husband kills his wife but his plans go awry when he inadvertently releases a vampiric demon while burying her.
  5. Beast of Baghdad (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Voodoo #9 (Ajax, June 1953)
    To get rid of his wife, a wealthy older man purchases a demon-infested killer rug from a local antique shop. Things, of course, do not go as planned.
  6. They Couldn't Die (7p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Voodoo #13 (Ajax, Jan-Feb 1954) Originally printed in Voodoo #3 (Ajax, Sep 1952) as There's Peril in Perfection.
    In an effort to create the perfect woman, a beauty contest judge creates a lifelike robot - who turns out not to be as perfect as he thought.
  7. Fatal Scalpel (7p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Haunted Thrills #5 (Ajax, Jan 1953)
    A plastic surgeon exacts grisly revenge on his two-timing wife and her lover.
  8. Corpses of the Jury (8p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Voodoo #6 (Ajax, Jan 1953)
    Former inmates return from the grave to seek revenge on a Nazi prison camp warden who's atrocities had included making a pair of gloves from one of his victim's skin.    

            The "Terror… Shock… Suspense…" legend still appears, but is joined by what would become Eerie's most common blurb: "Told in new chilling picto-fiction". The phrase was borrowed from E.C.'s failed attempts to skirt the Comics Code in late 1955 (as described I the introduction). Eerie may have been trying a similar strategy here, though in their case (unlike in E.C.'s) there was absolutely no difference between the traditional comic book format and their "picto fiction" format. I also do not know what prompted the strategy (if it was a strategy) but the phrase began to be heavily used on covers and in advertisements for Eerie's line of comics. This issue also featured a color ad on the back cover instead of the normal practice of printing the last page of the final story. The ad was for the batman color projector, which Frank Motler in an article in From the Tomb #24 claims was sold from a Myron Fass address. The printing of ads on the back cover would disappear after the next issue and not return for years.

            I found this issue to be easily the best so far. Two of the stories included, Fatal Scalpel and Corpses of the Jury, are considered minor classics and I enjoyed both of them but I  liked Nightmare Island and the bizarre Beast of Baghdad (perhaps the only story ever to include a killer rug - though Ace utilized a similar theme) even better. The issue is also a rather bleak one, with They Couldn't Die being especially so.

 

 

5. Weird v2n2, Apr 1967, 52pp, $0.35
    Cover: Carl Burgos

  1. Untitled odd facts feature (1p, Carl Burgos, inside front cover)
  2. Fiends From the Crypt (8p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Fantastic Fears #2 [#8] (Ajax, July 1953)
    Roman police chase a suspect into the sewers, only to find them populated by a race of reptilian creatures.
  3. Dying is So Contagious (7p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Haunted Thrills #14 (Ajax, Mar-Apr 1954)
    A pair of crooks decide to rob an eccentric professor who studies death and sleeps in a coffin.
  4. Terror in the Attic (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Strange Fantasy #13 (Ajax, Aug-Sep 1954)
    A newlywed bride discovers her husband's twin brother chained up in the attic of his ancestral home.
  5. Doom at the Wheel (7p, Robert Hayward Webb)
    Reprinted from Fantastic #10 (Ajax, Nov-Dec 1954)
    An arrogant racecar driver loses his arm in an accident then forces a doctor to sew it back on, but things don't go quite the way he planned.
  6. Pit of Horror (7p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Haunted Thrills #6 (Ajax, Feb 1953)
    A zoo director acquires a minotaur for his collection and begins collecting victims for human sacrifice.
  7. The Corpse Who Killed (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Haunted Thrills #7 (Ajax, Mar 1953)
    A scientist revives the brain of a murderer, only to find it begins to take over his own mind.
  8. Cult of the Cruel (7p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Voodoo #17 (Ajax, Sep-Oct 1954)
    A businessman traveling in India learns the secrets of the thugee then returns home to begin his career as a murderer.

 

            With this issue there appear to have been some changes at Eerie. Their address is now listed as 150 Fifth Avenue, New York NY, 10011.  The publisher and Producer are no longer listed. Fiends From the Crypt is a decent example of a fairly common pre-code genre: the monsters-in-the-Paris-sewers story (later done to perfection by Dick Ayers in his The Sewer Werewolves).

 

6. Weird v2n3, June 1967, 52pp, $0.35
   Cover: Bob Powell?

 

  1. Untitled odd facts feature (1p, Carl Burgos, inside front cover)
  2. Horror in the Mine (9p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Haunted Thrills #2 (Ajax, Aug 1952)
    Workers opening a new mine encounter a multi-tentacled creature from the center of the earth.
  3. Ghoul For a Day (7p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Voodoo #5 (Ajax, Jan 1953)
    A newly wed bride's hatred of her husbands job as an undertaker leads her to kill him and bury him in the basement.
  4. Terror Unlimited (7p, Iger Shop)
    Reprint of Horror Unlimited, Voodoo #16 (Ajax, July-Aug 1954)
    A family encounters the Wudgies, a tiny group of elf-like creatures who seem harmless at first, but soon begin to take over their lives.
  5. The Gruesome Garden (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprint of Plantation of Fear, Voodoo #3 (Ajax, Sep 1952)
    The owners of a tea plantation encounter a race of living, killer mandrake roots.
  6. When the Sea Goes Dry (8p, Iger Shop/Additions by Carl Burgos)
    Reprinted from Strange Journey #1 (Ajax, Sep 1957) with new splash panel. Code-approved version of Death Holds an Auction from Strange Fantasy #2 (Ajax, Oct 1952)
    An couple seeking a sunken (!?!) Aztec treasure encounter a giant man-eating octopus instead.
  7. Rendezvous With Doom (4p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Voodoo #13 (Ajax, Voodoo #13 (Ajax, Jan-Feb 1954)
    An egotistical actor becomes obsessed with a beautiful woman who seems to disappear after an auto accident. When the woman turns up at his hotel, the man is overjoyed - but not for long.
  8. Zombie Bride (8p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Voodoo #2 (Ajax, July 1952)
    A couple's honeymoon in Haiti is interrupted when the wife is turned into a zombie.
  9. Untitled odd facts feature (1p, back cover)

 

            When the Sea Goes Dry presents an example of Eerie reprinting a version of story from one of Ajax/Farrell's code-approved horror comics of the late 1950s instead of printing the pre-code version, though the changes in this case were relatively minor (the restoration of a severed finger in one panel, the removal of he monster's human head in another, and the removing of a floating body from the final panel etc)  In the Eerie reprint, the severed finger is still restored, but they added a bit of blood to hand to which it was formerly attached.

            The Gruesome Garden presents what may have been Ajax/Farrell's most off-the-wall idea ever (and that's saying something) - killer mandrake roots.

 

7. Weird v2n4, Oct 1967, 52pp,  $0.35
    Cover: Carl Burgos

 

  1. Untitled odd facts feature (1p, Carl Burgos, inside front cover)
  2. The Ghostly Guillotine (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from  Voodoo #8 (Ajax, Apr 1953)
    After arriving in England to claim an ancestral castle he has inherited, Geoffrey Moorsby decides to spend the night, despite the fact that the castle is said to be cursed by an executioner who'd been wronged by one of Moorsby's ancestors.
  3. Demon Fiddler (5p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Fantastic Fears #7 (Ajax, May-June 1954)
    In centuries past, a demonic fiddler travels the countryside sowing conflict and hatred with his playing.
  4. Monsters For Rent (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Haunted Thrills #3 (Ajax, Oct 1952)
    When business slows down at Sam and Lorna Cox's lakeside resort, they decide to create a fake sea monster to drum up customers.
  5. In a Lonely Place (7p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Strange Fantasy #11 (Ajax, Apr-May 1954)
    After he is called in to help identify a bloated body found floating in a river near his house, a police captain commits suicide. Then we are told of the tragic events leading to his death.
  6. Blade of Horror (5p, Iger Shop/additions by Carl Burgos)
    Reprinted from Haunted Thrills #16 (Ajax, July-Aug 1954)
    After a jilted man decapitates his girlfriend and her lover with a scythe, only to have them return in the form of a pair of swans and peck his eyes out.
  7. Death Dance (8p, Matt Baker?)
    Reprinted from Strange Fantasy #3 (Ajax, Dec 1952)
    Pulah rescues a woman from a band of gorillas led by a strange woman in a veil.
  8. Temple of the Beast (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Fantastic Fears #5 (Ajax, Jan 1954)
    While exploring a temple in Siam, a tourist couple purchases the severed hand of an idol from a merchant. Later the merchant returns and desperately tries to reclaim the hand, only to be killed when it comes to life.
  9. Madness of Terror (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Haunted Thrills #9 (Ajax, May 1953)
    After murdering his wife, a man begins to panic when she apparently keeps trying to get out of her coffin.

 

            Death Dance is the first Pulah" story reprinted by Eerie. These were reprints of stories featuring the jungle girl Rulah, who had first appeared in Fox Features' Zoot Comics in 1947. The title was eventually renamed after the jungle girl, Matt Baker was the artist most associated with Rulah. A number of these stories were reprinted by Robert W. Farrell in various issues of Voodoo. It is odd that they Eerie chose to change the name to "Pulah" when reprinting these stories. Perhaps this was done to avoid trademark restrictions with the name Rulah. It seems unlikely that it could be a copyright issue with the material itself since merely changing the character name would seem to afford no protection against copyright infringement (if Robert Farrell didn't own the copyrights himself). Despite the Baker art, I found the Pulah and other jungle stories among the worst that Eerie (and Ajax/Farrell) produced
            With its finale featuring a man's eyes pecked out by swans, Blade of Horror epitomizes the type of story which aroused such ire in the 1950s. Demon Fiddler is one of my all-time favorites from Ajax/Farrell.

 

8. Weird v3n1a, Jan 1968, 52pp, $0.35
   Cover: Carl Burgos

 

  1. Untitled odd facts feature (1p, Carl Burgos, inside front cover)
  2. Demon in the Dungeon (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Strange Fantasy #4 (Ajax, Feb 1953)
    A writer travels to his family's ancestral castle where he finds the ghost of a man his grandfather had walled up alive years before.
  3. Grave Rehearsal (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Strange Fantasy #7 (Ajax, Aug 1953)
    B.S. Fitts, a wealthy magazine publisher seeking peace, travels to a Transylvanian health resort where he encounters the sadistic overseer Madam Satin.
  4. Secret Coffin (7p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Fantastic Fears #9 (Ajax, Sep-Oct 1954).
    Originally printed in Horrific #1 (Comic Media, Sep 1952) as Iron Doom
    Ben Matterman, a descendent of the inventor of the iron maiden, returns to his family's ancestral home with hopes of opening a torture museum, but his plans are dashed by the ghosts of the iron maiden's victims.
  5. Horror Comes to Room 1313 (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Voodoo #11 (Ajax, Oct 1953)
    Everybody who stays in room 1313 at the Rex Arms sees something that drives them insane and causes them to leap to their deaths - what is it?
  6. Witch's Horror (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Haunted Thrills #10 (Ajax, July 1953)
    The owner of a small island evicts a tenant he suspects of being a witch. In return, she curses his son, turning him into a vicious, apelike creature.
  7. Terror Below (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Haunted Thrills #12 (Ajax, Nov 1953)
    Sir Giles Romney, governor of Tortuga [sic], has a unique method of executing criminals - he has them eaten alive by crabs.
  8. Screams in the Swamp (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Haunted Thrills #10 (Ajax, July 1953)
    A newlywed couple moves into a new home where the man dreams about a ghostly woman who claims to be his lover come back from the dead - or was it a dream?
  9. Carnival of Terror (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Fantastic Fears #2 [#8] (Ajax, July 1953)
    A carnival hula dancer and her lover decide to kill the show's snake charmer to get their hands on his money - but things don't go quite the way they planned.

 

            Grave Rehearsal includes some thinly-veiled S&M elements. At one point, Madam Satan awakens Fitts in the middle of the night brandishing a wish and ordering "Strip! Remove your garments Mr. Fitt! Don’t dawdle…" Terror Below offers the delightful sight of a man eaten alive by crabs.

 

9. Weird v2n6, Apr 1968, 52pp, $0.35
    Cover: Carl Burgos

 

  1. Untitled odd facts feature (1p, Carl Burgos, inside front cover)
  2. Careless Corpse (7p, Joe Doolin?)
    Reprinted from Fantastic Fears #2 [#8] (Ajax, July 1953)
    After being horrible disfigured in a car accident, a husband returns home to find his wife in the arms of another man.
  3. Dearest, Deadest Dummy (8p, Iger Shop/additions by Carl Burgos
    Reprinted from Haunted Thrills #6 (Ajax, Feb 1953)
    A lonely ventriloquist's beautiful dummy comes to life - along with her murderous friends.
  4. The Needless Night (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Midnight #2 (Ajax, July 1957). Code-approved version of Haunted Matador, Fantastic Fears #3 (Ajax, Sep 1953)
    A young matador enlists the aid of a witch to win the hand of a maiden from a rival.
  5. Hands of Terror (6p, Iger Shop/additions by Carl Burgos)
    Reprinted from Haunted Thrills #5 (Ajax, Jan 1953)
    In a plantation home of the old south, Vincent Cox returns from his swampy grave to seek vengeance on the jealous cousin who killed him.
  6. Horribly Beautiful (8p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Voodoo #11 (Ajax, Oct 1953)
    A jealous, homely woman throws acid in the face of her beautiful sister, who then exacts horrible revenge.
  7. Fate Laughs at Clowns (7p, Iger Shop/Additions by Carl Burgos)
    Reprinted from Fantastic #10 (Ajax, Nov-Dec 1954)
    Tired of being laughed at, a circus clown visits a plastic surgeon to undo the effects of a childhood maiming that left him with his trademark grin.
  8. Death's Shoes (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Voodoo #9 (Ajax, June 1953)
    A cruel count kills a cobbler after the poor man makes a pair of shoes for him that are a bit too tight - but the cobbler has the last laugh.

 

            This issue illustrates one of the numbering quirks that makes collecting Eerie Publications frustrating. The previous issue was numbered v3n1. Given its cover date of January 1968, this seems to make sense as it was the first 1968 issue. Except that the first issue of volume 2 had borne a December 1966 cover date. It seems that perhaps Eerie had decided to start new volumes at the beginning of the year, as is the common practice and then changed their mind and decide to continue with the volume 2 numbering after all (they skipped v2n5, which makes some sense, but then skipped v2n7 as well, which doesn't). To top it off, they issued ANOTHER v3n1 in February of 1969. Starting with 1969, Eerie (for the most part) used a more standard numbering scheme, staring each volume with the new year and starring new volumes with issue #1 (except for volume 1, which always started with a higher number).  This issue also begins the common practice of including an ad on the inside back cover (for the Fass magazine Great West)

 

10. Weird v2n8, July 1968, 52pp, $0.35
     Cover: Carl Burgos

 

  1. Untitled odd facts feature (1p, Carl Burgos, inside front cover)
  2. The Murder Pool (5p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Strange Fantasy #13 (Ajax, Aug-Sep 1954)
    An agent seeks revenge on his enemies by inviting the to take a dip in his new pool - which he has filled with acid.
  3. Werewolf Castle (7p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Voodoo #18 (Ajax, Nov-Dec 1954)
    A honeymooning couple spend the night in Werewolf Castle - a German castle owned by a strange Baron and Baroness.
  4. If I Should Die (5p, Joe Doolin?)
    Reprinted from Haunted Thrills #18 (Ajax, Nov-Dec 1954)
    A writer is mistakenly told he has only a short time to live.
  5. Killer Lady (7p, Joe Doolin?)
    Reprinted from Voodoo #6 (Ajax, Feb 1953)
    A vain reporter is romances a princess he is sent to interview, but when he returns with her to her country, he gets a nasty surprise.
  6. The Ghoul and the Guest (5p, Iger Shop/Additions by Carl Burgos)
    Reprinted from Strange Fantasy #1 [#2] (Ajax, Aug 1952)
    When a tramp shows up at her door begging for a meal, a woman cruelly orders him to chop a cord of wood first. When the tramps drops dead of exhaustion and hunger, she tries to hid the body, but it keeps popping up again.
  7. Corpses…Coast to Coast (7p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Voodoo #14 (Ajax, Mar-Apr 1954)
    An undertakers strike is the front for a plot to create a zombie army to take over the world.
  8. The Dancing Ghost (7p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Strange Fantasy #3 (Ajax, Dec 1952)
    A man becomes obsessed with a woman in a portrait, with tragic results.
  9. Stretching Things (5p, Steve Ditko, script: Bruce Hamilton)
    Reprinted from Fantastic Fears #5 (Ajax, Jan 1954)
    A man with brittle bones is given an experimental drug that allows him to stretch his body like rubber.

                The  last panel of page three of The Murder Pool is one of my favorite pre-code panels ever and I think it's even better in black and white. Stretching Things is, of course, one of the most well know pre-code horror stories because it was the first comic book story Steve Diko drew (though not the first he published). It was actually produced for Stanley Morse (of Gillmor fame) who then resold it to Iger for a profit.

 

11. Weird v2n9, Oct 1968, 52pp, $0.35
     Cover: Carl Burgos

 

  1. Untitled odd facts feature (1p, Carl Burgos, inside front cover)
  2. The Weird Dead (8p, Carl Iger Shop/additions by Carl Burgos
    Reprinted from Voodoo #6 (Ajax, Feb 1953)
    A group of explorers encounter a feathered serpent in a South American temple said to be guarding an Aztec treasure.
  3. Skull Scavenger (8p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Strange Fantasy #6 (Ajax, June 1953)
    While destroying an ancient monastery, workers encounter a man who claims to be a 900-year-old alchemist seeking a locket containing the antidote that will cure him of immortality and allow him to be reunited with his love.
  4. House of Chills (8p, Iger Shop/additions by Carl Burgos)
    Reprinted from Haunted Thrills #5 (Ajax, Jan 1953)
    During a food shortage after the Napoleonic wars, a German butcher turns to murder to supply his customers with meat.
  5. Devil Flower (8p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Voodoo #7 (Ajax, Mar 1953)
    A man uses a man-eating flower he found while shipwrecked on a desert island to commit murder.
  6. And Death Makes Three (8p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Fantastic Fears #1 [#7] (Ajax, May 1953)
    A London woman's uncle invents a formula for invisibility and uses it to engage in bank robbery.
  7. Debt of Fear (8p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Strange Fantasy #4 (Ajax, Feb 1953)
    A chateau in modern France is visited by the red death.

 

12. Weird v2n10, Dec 1968, 52pp, $0.35

     Cover: Carl Burgos

 

  1. Untitled odd facts feature (1p, inside front cover) - Reprinted from Weird v2n2
  2. Idol of Evil (7p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Voodoo #10 (Ajax, Aug 1953)
    A stone idol comes to life to seek vengeance on the thief who stole its jewels.
  3. Death on Ice (8p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Strange Fantasy #6 (Ajax, June 1953)
    A group of mountain climbers scaling Mt. Everest encounter a spirit warning them to turn back.
  4. Fear of the Witch (5p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Haunted Thrills #15 (Ajax, May-June 1954)
    Every night, Richard Farson's new bride is transformed into his former lover who died in a car accident
  5. Our Green-Eyed Princess of Dumbrille (7p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Strange Journey #2 (Ajax, Nov 1957). Code-approved version of Blood Revenge, Voodoo #8 (Ajax, Apr 1954)
    The hunchback companion of a blind princess plots to take over the kingdom.
  6. A Hole in the Sky (7p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Strange Journey #2 (Ajax, Nov 1957). Code-approved version of Monster in the Building, Strange Fantasy #14 (Ajax, Oct-Nov 1954)
    A detective is called in to investigate reports that a monster from space has taken up residence in an abandoned building.
  7. Torture Garden (8p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from  Voodoo #13 (Ajax, Jan 1954)
    After crash-landing on a south seas island, two men are taken in by a man who'd disappeared a decade before, only to find that he wants to go hunting, with them as the prey.
  8. Mirror of Death (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Strange Fantasy #9 (Ajax, Dec 1953)
    After saving a man's life, a New York banker is given a ring that allows him to see tragedies before they happen.

            Mel Lenny is no longer listed as publisher (in fact, no publisher is listed). Torture Garden is another take on Richard Connell's Most Dangerous Game. Our Green-Eyed Princess of Dumbrille is one of my least favorite Ajax/Farrell efforts and this (along with the non-horror material they reprinted) represents Ajax at its worst (overall I find Ajax to be a middling pre-code publisher at their best when they tackle offbeat and bizarre themes).

 

13. Weird v3n1b, Feb 1969, 52pp, $0.35
      Cover: Chic Stone

 

  1. Free Bonus! A Weird Horror Mask FEATURE (1p, Chic Stone)
  2. Hissing Horror (7p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Fantastic Fears #4 (Ajax, Nov 1953)
    A snake-hating man on an island paradise infested with the creatures meets a beautiful and strange woman.
  3. The Game Called Dying (8p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Voodoo #3 (Ajax, Sep 1952)
    After killing and robbing an African diamond mine owner, a thief is pursued by his severed hand.
  4. Fear Has a Name (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Voodoo #12 (Ajax, Dec 1953)
    A seaman with a fear of rats steals precious jewels from an Indian temple, only to find out that it is a temple of the rat god - who seeks vengeance upon him.
  5. Nightmare Mansion (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Haunted Thrills #3 (Ajax, Oct 1952)
    A cop is drummed off the force after he suggests that a series of murders were the work of ghosts in a haunted house on his beat, but his theories are validated when he visits the house.
  6. The Devil Collects (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Haunted Thrills #15 (Ajax, May-June 1954)
    After being told he is dying from a rare tropical disease, a rubber planters sells his body to his doctor for $10,000, only to find the man having an affair with his wife.
  7. Sound of Mourning (7p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Voodoo #18 (Ajax, Dec 1954)
    Terror Tales v3n3 (May 1971), Horror Tales v5n1 (Feb 1973)
    A crooked lawyer gets his client sent to the electric chair for a murder he didn't commit - but a doctor brings the man backs to life, allowing him to get his revenge
  8. The Zombi's Bride (8p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Fantastic Fears #3 (Sep 1953)
    A fruit company executive investigating the general of a mountain republic hears rumors that the general is a master zombie.

 

            With this issue a new (and in my opinion much superior) more cartoony style of cover art begins by Bill Alexander. Alexander's work is magnificent and is probably the single thing most people remember about Eerie. Morris, the Caretaker of Weird, is gone from his inside front cover spot replaced by a cutout horror mask. While Morris would no longer introduce any issues, he would appear (unnamed) in a number of reprinted one-page features.

 

14. Weird v3n2, May 1969, 52pp, $0.35
     Cover: Chic Stone

 

  1. Escape From Hell (4p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Fantastic Fears #5 (Ajax, Jan 1954)
    After he dies, Richard Benton finds himself in hell and begins desperately searching for an escape.
  2. Terror Town (5p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Strange Fantasy #12 (Ajax, June-July 1954)
    A city is terrorized by a giant, living ape brain.
  3. Blood in the Sky (8p, Robert Hayward Webb)
    Reprinted from Haunted Thrills #11 (Ajax, Sep 1953)
    After framing a romantic rival for murder and seeing him hanged, Lufe Wagner is caught in a rain of blood.
  4. The Empty Coffin (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprint of The Spiteful Spirit, Voodoo #5 (Ajax, Jan 1953)
    A gold-digger poisons her lover's wife only to have  him go insane and his wife return from the grave.
  5. Monster Mill (6p, Iger Shop/Additions by Ezra Jackson)
    Reprinted from Haunted Thrills #6 (Ajax, Feb 1953)
    A scientist creates artificial life in the lab.
  6. Witch or Widow (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Voodoo #14 (Ajax, Mar-Apr 1954)
    People think it odd when Jessie Wuxton's husband builds here a house in the shape of a shoe. They think its even odder when she buries 7 husbands in 20 years.
  7. Torture Travelogue (7p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Voodoo #9 (Ajax, June 1953)
    While on a world cruise, a woman has a dalliance with a voodoo practitioner. After she decides to leave him, she finds out it isn't as easy as she thought.
  8. Zombie Vengeance (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprint of Voodoo Vengeance, Haunted Thrills #12 (Ajax, Nov 1953)
    A ghost writer travels to a Central American country to secure the release of a political prisoner, only to find out that the country is ruled by voodoo practitioners.

 

            This issue features my all-time favorite Eerie Pubs cover. A zombie hippie (or is it a demon hippie?) with a severed head growing from the crown of his own head is in the act of dismembering a co-ed protester, while in the background are a trio of gleeful demon hippies (or is it zombie hippies?) holding signs saying "Down with violence" and "Love Not Hate". Dave O'Dell claims that Chic stone did the cover for this issue, but I find this questionable (see comment on Terror Tales v1n8).

            Ezra Jackson is now listed as art editor. This is (apparently) not a pseudonym for Myron Fass, as has been claimed in Eerie Publications' Wikipedia entry. Eerie researcher Mike Howlett claims that this is indeed the real comic book artist Ezra Jackson (and he ought to know). I am not sure how this rumor got started, but I suspect it came from a positing to The Claw's Eerie Publications website that appears to have been made by Countrywide editor Jeff Goodman.

 

15. Weird v3n3, July 1969, 52pp, $0.35
      Cover: Bill Alexander

 

  1. All This is Mine (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Midnight #3 (Ajax, Sep 1957), Code-approved version of Castle of Fright, Voodoo #12 (Ajax, Dec 1954)
    John McCleod and his wife travel to a Scottish castle to visit his uncle. When they arrive,, they find his uncle murdered and encounter the ghost of the Red Laird, who warns them to leave.
  2. Exit the Lone Ghost (7p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Strange Journey #3 (Ajax), Code-approved version of The Werewolf, Voodoo #1 (Ajax, May 1952)
    When a couple's car breaks down, they make their way to an old house that his haunted (its residents say) by a lone ghost.
  3. The Last Laugh (7p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Midnight #5 (Ajax, Feb 1958). Code-approved version of Death Laughs Last, Haunted Thrills #12 (Ajax, Nov 1953)
    A practical joker travels to his uncle's castle in Spain where he encounters a ghost who doesn't appreciate his sense of humor.
  4. The Gateway to Yesterday (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Midnight #2 (Ajax, July 1957). Code-approved version of Dead or Alive?, Strange Fantasy #5 (Ajax, Apr 1953)
    A woman visiting a museum notices a mummy that looks just like her. When she takes a closer look, she finds herself transported to ancient Egypt.
  5. Ghouls Castle (8p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Haunted Thrills #4 (Ajax, Dec 1952)
    A woman stumbles upon a country house whose residents lock her in a basement prison, where she finds an army of experimental zombie slave laborers.
  6. The Jinxed Genius (7p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Dark Shadows #1 (Ajax, Oct 1957). Code-approved version of Portrait of Doom, Strange Fantasy #9 (Ajax, Dec 1953)
    A painter finds himself blacking out. After waking he discovers that he has painted a grisly portrait.
  7. Horror Hour (8p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Haunted Thrills #3 (Ajax, Oct 1952), Originally printed in Ellery Queen #2 (Superior, July 1949) as Calamity Clock.
    Ellery Queen investigates the case of a man who dropped dead in a clock shop

 

            The quality seems to be slipping here as Eerie begins using dreary post-code reprints more often. Dave O'Dell claims that Chic stone did the cover for this issue, but I find this questionable (see comment on Terror Tales v1n8).

 

16. Weird v3n4, Sep 1969, 52pp, $0.35
      Cover: Bill Alexander.

 

  1. From the Grave Below (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprint of Ghost Gloves, Haunted Thrills #1 (Ajax, June 1952)
    After he is killed in the ring, a boxer's ghost returns to seek vengeance on the fighter who killed him
  2. Off With Their Heads - reprint of Blade of Horror, Weird v2n4 (Oct 1967)
  3. Now I Lay Me Down to Die (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprint of Deadman's Pajamas, Voodoo #15 (Ajax, May-June 1954) with new splash
    A man is possessed by a pair of haunted pajamas.
  4. Beast of Baghdad - Reprinted from Weird v2n1
  5. Fanged Horror - Reprint of Fanged Terror, Weird v1n12
  6. Land of No Return (5p, Iger Shop)
    Reprint of Love Trap, Strange Fantasy #6 (Ajax, June 1953) w/new splash panel
    A crew of female space travelers land on a planet inhabited by handsome men and ugly women. When a male crew arrives to search for them, they find just the opposite situation.
  7. Primitive Horror (8p, Iger Shop)
    Reprint of Primitive Peril, Strange Fantasy #1 [#2] (Ajax, Aug 1952)
    Two men crash land in a jungle where a jungle goddess wants to sacrifice them to the sun god.
  8. Rest in Hate - Reprint of Rest in Peril, Weird v1n12 (Oct 1966)

 

And the reprints begin. Eerie seems to be running out of material quickly - a fact that they apparently realized themselves.

 

17. Weird v3n5, Dec1969, 52pp, $0.35
      Cover: Bill Alexander

  1. The Blackness of Evil (5p, Larry Woromay)
    Rework of Walpurgis, Witches Tales #18 (Harvey, Apr 1954)
    On the even of Walpurgis night, a clockmaker murders his employer, who then curses him saying it will remain Walpurgis night forever until the clockmaker dies.
  2. Blood Bath (5p, Chic Stone) - Reprinted from Weird v3n5
    Original?
    An acid trip goes very, very bad.
  3. Dead Dummies (6p, Oscar Fraga)
    Rework of Mannequin of Murder, Witches Tales #17 (Harvey, Feb 1953)
    When told his creations don't look lifelike enough, a mannequin designer creates new ones by paralyzing people with snake venom.
  4. The Slimy Mummy (7p, Chic Stone)
    Rework of Servants of the Tomb, Witches Tales #6 (Harvey, Nov 1951)
    A group of gnome-like beings bring a mummy back to live and have it do their murderous bidding.
  5. The Gruesome Garden - Reprinted from Weird v2n3
  6. Experiment in Terror - Reprinted from Tales From the Crypt v1n10
  7. Death Dance - Reprinted from Weird v2n4
  8. Dimension-Horror (5p, Carl Burgos)
    Rework of Dimension IV, Witches Tales #17 (Harvey, Feb 1953)
    A hungry dinosaur encounters a young couple on the beach.

 

            I consider this the most significant issue in Eerie's history. This issue (and Witches Tales v1n9 which shipped the same month) usher in the most important change yet at Eerie and the most important change the publisher would ever see. With this issue, Eerie Publications really comes into its own and becomes what most people think of when they think of Eerie. Previous issues had witnessed a marked decline in quality with stories getting weaker and reprints becoming more and more common. It seems that they were running out of Ajax/Farrell material to reprint. That would change with these two issues. With them, Eerie moved from reprinting Ajax stories to reworking pre-code stories from other publishers. That itself is not overly significant. Far more important is that these stories feature entirely new by apparently newly-hired Eerie artists.

Of the two issues, this one is the more significant as it contains what has become Eerie's best-known single story, Chic Stone's incomparable Blood Bath (the only original art story to merit a mention in Overstreet). Despite its fame, and the fact that most people seem to think that it epitomizes Eerie's output, Blood Bath is in many ways atypical of their work. First of all, given the theme, the story is almost certainly original (though I suppose it is possible that it is a rework of an anti-marijuana story). It is one of just four stories Eerie did that is believed to be original (though not the first, nor even Chic Stone's first as his The Thing in the Cellar had appeared the pervious month). Secondly, the story is essentially plotless. A reluctant young hippie is talked into dropping acid. When he does so, he experiences a gore-filled trip of floating heads, pools of blood, and men shot to death. He comes out of it to find his severed hand nailed to the wall and his friends dismembered. The cops arrive. The end. I don't know whether this was intended as an anti-drug story or a spoof on anti-drug stories but it remains a gory classic and while not one of my favorites, it certainly left an impression on me as a pre-teen.

            This issue also features a second Stone story, The Slimy Mummy, singled out for praise in Stephen Sennitt's Ghastly Terror, where it is described as "…almost psychotically unbelievable…" Despite such acclaim, I find the story so-so. Unfortunately, after such a promising start, Chic Stone seems to have left Eerie.

            Also making his debut is Larry Woromay (The Blackness of Evil), another Atlas veteran newly hired by Myron Fass and Carl Burgos. While Stone would draw only a handful of stories for Eerie, Woromay would produce dozens during his roughly two-year stint with the company. 

            Dimension-Horror is another story where the art is very, very similar to the original (by Rudy Palais).

18. Weird v4n1, Feb 1970, 52pp, $0.50

      Cover: Bill Alexander

 

  1. The Vampire Witch (7p, Oscar Fraga)
    Rework of The Witche's (sic) Curse, Weird Mysteries #8 (Gillmor, Jan 1954)
    A henpecked husband begins meeting nightly with a witch, who spices up his life by transforming him into a lion, a jet pilot, a knight, and more.
  2. The Sewer Werewolves (7p, Dick Ayers)
    Rework of Terror in the Streets, Beware #8 (Trojan, Mar 1954)
    A pack of hideous creatures is murdering people and dragging them into the Paris sewers.
  3. The Blob (4p, Ezra Jackson)
    Rework of Mind Over Matter, Weird Mysteries #5 (Gillmor, June 1953)
    After his car breaks down, a man pays a visit to a scientist designing a solution that dissolves everything in comes in contact with.
  4. Demon (5p, Antonio Reynoso)
    Rework of The Witch Who Wore White, Witches Tales #8 (Harvey, Mar 1952)
    When Abigail Sanders finds out that the nurse she hired to care for her ailing husband is a witch, she strikes an unholy bargain with her. When her son decides to do the same, chaos ensues.
  5. Devil Ghouls (4p, Oscar Fraga)
    Rework of Premonition, Weird Mysteries #8 (Gillmor, Jan 1954)
    A college student dreams that an earthquake destroys his home town releasing murderous demons from the pits of hell. He rushes home and is relieved to find that his parents are OK - or are they?
  6. The Witch's House is Haunted (6p, Dick Ayers)
    Rework of The Haunter, Weird Horrors #4 (St. John, Nov 1952)
    A greedy nephew moves into his uncle's house. When his uncle tells him the house is haunted, he decides to try and scare him to death.
  7. Death Trap (7p, Oscar Fraga)
    Rework of The Man Who Bribed Death, Witchcraft #4 (Avon, Sep-Oct 1952)
    A foreign correspondent makes a deal with death to extend his life as long as he can kill someone to die in his place.
  8. Debt of Fear - Reprinted from Weird v2n9

 

            This issue features excellent work from a pair of Eerie's most prolific artists, Dick Ayers and Oscar Fraga. Another Atlas veteran, Ayers is a legendary artist whose work includes the original Ghost Rider (for Magazine Enterprises) and work on Sg.t Fury, The Incredible Hulk and The Fantastic Four for Marvel. The splash panel of The Witch's House is Haunted provides an excellent example of Ayers' trademark at Eerie - the popping eyeballs. The classic Sewer Werewolves, however, is the better story. Oscar Fraga represents the other major source of Eerie artists - Argentina. Over a dozen Argentine artists would work for Eerie in the coming years, most of whom remain unknown to American readers. The Vampire Witch provides an excellent example of Fraga's work and makes use of one of the subjects he does best - witches. Demon appears to be the unsigned work of Antonio Reynoso.

 

19. Weird v4n2, Apr 1970, 52pp, $0.50
     Cover: Bill Alexander

 

  1. Witches Revenge (9p, Dick Ayers)
    Rework of The Old Hag of the Hills, Chamber of Chills #1 [#21] (Harvey, June 1951)
    A witch casts a spell that calls Michael Noonan, ancestor of a family of witch killers, to his ancestral home in Ireland.
  2. Zombie For a Day (6p, Larry Woromay)
    Rework of Come Die With Me, Beware #8 (Trojan, Mar 1954)
    A group of medical students steal a cadaver and place it in a roommate's bed. But in the end, the roommate ends up dead while the corpse comes back to life and takes the students on a joyride.
  3. Secret Coffin - Reprinted from Weird v3 n1a
  4. Death on Ice -  Reprinted from Weird v2n10
  5. The Corpse Who Killed - Reprinted from Weird v2n2
  6. Pit of Horror - Reprinted from Weird v2n2
  7. The Murder Pool - Reprinted from Weird v2n8

 

After taking a huge step forward with the previous two issues, Eerie takes two steps back with this issue. Only two new stories are included with the rest of the issue made up of tepid reprints.

 

20. Weird v4n3, June 1970, 52pp, $0.50

 

  1. The Shrunken Monster (9p, Larry Woromay)
    Rework of The Shrunken Skull, Chamber of Chills #5 (Harvey, Feb 1952)
    A man receives a shrunken head in the mail, which begins talking and tells him he must find it a new body.
  2. Witchcraft (5p, Walter Casadei)
    Rework of Book of Vengeance, Chamber of Chills #4 [#24] (Harvey, Dec 1951)
    While putting away books, a mousy librarian touches a volume on witchcraft which causes a door to open on a secret witches den, where she begins taking supernatural revenge on her enemies.
  3. Corpses…Coast to Coast - Reprinted from Weird v2n8
  4. The Game Called Dying - Reprinted from Weird v3n1b
  5. Crack-Up - Reprinted from Tales of Voodoo v1n11
  6. Torture Garden - Reprinted from Weird v2n10
  7. The Living Dead (4p, Walter Casadei)
    Rework of The Lost Souls, Chamber of Chills #4 [#24] (Harvey, Dec 1951)
    A weary stranger finds himself in a town populated  by dead people.

 

After Ajax/Farrell, Harvey was easily Eerie's most common source of material. Despite their reputation as kind of a poor-man's E.C., (or maybe it's because of it) they are one of my favorite pre-code publishers. Their most well-known artists were Bob Powell, Rudy Palais, and Howard Nostrand. Fans who know them mainly from characters like Richie Rich, Casper, and Hot Stuff might be surprised that Harvey even produced such material.

 

21. Weird v4n4, Aug 1970, 52pp, $0.50

      Cover: Bill Alexander

 

  1. Werewolf (7p, Antonio Reynoso)
    Rework of Full Moon, Weird Terror #7 (Comic Media, May 1953)
    A college student digs up the body of famed werewolf Lupe Garou and steals the crystals he needs to transform himself into a werewolf.
  2. The Vampire-Ghouls (4p, Walter Casadei)
    Rework of The Fiend of the Nether World, Witches Tales #15 (Harvey, Oct 1952)
    A gypsy curses a cruel, vain couple, turning them both into ghouls
  3. Pull Up a Coffin - Reprint of Be My Ghost, Weird v1n11 (Apr 1966)
  4. The Last Chapter (6p, Iger Shop)
    Reprinted from Midnight #3 (Ajax, Sep 1957), code-approved version of The Genius, Haunted Thrills #9 (Ajax, May 1953)
    A down-and-out writer makes a deal with the devil to write a best seller.
  5. Death is an Artist (5p, Walter Casadei)
    Rework of Art For Death's Sake, Witches Tales #15 (Harvey, Oct 1952)
    An artist who paints scenes of terror, tries to win an art contest.
  6. Satan's Plaything - Reprinted from Horror Tales v1n7
  7. Congo Terror - Reprinted from Tales of Voodoo v2n1
  8. Screams in the Night - Reprinted from Horror Tales v1n7

 

            Death is an Artist showcases some of the best work of one of Eerie's most prolific artists, Argentine Walter Casadei. Casadei was a mainstay at Eerie, He died in 1978 after a long illness. Antonio Reynoso (assuming I have the signature right) is perhaps Eerie's most well-known artist outside of Dick Ayers and Chic Stone. Unfortunately, he is one of handful of Eerie artists about whom I know nothing. I'm not even sure of the name or of whether or not he's Argentine. His work was characterized by heavy lines and extensive use of black.. 

 

22. Weird v4n5, Oct 1970, 52pp, $0.50

      Cover: Bill Alexander

 

  1. Feast For Vampires (7p, Larry Woromay)
    Rework of One Man's Poision, Mysterious Adventures #17 (Story, Dec 1953)
    An elderly vampire couple enjoy dining on traveling salesmen and other strangers who drop by - until one day when they bite off more than they can chew.
  2. The Zombie Army (6p, Oscar Fraga)
    Rework of A Rage to Kill, Witches Tales #15 (Harvey, Oct 1952)
    A French revolutionary gets revenge on his enemies by bringing victims of the reign of terror back to life to do his murderous bidding.
  3. Dead Man's Train (6p, Walter Casadei)
    Rework of Midnight Limited, Witches Tales #16 (Harvey, Nov 1952)
    A traveling salesman leaps aboard a train whose passengers are all dead and who want him to join them.
  4. Nightmare Merchant - Reprinted from Terror Tales v1n7
  5. The Undying Fiend - Reprinted from Terror Tales v1n7
  6. Scales of Death - Reprinted from Terror Tales v1n7
  7. Skulls of Doom - Reprinted from Terror Tales v1n7

 

            Feast For Vampires provides a good example of the kind of story that Mysterious Adventures did well. Published by Story Comics, Mysterious Adventure started out publishing fairly run-of-the-mill horror stories (though decent ones, in my opinion) before really coming into their own when they adopted an E.C.-like style in 1954.

 

23. Weird v4n6, Dec 1970, 52pp, $0.50|
     Cover includes art from ?

 

  1. The Angry Vampire (6p, Oscar Fraga)
    Rework of Blood Thirsty, Mysterious Adventures #21 (Story, Aug 1954)
    A gold-digging woman visits her grandmother in hopes of finding the fortune she has hidden in her house, but when she tries to find it, she instead finds a man strapped to a chair with his blood being drained.
  2. Black Magic (8p, Cirilo Munoz)
    Rework of The Unholy Quest, Mysterious Adventures  #2 (Story, June 1951)
    After his uncle commits suicide, a man sees the ghost of a sorcerer of the black arts approaching his tomb.
  3. The Ghoul  - Reprint of Three in a Grave, Weird v2n1
  4. I, The Coffin - Reprinted from Weird v1n11
  5. The Gruesome Things - Reprint of The Gruesome Garden, Weird v2n3
  6. Locked In Time - Reprinted from Tales of Voodoo v2n3
  7. The Shelf of Skulls - Reprinted from Terror Tales v1n8

 

 

24. Weird v5n1, Feb 1971, 52pp, $0.50
      Cover: Johnny Bruck, reprinted from Perry Rhodan (German Series) #51 (Aug 1962)

 

  1. The Deadman's Hand (6p, Antonio Reynoso)
    Rework of Death's Revenge, Mysterious Adventures #16 (Story, Oct 1953)
    After he is taken in a poker game, a mobster decides to get revenge by having one of his associates dress up as a dead hood and kill them on the anniversary of his death.
  2. The Swamp Monster (7p, Cirilo Munoz)
    Rework of The Phantom of Lonesome Swamp, Mysterious Adventures #6 (Story, Feb 1952)
    A pair of ne'er-do-well brothers kill a confederate veteran in an effort to get their hands on the treasure he has hidden in the swamp.
  3. Feast For Rats (7p, Oscar Stepancich)
    Rework of Return From the Dead, Mysterious Adventures #3 (Story, Aug 1951)
    When he finds that his best friend has been two-timing him with his girl, a miner kills him and buries him in the mine, thinking he's seen the last of him. Guess again.
  4. Voodoo Terror - Reprinted from Tales of Voodoo v3n1
  5. Better Off Dead - Reprinted from Horror Tales v2n1
  6. Devil Flower - Reprinted from Weird v2n9
  7. Man of Evil (7p, Torre Repiso)
    Rework of The Vultures of Doom, Mysterious Adventures #12 (Story, Feb 1953)
    While vacationing in Calcutta, an American tourist steals a precious jewel from the temple of the vultures,  but it's the vultures that have the last laugh.

 

 

25. Weird v5n2, Apr 1971, 52pp, $0.50
      Cover: Johnny Bruck, reprinted from Perry Rhodan (German Series) #156 (Aug 1964)

 

  1. The Devil Statues (7p, Oscar Fraga)
    Rework of The Night the Statues Walked, Challenge of the Unknown #1 (Aug 1950)
    The statues in a museum come alive at night to commit murder.
  2. The Wax Witch (7p, Mariana(?) Cerchiara)
    Rework of From the Graves of the Unholy, Web of Mystery #17 (Ace, Feb 1953)
    After purchasing an ancient dagger at a curio shop, a young couple visits an amusement park, where they encounter a witch who claims they must use the dagger to kill the shop owner and release the undead from their graves.
  3. Reincarnation - Reprinted from Terror Tales v2n1
  4. Xebico TEXT STORY (3p, H.F. Arnold, Illustrations: Ezra Jackson?)
    Reprint of The Night Wire, Weird Tales (Sep 1926)
    A telegraph operator gets reports of a strange fog in an unknown city.
  5. Weird Facts FEATURE (1p) - Reprinted from Weird v1n11 IFC
  6. The King of Hades - Reprinted from Tales of Voodoo v1n11
  7. Weird Vengeance - Reprinted from Witches Tales v2n1
  8. The Bloody Stream - Reprinted from Horror Tales v1n9
  9. The Hanging Ghoul - Reprinted from Terror Tales v2n1

 

See Tales of Voodoo v4n2 for a discussion of Eerie's text stories.


26. Weird v5n3, June 1971, 52pp, $0.50

      Cover: Johnny Bruck, reprinted from Perry Rhodan (German Series) #236 (Mar 1966)

 

  1. The Beast From Below (7p, Dick Ayers)
    Rework of Monster From the Deep, Web of Evil #20 (Quality, Nov 1954)
    An atomic explosion releases a horrific monster from a crack in the ocean's floor.
  2. The Sorcerer (7p, Mariana(?) Cerchiara)
    Rework of The Man Who Died Tomorrow, Web of Mystery #25 (Ace, July 1954)
    While spending the night in a cemetery as part of a fraternity initiation,  a college boy encounters the ghost of a sorcerer from the 21st century who wants to prevent the boy from committing murder
  3. The Evil Ones (7p, Cirilo Munoz)
    Rework of Keeper of the Flames, Web of Mystery #25 (Ace, July 1954)
    A man whose wife is dying meets the keeper of the flames, who maintains candles representing the lives of mortals. He offers to extend his wife's life if the husband will agree to be his representative on earth.
  4. Web of Terror TEXT STORY (4p, Roger Eugene Ulmer, Illustrations: Ezra Jackson)
    Reprint of The Strange Case of Pascal, Weird Tales (June 1926)
    A man dreams he is trapped in a giant spider web.
  5. The Slimy Snakeman - Reprinted from Tales of Voodoo v3n2
  6. Witches' Nightmare - Reprinted from Horror Tales v2n2
  7. Night of Terror - Reprinted from Terror Tales v2n2
  8. Satan's Cat - Reprinted from Horror Tales v2n2

 

            A post on the Collectors Society message boards indicates that the four-armed alien on the cover is known as "Icho Tolot" - a creature from the German Perry Rhodan sci-fi novels. It also appeared on the cover of Weird Worlds v2n4.

 

27. Weird v5n4, Aug 1971, 52pp, $0.50

      Cover: Johnny Bruck, reprinted from Perry Rhodan (German Series) #99 (July 1963)

 

  1. The Beast (7p, Cirilo Munoz)
    Rework of The Beast of Skeleton Island, Web of Mystery #13 (Ace, Sep 1952)
    Five men are shipwrecked on a desert island, where they encounter a wild half-human beast.
  2. The Vampire Flies (7p, Oscar Fraga)
    Rework of The Improved Kiss, Weird Terror #8 (Comic Media, Nov 1953)
    Genghis Khan wants the beautiful daughter of an old king - or does he?
  3. Spook Coffin TEXT STORY (6p, William J Maki, Illustrations: Ezra Jackson)
    Reprint of The Black Laugh, Magazine of Horror #8, April 1963
    A man traveling in the African wilderness is told the story of a local landmark called Spook Kopje.
  4. The Mummies (7p, Alberto Macagno)
    Rework of The Arm of Tatra Magic, Web of Mystery #12 (Ace, Aug 1952)
    While investigating a total eclipse of the sun in Mongolia, a research party is attacked by an undead Mongol horde.
  5. Ghouls Graveyard - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v2n2
  6. Fear of the Witch - Reprinted from Weird v2n10
  7. Eerie Bones - Reprinted from Tales of Voodoo v1n11

 

28. Weird v5n5, Oct 1971, 52pp, $0.50

      Cover: Fernando Fernandez

 

  1. Satan's Warlock (10p, Ruben Marchionne)
    Rework of The Slaying of Joshua Sprague, Beware Terror Tales #2 (Fawcett, July 1952)
    When a man travels to a small village to apply for a job as shop teacher, he finds that the place has been deserted for 200 years. Exploring the schoolhouse, he finds a tome titles "Ordinance of the Devil" and when he opens it, he is transported back to colonial times where he inhabits the body of Satan-worshipping schoolmaster.
  2. Believe It or Not TEXT STORY (3p, Larry Eugene Meredith, Illustrations: Ezra Jackson?)
    Reprint of Conjured, Startling Mystery Stories #18, Mar 1971
  3. The Bloody House (7p, Torre Repiso)
    Rework of She Shrieked With Horror, Web of Mystery #24 (Ace, May 1954)
    An investigator arrives at a mansion to find a masquerade party in effect, but when the guests remove their horrible masks, the reveal something even more horrible underneath.
  4. The Premier TEXT STORY (3p, Eddy C. Bertin, Illustrations: Ezra Jackson)
    Reprint of The Ashley Premier, Bizarre Fantasy Tales #2, Mar 1971
  5. Monsters Nightmare - Reprinted from Horror Tales v2n3
  6. Man-Beast - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v1n6
  7. Bloody Mary - Reprinted from Tales of Voodoo v1n11
  8. The Angry Vampire - Reprinted from Weird v4n6

 

            Satan's Warlock, an excellent example of the style of Ruben Marchionne, is also tied for the longest story Eerie ever did at ten pages. Many of these long stories came from the pages of Beware Terror Tales (technically "Beware! Terror Tales").Fawcett was one of the few pre-code publisher that regularly included longer stories, sometimes as long as 12 or 13 pages.

 

29. Weird v5n6, Dec 1971, 52pp, $0.60
      Cover includes art from cover of Horror Tales v2n5

 

  1. The Vampire (7p, Torre Repiso)
    Rework of Name From the Nether World, Web of Mystery #17 (Ace, Feb 1953)
    At a carnival, a couple stops by the tent of a beautiful fortune teller, who asks the man to return to her tent at midnight, where she tells him that she is a vampire - and so is he.
  2. The Corpse (6p, Alberto Macagno)
    Rework of The Corpse That Wouldn't Hide, Web of Evil #5 (Quality, July 1953)
    A gold-digging husband kills his chemist wife then tries to burn the body.
  3. Evil Cat (6p, Hector Castellon)
    Rework of Day of Reckoning - Out of the Shadows #14 (Standard, Aug 1954)
    A nightclub owner romances a dancer known as Gata the Cat Girl, but when he two-times her, he finds that this cat has claws.
  4. Weird Revenge - Reprinted from Terror Tales v2n2
  5. Sacrifice TEXT STORY (5p, Arthur Styron, Illustrations: Ezra Jackson)
    Reprint of The Artist of Tao, Magazine of Horror #36, Apr 1971
  6. Werewolf - Reprint of Little Red Riding Hood and the Werewolf, Weird v1n10 with new splash panel
  7. Monster - Reprinted from Terror Tales v2n5
  8. Dying is So Contagious - Reprinted from Weird v2n2

 

With this issue, Weird switches back to horror-themed covers. This issue also brings Eerie's most prolific year to a close. In all, Eerie released 44 issues in 1971, a high water mark for the company.

 

30. Weird v6n1, Feb 1972, 52pp, $0.60
      Cover: Fernando Fernandez

 

  1. Beyond Evil (10p, Oswal)
    Rework of Return of the Dead, Beware Terror Tales #5 (Fawcett, Jan 1953)
    Against her better judgment, a medium makes contact with a dead mobster.
  2. Death Demon (4p, Oscar Stepancich)
    Rework of The Prophecy, Out of the Shadows #11 (Standard, Jan1954)
    A two-bit hood robs a general store to impress his girlfriend, but she wants nothing to do with him and tells him he is fated to die by water.
  3. The Creature TEXT STORY (5p, R.A. Lafferty, Illustrations: Ezra Jackson?)
    Reprint of The Ultimate Creature, Magazine of Horror #18, Nov 1967
  4. The Thing in a Box (6p, Antonio Reynoso)
    Rework of Death on the Earth-Mars Run, Strange Worlds #8 (Avon, Aug 1952)
    A Martian scientist brings a strange ticking box aboard with him on the Earth-Mars run.
  5. It Came From the Grave - Reprint of The Thing From the Grave, Tales From the Tomb v2n3
  6. The Mummy TEXT ARTICLE (3p, Michael Hervey, Illustrations: Carl Burgos)
    Reprint of The Curse of Princess Amen-Ra, Exploring the Unknown #56, Mar 1970
    The story of the cursed mummy that was rumored to be onboard the Titanic.
  7. The Human Monster - Reprinted from Strange Galaxy v1n9
  8. Dearest, Deadest Dummy - Reprinted from Weird v2n6

31. Weird v6n2, Mar 1972, 52pp, $0.60
      Cover includes art from covers of Weird v4n4 and Terror Tales v2n4

  1. Monster Freakout (7p, Antonio Reynoso)
    Rework of Revenge, Mysterious Adventures #15 (Story, Aug 1953)
    A pair of arrogant circus acrobats are hated by the sideshow performers to him they are so cruel. When the daughters of four of the performers begin dating the two heels, the rest of the freaks are at a loss, but when the cads kill one of their number, they hit upon a grisly solution.
  2. Demon Goddess (7p, Oscar Novelle)
    Rework of Blood Potion of the Black Cult, Web of Mystery #17 (Ace, Feb 1953)
    An Englishman visiting Calcutta investigates a series of murders said to be the work of the thugees.
  3. The Rack (4p, Cirilo Munoz)
    Rework of Torture, Weird Tales of the Future #5 (Gillmor, Jan 1953)
    A torture victim finally escapes his tormentors - or does he?
  4. The Living Dead (6p, Mariana(?) Cerchiara)
    Rework of The Man Who Cheated Death, Web of Evil #7 (Quality, Oct 1953)
    An elderly man kills to get his hands on an elixir of eternal life, but the results aren't as wonderful as he hoped they'd be.
  5. The Skeleton - Reprinted from Witches Tales v2n5
  6. The Slimy Corpse - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v2n5
  7. Witch or Widow - Reprinted from Weird v3n2
  8. Nightmare Island - Reprinted from Weird v2n1

 

March 1972 marks the only time that all six of Eerie's titles came out in the same month. Why this was done, I don't know, but to accomplish this, Eerie published a number of titles in consecutive months. Eerie's titles were all officially bi-monthly and prior to this had staggered their publication dates. This month, they bucked that trend. One effect of this is that Weird, Tales of Voodoo, Terror Tales, and Horror Tales all published seven issues in 1972.

 

32. Weird v6n3, May 1972, 52pp, $0.60
      Cover includes art from cover of ?

  1. The Hungry Vampire (7p, Antonio Reynoso)
    Rework of Vengeance Weaves a Tapestry, Web of Mystery #5 (Ace, Oct 1951)
    While searching an ancient Westphalian castle for a lost tapestry, a man cuts himself and the fresh blood awakens a vampire that has been sleeping for centuries.
  2. The Mummy's Revenge (7p, Oscar Fraga)
    Rework of The Case of the Beckoning Mummy, Web of Mystery #1 (Ace, Feb 1951)
    An archaeologist insists on continuing to explore a pharaoh's tomb, despite warnings from a ghostly mummy.
  3. The Weird Fat Man TEXT STORY (7p, H.G. Wells, Illustrations: Ezra Jackson)
    Reprint of The Truth About Pyecraft, The Strand (Apr 1903)
    The enormously obese Pyecraft tries a secret recipe to lose weight and he does so - but not the way he expected.
  4. Werewolf - Reprinted from Terror Tales v2n6
  5. The Thing - Reprinted from Terror Tales v2n6
  6. Over Her Dead Body - Reprinted from Witches Tales v1n9
  7. Dimension-Horror - Reprinted from Weird v3n5
  8. The Bloody Ax - Reprinted from Terror Tales v2n6

 

33. Weird v6n4, June 1972, 52pp, $0.60
      Cover:: Bill Alexander, includes art from cover of Terror Tales v2n6

  1. The Stone Monsters (7p, Oscar Fraga)
    Rework of Gargoyle's Revenge, Web of Mystery #6 (Ace, Dec 1951)
    A group of town leaders hire a sculptor to create statues for their guild hall, but when he creates a series of grotesque gargoyles, they are  outraged. Outrage turns to terror when the statues come to life.
  2. The Beast (7p, Walter Casadei)
    Rework of The Mad Beast of Monaco, Web of Mystery #6 (Ace, Dec 1951)
    An aristocrat visits an aging duchess and forces her to tell him the "secret of the numbers" that allowed her to break the bank at the casino. She tells him, but warns him it will ruin his life - a warning that proves all too true.
  3. The End TEXT STORY (7p, Frank L. Pollack, Illustrations: Ezra Jackson?)
    Reprint of Finis, The Argosy (June 1906)
  4. Restrained (4p, Oscar Fraga)
    Rework of Under Her Thumb, Weird Tales of the Future #5 (Gillmor, Jan 1953)
    A woman gets tired of being under the thumb of her domineering older sister.
  5. The Old Ghoul - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v2n4
  6. Terror Town- Reprinted from Weird v3n2
  7. Satan's Bride- Reprint of Devil's Bride, Weird v1n10
  8. Money For a Corpse - Reprint of Dollar$ and Doom, Horror Tales v1n7

 

34. Weird v6n5, Aug 1972, 52pp, $0.60
      Cover includes art from cover of Weird v2n8

  1. The Bloody Corpse (5p, Domingo Mandrafina)
    Rework of Vengeful Corpse, Chamber of Chills #15 (Harvey, Jan 1953)
    After a wealthy man dies, his greedy children laugh at his dying request to build him an expensive tomb - but the laughter doesn't last long.
  2. The Mummies (5p, Oscar Fraga)
    Rework of The Living Mummies, Chamber of Chills #15 (Harvey, Jan 1953)
    A pair of archaeologists stand by while their companion is devoured by ants. They then place his body on an altar in a pyramid, arousing the ire of the mummies entombed therein and bringing them back to life.
  3. From Worlds Beyond TEXT ARTICLE (4p, B. Ann Slate, Illustrations: Ezra Jackson)
    Reprint of The Little Monk, Exploring the Unknown #67, Apr 1971
  4. The Evil Black Cats - Reprinted from Witches Tales v3n2
  5. Devil Ghouls - Reprinted from Weird v4n1
  6. Morgan's Ghost - Reprinted from Witches Tales v3n2
  7. Focus Into Yesterday TEXT ARTICLE (2p, Michael Hervey, Illustrations: Ezra Jackson)
    Reprint of Pictures From the Past, Exploring the Unknown #54, Oct 1969
  8. The Wooden Menace - Reprinted from Terror Tales v3n3
  9. Body Snatcher - Reprinted from Horror Tales v3n2

 

And now Eerie begins reprinting text stories (not that anyone ever reads them).

 

35. Weird v6n6, Oct 1972, 52pp, $0.60
      Cover: Bill Alexander

  1. Mask of Horror (6p, Ruben Marchionne)
    Rework of Mask of the Murderer, Black Cat Mystery #42 (Harvey, Feb 1953)
    When a research scientist invents an amazing new kind of rubber, his assistant uses it to make a horrible mask he dons to commit murder with plans to eventually kill his boss.
  2. Deadman's Rope (4p, Domingo Mandrafina)
    Rework of The Captain's Return, Chamber of Chills #9 (Harvey, June 1952)
    A ship's crewman uses his rope to strangle anyone who gets in his way.
  3. The Monster (7p, Oscar Fraga)
    Rework of The Menace That Stalked Brooding Cunliffe, Web of Mystery #5 (Ace, Oct 1951)
    A werewolf stalks the grounds of the Beecham mansion - a family rumored to have practices ancient pagan rites and the black arts.
  4. The Witch's Claws - Reprinted from Witches Tales v2n1
  5. The Ogre From Space - Reprinted from Weird Worlds v2n2
  6. Elixir For Demons TEXT STORY - Reprinted from Tales of Voodoo v4n2
  7. Sawdust Banshee - Reprinted from Horror Tales v3n2
  8. The Weird Dead - Reprinted from Weird v2n9

 

36. Weird v6n7, Dec 1972, 52pp, $0.60

  1. The Skin Crawlers (4p, Cirilo Munoz)
    Rework of Curse of the Caterpillars, Witches Tales #5 (Harvey, Sep 1951)
    Two men stay at a small inn, where one of the encounters a race of evil, caterpillar-like creatures.
  2. The Evil Idol (7p, Eugenio Zoppi)
    Rework of The Eight Hands of Ranu, Chamber of Chills #9 (Harvey, June 1952)
    While robbing the house of a collector of African black magic relics, a pair of thieves kill his wife using a sacred sword, which - unknown to them - reveals their identities to the woman's husband who strikes upon an ingenious plan for revenge. He will hire the two to retrieve a jewel from an idol of the 8-armed god Ranu, without giving them the amulet that will protect them from the idol's murderous wrath.
  3. The Dead Live (9p, Torre Repiso)
    Rework of The Man Who Died Twice, Web of Evil #5 (Quality, July 1953)
    After he is framed for murder and electrocuted, a businessman is brought back to life by his wife and her partner-in-crime, a doctor who insists that the man must do their evil bidding if he is to be kept alive.
  4. The Vampire Monster Trap - Reprinted from Terror Tales v2n2
  5. The Murder Pool - Reprinted from Weird v2n8
  6. The Silver Demon - Reprinted from Witches Tales v3n3
  7. Night of Terror - Reprinted from Terror Tales v2n2
  8. Ghoul Without Pockets - Reprinted from Horror Tales v2n2

37. Weird v7n1, Feb 1973, 52pp, $0.60
      Cover includes art from cover of Weird v4n3

  1. The Sorceress (10p, Antonio Reynoso)
    Rework of The Spell of the Black Gloves, Witches Tales #5 (Harvey, Sep 1951)
    A wash lady gets no respect, until she finds a pair of magic gloves left to her by her ancestor, a witch of Salem.
  2. From the Grave Below (5p, Oscar Fraga)
    Rework of Cloth of Terror, Witches Tales #10 (Harvey, May 1952)
    A tailor creates living garments that strangle their owners.
  3. The Vampire - Reprinted from Weird v5n6
  4. Sacrifice TEXT STORY - Reprinted from Weird v5n6
  5. Evil Cat - Reprinted from Weird v5n6
  6. Bloody Talus - Reprinted from Witches Tales v3n5
  7. Zombi's Bride - Reprinted from Weird v3n1b

 

 

38. Weird v7n3, Apr 1973, 52pp, $0.60
      Cover includes art from covers of Tales From the Tomb v2n1 and Weird v4n4

  1. The Poison of Evil (7p, Oscar Fraga)
    Rework of Grave on the Green, Black Cat Mystery #33 (Harvey, Feb 1952)
    The 13th green of a golf course is haunted by the ghost of a man who was killed there two years before.
  2. The Geek (5p, Walter Casadei)
    Rework of Next Attraction, Black Cat Mystery #42 (Harvey, Feb 1953)
    A town blacksmith is captured by a carnival and transformed into a side-show geek.
  3. Deadman's Ring (6p, Oscar Stepancich)
    Rework of Better Off Dead, Witchcraft #3 (Avon, July1952)
    An arrogant boxer rids himself of a woman he's grown tired of by pushing her off a cliff, but she returns from the grave to make sure he doesn't win his next fight.
  4. The Horror Dolls - Reprinted from Horror Tales v3n4
  5. The Tomb - Reprinted from Terror Tales v3n4
  6. The Sea Monsters - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v3n4
  7. The Unknown - Reprinted from Terror Tales v3n4

 

NOTE - Weird v7n2 does not exist.

 

39. Weird v7n4, June 1973, 52pp, $0.60
      Cover includes art from cover of Tales of Voodoo v5n3

  1. The Rotting Ghouls (7p, Cirilo Munoz)
    Rework of Graveyard Monsters, Tomb of Terror #4 (Harvey, Sep 1952)
    A misshapen man undergoes plastic surgery, only to come out looking worth than before. Scorned by the community, he finds work as an undertaker, where he begins seeking revenge on those who wronged him.
  2. Jaws of Terror (5p, Enrique Cristobal)
    Rework of Pest Control, Black Cat Mystery #48 (Harvey, Feb 1954)
    An ambitious wife is embarrassed by her husband's job as an exterminator.
  3. A Weird Twist of Fate (5p, Antonio Reynoso)
    Rework of Big Fight, Chamber of Chills #17 (Harvey, May 1953)
    A down-and-out boxer participates in a bout of fate.
  4. Satan, the Demon - Reprinted from Horror Tales v3n1
  5. The Witch Doctor - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v2n1
  6. Horror Club - Reprinted from Horror Tales v2n1
  7. Death to the Witch - Reprinted from Horror Tales v3n1
  8. The Living Horrorscope - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v2n1

 

40. Weird v7n5, Aug 1973, 52pp, $0.60
      Cover includes art from cover of Horror Tales v2n5

  1. A Head Full of Snakes (6p, Alberto Macagno)
    Rework of Head of the Medusa, Tomb of Terror #5 (Harvey, Oct 1952)
    A group of explorers unleash the medusa from a temple in the lost city of Illium.
  2. The Metal Horror (6p, Cirilo Munoz)
    Rework of Vision in Bronze, Tomb of Terror #8  (Harvey, Mar 1953)
    An antique dealer kills a rival by locking him in a strange looking suit of armor, but not before the rival curses him with his dying breath.
  3. The Blind Terror (6p, Walter Casadei)
    Rework of The Eyeless Ones, Tomb of Terror #7 (Harvey, Jan 1953)
    A crew exploring an unknown planet encounter underground tunnels swarming with eyeless humanoids.
  4. The Vampire Lives - Reprinted from Horror Tales v3n5
  5. The Curse of the Dead - Reprint of The Curse of the Dead Witch, Horror Tales v3n5
  6. Witches Revenge - Reprinted from Weird v4n2
  7. The Weird House - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v3n5

 

41. Weird v7n6, Oct 1973, 52pp, $0.60
      Cover: Oscar Novelle. Includes art from cover of Horror Tales v6n2

  1. The Fleshrippers (6p, Cirilo Munoz)
    Rework of The Spider Man, Chamber of Chills #14 (Harvey, Nov 1952)
    A mad professor creates a serum from spider blood that turns people into half-human, half-spider monstrosities.
  2. Drowned in Sand (6p, Domingo Mandrafina, script: Howard Nostrand?)
    Rework of The Search, Tomb of Terror #8 (Harvey, Mar 1953)
    An inmate undergoing an emergency operate must find his lost soul.
  3. The Crusher (5p, Alberto Macagno, script: Howard Nostrand)
    Rework of The Man Germ, Chamber of Chills #13 (Harvey, Oct 1952)
    An explorer investigating a giant statue finds out its actually a living body, and he is trapped inside.
  4. The Hungry Ghoul - Reprinted from Tales of Voodoo v3n4
  5. Black Death - Reprinted from Witches Tales v2n6
  6. The Monster - Reprinted from Horror Tales v4n1
  7. The Horror On Radar - Reprinted from Weird Worlds v2n4
  8. Planetoid Monsters - Reprinted from Strange Galaxy v1n10

 

42. Weird v7n7, Dec 1973, 52pp, $0.60
     Cover: Behan

  1. Swamp Creature (5p, Domingo Mandrafina)
    Rework of The Swamp Monster, Chamber of Chills #12 (Harvey, Aug 1952)
    A pair of greedy businessmen are determined to dig for oil in an area of the Amazon known as the Black Swamp, ignoring warnings that a terrible monster lives there.
  2. Satan's Mad Dog (5p, Walter Casadei)
    Rework of Devil's Due, Chamber of Chills #10 (Harvey, July 1952)
    When an entrepreneur is forced out on the street by his ruthless partners, he strikes a deal with the devil to get revenge.
  3. Snakepit (7p, Leandro Sesarego)
    Rework of Hissing Horror, Fantastic Fears #4 (Ajax, Nov 1953)
    [See Hissing Horror, Weird v3n1b]
  4. Silent Horror - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v4n1
  5. Blood-Bath - Reprint of Satan's Blood Bath, Tales From the Tomb v4n1
  6. Skin Rippers (6p, Nestor Olivera)
    Rework of Terror Below, Haunted Thrills #12 (Ajax, Nov 1953)
    [See Terror Below, Weird v3n1a]
  7. Terror Asteroid - Reprinted from Strange Galaxy v1n11
  8. The Witch's Horror - Reprinted from Witches Tales v4n3

 

43. Weird v8n1, Feb 1974, 52pp, $0.60
     Cover includes art from covers of Witches Tales v4n1 and Tales of Voodoo v1n11

  1. A Storm of Blood (8p, Antonio Reynoso)
    Rework of Blood in the Sky, Haunted Thrills #11 (Ajax, Sep 1953)
    [See Blood in the Sky, Weird v3n2]
  2. Shadow of Evil (7p, Ruben Marchionne)
    Rework of My Sinister Double, Web of Mystery #24 (Ace, May 1954)
    A convict creates a shadowy double of himself that kills his enemies while he remains in his cell.
  3. The Thing With the Empty Skull (8p, Cirilo Munoz)
    Rework of Skulls of Doom, Voodoo #12 (Ajax, Dec 1953)
    [See Skulls of Doom, Weird v4n5]
  4. The Hands of the Dead (7p, Enrique Cristobal)
    Rework of Hands of Terror, Haunted Thrills #5 (Ajax, Jan 1953)
    [See Hands of Terror, Weird v2n6]
  5. The Invaders - Reprinted from Weird Worlds v2n4
  6. Dimension-Horror - Reprinted from Weird v3n5
  7. The Burning Corpse - Reprinted from Tales of Voodoo v5n3

 

44. Weird v8n2, Apr 1974, 52pp, $0.60
     Cover includes art from cover of Horror Tales v4n2

  1. Eye of Evil (8p, Antonio Reynoso)
    Rework of Monster in the Building, Strange Fantasy #14 (Ajax, Oct-Nov 1954)
    [See A Hole in the Sky, Weird v2n10]
  2. Scream in Terror (6p, Enrique Cristobal)
    Rework of Crawling Death, Haunted Thrills #6 (Ajax, Feb 1953)
    [See Crawling Death, Tales of Voodoo v1n11]
  3. Deadman's Dream (7p, Nestor Olivera)
    Rework of Two On the Aisle of Death, Haunted Thrills #7 (Ajax, Mar 1953)
    [See Two On the Aisle of Death, Terror Tales v2n3]
  4. The Rotting Coffin (6p, Cirilo Munoz)
    Rework of If I Should Die, Haunted Thrills #18 (Ajax, Nov-Dec 1954)
    [See If I Should Die, Weird v2n8]
  5. The Mummy's Revenge - Reprinted from Weird v6n3
  6. The Thing TEXT STORY - Reprinted from Terror Tales v4n2
  7. The Bloody Ax - Reprinted from Terror Tales v2n6

 

 

45. Weird v8n3, June 1974, 52pp, $0.75
      Cover: Luke?

  1. The Fanged Monster (7p, Enrique Cristobal)
    Rework of Fanged Terror, Haunted Thrills #18 (Ajax, Nov-Dec 1954)
    [See Fanged Terror, Weird v1n12]
  2. The Supernatural (10p, Antonio Reynoso)
    Rework of The Holland Haunt, Adventures Into the Unknown #26, American Comics Group, Dec 1951)
    A college student is called home to visit a rich uncle, but when he arrives he finds that his uncle is dead and two scheming relatives are trying to get their hands on his property.
  3. Shock! (6p, Oscar Fraga)
    Rework of White Heat, Black Cat Mystery #50 (Harvey, June 1954)
    In order to raise money for his wife's operation, a man agrees to steal a radioactive substance.
  4. He Rose From the Grave - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v4n2
  5. The Mummy TEXT ARTICLE - Reprinted from Weird v6n1
  6. Satan's Demon - Reprinted from Horror Tales v2n5
  7. The Beast - Reprinted from Weird v6n4

 

46. Weird v8n4a, Aug 1974, 52pp, $0.75
      Cover includes art from cover of Tales of Voodoo v5n3

  1. A Tomb of Horror (5p, Alberto Macagno)
    Rework of A Safari of Death, Chamber of Chills #8 (Harvey, May 1952)
    After a trio of soldiers of fortune kill a woman who learns of the treasure map they possess, she curses them to die one by one in the deserts of Egypt.
  2. Monster Maker (4p, Fernand)
    Rework of Formula For Death, Chamber of Chills #8 (Harvey, May 1952)
    A scientists discovers a way to bring the dead back to life - but only as vicious monsters.
  3. The Deadman's Ship (6p, Enrique Cristobal)
    Rework of The Flying Dutchman, Black Magic #29 [v4n5] (Prize, Mar 1954)
    Two survivors from a World War I tanker torpedoed by the Germans are rescued by a phantom sailing ship.
  4. The Dead Live (7p, Cirilo Munoz)
    Rework of Buried Alive, Black Magic #28 [v4n4] (Prize, Jan 1954)
    A man visits an old college friend and his sister whose family members have a history of being buried alive.
  5. The Water Demon - Reprinted from Terror Tales v4n7
  6. Grotesque - Reprinted from Horror Tales v4n5
  7. This Tomb is Ours TEXT STORY - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v3n3
  8. The Thing in the Ring - Reprinted from Horror Tales v4n7

 

47. Weird v8n4b, Oct 1974, 52pp, $0.75
      Cover reprinted from Weird v6n4

  1. The Evil Black Cats - Reprinted from Witches Tales v3n2
  2. Blood Bath - Reprinted from Weird v3n5
  3. The Wooden Menace - Reprinted from Terror Tales v3n3
  4. The Ogre From Space - Reprinted from Weird Worlds v2n2
  5. The Metal Replacements - Reprinted from Weird Worlds v2n3
  6. The Monster From Dimension X - Reprinted from Strange Galaxy v1n9
  7. Reincarnation - Reprinted from Terror Tales v2n1

 

48. Weird v9n1, Jan 1975, 52pp, $0.75
     Cover reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v2n6

  1. Coils of Terror (9p, Enrique Cristobal)
    Rework of The Big Snake, Tales of Horror #3 (Toby, Nov 1952)
    New York is invaded by a giant snake.
  2. The Blind Monsters (7p, Antonio Reynoso)
    Rework of The Eyeless Ones, Tomb of Terror #7 (Harvey, May 1953)
    A team of explorers arrives on a planet populated only by subterranean mole-like creatures.
  3. A Thing With Fangs (8p, Romero [Torre Repiso/Oscar Novelle])
    Rework of Dinky, Tales of Horror #7 (Toby, Oct 1953)
    A crippled ex-boxer dons a werewolf costume to try to frighten his enemies.
  4. A Gruesome Shock (6p, Cirilo Munoz)
    Rework of What D'You Know Joe, Tomb of Terror #13 (Harvey, Jan 1954)
    A lab assistant falls in love with his boss's daughter, but she doesn't return the favor.
  5. Satan's Dead Demons - Reprinted from Tales of Voodoo v5n7
  6. The Old Ghoul - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v2n4
  7. The Blood-Dripping Head - Reprinted from Tales of Voodoo v5n6

 

49. Weird v9n2, June 1976, 68pp, $1.25
     Cover reprinted from part of cover of Weird v6n1 and blown up

  1. Monster - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v5n4
  2. The Fleshless Corpse - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v5n5
  3. I Chopped Her Head Off - Reprinted from Terror Tales v2n1
  4. In the Slime Below - Reprinted from Horror Tales v4n5
  5. Seat of Doom - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v5n3
  6. The Devil's Girl - Reprint of The Devil's Witch, Horror Tales v4n7
  7. The Open Grave - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v5n2
  8. The Living Dead - Reprinted from Horror Tales v6n3
  9. Graveyard - Reprinted from Terror Tales v4n5
  10. Creatures of Stonehenge - Reprinted from Tales of Voodoo v4n6
  11. The Zombies - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v3n6

 

50. Weird v9n3, Sep 1976, 68pp, $1.25
     Cover reprinted from Tales of Voodoo v5n7

  1. Witches Revenge - Reprinted from  Weird v4n2
  2. Fangs of Terror - Reprinted from Terror Tales v6n2
  3. Satan's Stone - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v5n2
  4. The Blood-Dripping Head - Reprinted from Tales of Voodoo v5n6
  5. House of Monsters - Reprinted from Horror Tales v2n1
  6. Pit of Evil - Reprint of Satan's Pit of Evil, Witches Tales v5n1
  7. Drowned in Sand  - Reprinted from Weird v7n6
  8. Mask of Horror - Reprinted from Weird v6n6
  9. The Deadly Corpse - Reprinted from Tales of Voodoo v5n2
  10. The Hungry Ghoul - Reprinted from Tales of Voodoo v3n4

 

51. Weird v9n4, Dec 1976, 68pp, $1.25
      Cover reprinted from Horror Tales v5n1

  1. Satan's Curse - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v5n6
  2. The Stone Monsters - Reprinted from Weird v6n4
  3. Monster in Cloth - Reprinted from Horror Tales v5n5b
  4. Evil Cat - Reprinted from Weird v5n6
  5. Deadman's Hand - Reprinted from Horror Tales v4n2
  6. The Vampire Lives - Reprinted from Horror Tales v3n5
  7. Lighthouse of Horror - Reprinted from Terror Tales v5n5
  8. The Witch Doctor - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v2n1
  9. Ghoul's Mansion - Reprinted from Horror Tales v5n2
  10. Swamp Creature - Reprinted from Weird v7n7
  11. The Spirit of Evil - Reprinted from Horror Tales v6n4

 

52. Weird v10n1, Mar 1977, 68pp, $1.25
      Cover reprinted from Tales of Voodoo v7n6 and reversed

  1. Swamp Monsters - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v2n2
  2. The Hairy Beast - Reprinted from Horror Tales v4n2
  3. Morgan's Ghost - Reprinted from Witches Tales v3n2
  4. Head of Horror - Reprinted from Terror Tales v5n5
  5. Haunt - Reprinted from Witches Tales v4n6
  6. Demons and Skeletons - Reprinted from Horror Tales v6n2
  7. The Hanged - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v6n2
  8. The Tomb of Terror - Reprinted from Terror Tales v6n3

 

53. Weird v10n2, June 1977, 68pp, $1.25
     Cover: Xavier Villanova. Reprinted from Terror Tales v6n6.

  1. Jeb's Bloody Ghost - Reprinted from Witches Tales v3n6
  2. The Demon is a Hag - Reprinted from Witches Tales v5n3
  3. The Witch's House is Haunted - Reprinted from Weird v4n1
  4. The Thing That Screamed - Reprinted from Witches Tales v6n6
  5. Horror Without a Head - Reprinted from Witches Tales v6n5
  6. [When They Meet the] Vampire - Reprinted from Witches Tales v6n1
  7. Bagpipes From Hell - Reprinted from Witches Tales v6n5
  8. The Coffin - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v6n4
  9. Monster Maker - Reprinted from Weird v8n4a
  10. The Demon - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v6n4
  11. Twice Dead - Reprinted from Witches Tales v6n3

 

54. Weird v10n3, Dec 1977, 68pp, $1.50
      Cover: Oscar Novelle. Reprinted from Weird v7n6

  1. Cave of Vampires - Reprinted from Tales of Voodoo v5n4
  2. The Open Grave - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v5n2
  3. House of Monsters - Reprinted from Horror Tales v2n1
  4. Evil Cat - Reprinted from Weird v5n6
  5. Tombstone For a Ghoul - Reprinted from Horror Tales v2n3
  6. Satan's Stone - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v5n2
  7. The Blood Cult - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v5n4
  8. The Man Who Didn't Believe - Reprinted from Terror Tales v2n1
  9. The Bloody Monster - Reprinted from Terror Tales v3n1
  10. The Thing - Reprint of Monster, Terror Tales v5n2
  11. Untitled odd facts feature (1p) - Reprinted from Weird v2n1 IFC

 

55. Weird v11n1, Mar 1978, 68pp, $1.50
      Cover reprinted from Horror Tales v7n1.

 

  1. Dead Witch - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v2n4
  2. Never Curse a Corpse - Reprinted from Witches Tales v6n3
  3. The Blind Monsters - Reprinted from Weird v9n1
  4. Coils of Terror - Reprinted from Weird v9n1
  5. Satan's Dead Demons - Reprinted from Tales of Voodoo v5n7
  6. Werewolf - Reprinted from Weird v4n4
  7. The Ghoul - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v4n1
  8. This Cat is Evil - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v4n3
  9. Monster Town - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v3n4

 

56. Weird v11n2, June 1978, 68pp, $1.50

  1. The Invaders - Reprinted from Weird Worlds v2n4
  2. Who Are You? - Reprint of The Ogre From Space, Weird v2n2
  3. Terror Asteroid - Reprinted from Strange Galaxy v1n11
  4. The Monster - Reprinted from Horror Tales v4n1
  5. The Horror On Radar - Reprinted from Weird Worlds v2n4
  6. The Man in the Heavy Metal Suit - Reprint of The Metal Horror, Weird v7n5
  7. The Blind Terror - Reprinted from Weird v7n5
  8. The Creatures - Reprinted from Tales From the Tombv2n5
  9. Dimension-Horror - Reprinted from Weird v3n5
  10. Bloody Talus- Reprinted from Witches Tales v3n5
  11. Ghosts That Walk Forever - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v6n6
  12. Inside Back Cover - Reprints art from cover from Witches Tales v2n4

 

With this issue, the familiar "Told in new chilling picto-fiction" tag line disappears from the cover, replaced in this issue with "Space Encounters" The issue also featured a sci-fi themed cover and a number of sci-fi stories. Probably Eerie's attempt to cash in on the success of Star Wars, The cover appears to be the only cover from the post-1975 period that wasn't a reprint.

 

57. Weird v11n3, Sep 1978, 68pp, $1.50
     Cover: Oscar Novelle? Reprinted from Witches Tales v5n4

  1. Inside Front Cover - Reprints art from cover of Horror Tales v7n1
  2. The Sewer Werewolves - Reprinted from Weird v4n1
  3. Death Trap - Reprinted from Weird v4n1
  4. The Twisted Brain - Reprinted from Tales of Voodoo v4n3
  5. The Dead Demons - Reprinted from Terror Tales v2n2
  6. Devil's Plague - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v2n3
  7. The Slimy Mummy - Reprinted from Weird v3n5
  8. The Swamp-Witch - Reprinted from Witches Tales v6n4
  9. Vampire Flower - Reprinted from Witches Tales v6n4
  10. The Devil's Looking Glass - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v3n4
  11. Stay Out of My Grave - Reprinted from Witches Tales v4n6

 

The sci-fi theme is gone and the new cover tag reads "Startling 'N Shocking Tales."

 

58. Weird v11n4, Dec 1978, 68pp, $1.50
      Cover reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v5n5

  1. Inside Front Cover - Reprints art from cover of Witches Tales v5n5
  2. Beyond the Grave - Reprinted from Terror Tales v7n1
  3. Give Me Back My Brain - Reprinted from Terror Tales v6n4
  4. The Flesh Eaters - Reprinted from Tales of Voodoo v5n5
  5. Vampires Plague - Reprinted from Terror Tales v7n1
  6. Deaths Path - Reprinted from Terror Tales v7n1
  7. Never Kill a Corpse - Reprinted from Terror Tales v6n6
  8. Tear Him Apart - Reprinted from Tales of Voodoo v6n5
  9. Vampire - Reprinted from Tales of Voodoo v7n6
  10. The Frozen Colossus - Reprinted from Tales of Voodoo v6n6

 

59. Weird v12n1, Feb 1979, 68pp, $1.75
      Cover reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v4n4

  1. Inside Front Cover - Reprints art from cover of Tales From the Tomb v5n3
  2. Lighthouse of Horror - Reprinted from Terror Tales v5n5
  3. The Witch Doctor - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v2n1
  4. Deadman's Hand - Reprinted from Horror Tales v4n2
  5. The Vampire Lives- Reprinted from Horror Tales v3n5
  6. Ghoul's Mansion - Reprinted from Horror Tales v5n2
  7. Swamp Creature - Reprinted from Weird v7n7
  8. Witches Revenge - Reprinted from Weird v4n2
  9. Fangs of Terror - Reprinted from Terror Tales v6n2
  10. Satan's Stone - Reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v5n2
  11. [When They Meet the] Vampire - Reprinted from Witches Tales v6n1
  12. Twice Dead - Reprinted from Witches Tales v6n3
  13. Weird Facts FEATURE (1p) - Reprinted from Weird v1n11 IFC
  14. Facts For Ghouls FEATURE (1p) - Reprinted from Weird v2n10 IFC

 

60. Weird v12n2, June 1979, 68pp, $1.75
      Cover reprinted from Tales From the Tomb v5n6