Review: The Creeps Magazine

 Review: The Creeps Magazine

Uncle Creepy and Cousin Eerie Approve of this Message

Recently, I visited Mexico City. Years ago, in the ‘90s, I had read that after Japan, Mexico produced more comics than any other country including the United States, and I was excited to find native work in any comic store I visited. I was destined for disappointment. In the shop I visited not one single Mexican comic could be found. Most were reprints of American comics and most were in English. Even the proprietor could not cite a single example of a comic originating in Mexico. One single consolation--I discovered “The Creeps”.

Inside issue 24, Nicola Cuti and Rich Sala as editors name and was enough to make that my purchase. Reading on the Uber drive back to our hotel, I was immediately overwhelmed by the resemblance to the Warren magazines, Creepy and Eerie. And it was intentional. Magazine sized, printed in black and white on newsprint, hosted by “the Creep”, under the banner “A Warrant Magazine”, written by psuedonymic representatives of the original Warren writers, made visual by a stable of artists of significant skill and varied styles, each tale consisted of the traditional springboarded story with, most often, the tried and true twist ending.

“The Creeps” is exactly what fans of “Eerie” and “Creepy” love; an anthology of traditional, modern, science fiction, and historical horror.  Artwork ranges from Santos “ZAB” Zaballos’ frenetic crow quill, to the almost manic perfection of Reno Maniquis. Each month “historic horrors”, stories and art submitted by “The Creeps Club” members, ads for classic and cult horror and scifi films, books, merchandise, occasional appearances by classic Warrent artists like Sanjulian and Richard Corben, and an active lettercol fill the crevices between stories centered in the same schlock horror indulged in by an audience who read about EC comics “back in the day”. Warrant produces other analogs to Warren books: “Monster Bash” and the new “Vampiress Carmilla”.

While my love for “The Creeps” was enough to motivate an immediate subscription and club membership, there are weaknesses as well.  So far, the editors (Rest in Peace, Mr. Cuti) seem completely satisfied to continue on in the Warren tradition, but not to excel beyond it. I would like to see more daring stories, thematic issues, longer tales, even serials. And though the least artist is sufficient to the task of each tale, “The Creeps” has not evolved over the Warren magazines as they evolved beyond the EC books of the fifties. Despite crediting artists over writers, and an attempt in “Vampiress Carmilla” to center stories on female characters, few stories are clearly “great”; the magazine seems mired in the mediocre. 

It appears, as well, that this whole operation is run by two guys out of a garage! Twice, my original subscription was dropped. A quick email cleared it up each time, but, when I ordered “Vampiress Carmilla” #1, I received over a two week period no less than three copies with the accompanying premium poster. Not complaining; I distributed them amongst others I thought might subscribe. And, to their credit, each error was followed up with and email and a special gift to make up for the missing mags.

Ultimately, I will resubscribe. At $53 for six issues ( thats under $9 and issue including postage and handling), its way cheaper than the new “Heavy Metal” and its a joy to see this artwork so crisp and black on new clean newsprint.

Go ahead and go on over to www.thecreepsmagazine.com and get yourself a subscription!

Fan Letter to Don Rosa, author and artist of the amazing Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck!

 

Fan Letter to Todd Varian

 

Manifest Destiny 37-42 6/1/2020

Gentles:

Here we go again! But the pace has increased, many incidental creatures and adventures are single panel journal entries and the corp no longer checks out each arch, eh? So, what do I love most over these recent issues? It's getting hard to pick out outstanding moments as you guys are so consistent, but two things I love: Amazon Were-Hares? Oh, I saw that was gonna be a difficult one as soon as we find humans out in the Wierderness. Still, gotta say, that was pretty damn cool. Even better; Lewis and Clark outing Maldonado! Of course, now, Maldonado has shifted strategies; excited to see what he's up to, and to learn the mystery of the arches.

Jensen continues not only to survive but to thrive; I trashed him early on, but kind of have a sentimental attachment now. Curious about Randolph and Russell; should've known two sensitive men of the time might end up together. I bet Lewis and Clark suffered rumors. Still, was this based on any research or created whole cloth by you guys?

No judgment! I couldn't be happier with MANIFEST DESTINY unless it was free and sent to me autographed each month. Keep it up guys, and I will keep buying.

--

Griffin (like the monster) Mauser (like the gun)

Fan Letter to Kim Deitch 05/27/2020

Leviathan 1-2 05/25/2020

Holy Crap!

Layman and Pitarra (i see your darrows) are killing me! Thassome crazy kaiju! Go to town!

I know it's early in the game but man what a way to start! I love big and little stories together and Layman is no disappointment! Story has to bake, but Pitarra's art keeps my eye so excited that I am just pouring over the pages wondering where the hell this monster is going. I haven't had this much funzilla in ages! I imagine a Shaolin Cowboy, Sabretooth Swordsman, Leviathan Jamocalypse!

Alright, Layman, lessee what happens to ol' Viv and Ryan, and make Pitarra's imagination bleed monsters! Whoo hoo!

First Published Comic Book Letter!

Just found my first comic letter back in Warlord #37.  I signed it Muffin Thundergrunt, a nickname friends and I made up back in 1979 at Mountain View Camp, the Assemblies of God summercamp in Jacksonville in Deep East Texas. Mike Grell was popular enough to get into a Fred Hembeck comic for his Warlord and Green Arrow work. Warlord was amazing! Fantasy, SciFi, and toughguy! Come on, a gladiator with .44 AutoMag pistols. Here it is with any response.

Dear Folks,

     Ish 31 was absolutely super. The cover was the most fantastic of all. Better than "The Hunter." One gripe. Watch production. My cover was off-centered. Pages 2 and 3 were super. I was impressed especially with the blood on the sword. No drips, which is better.

     A small thing: Thanks so much for putting the subscription coupon on the back of ads.  I do so hate cutting up frames of art for a new subscription.

     Here's my WARLORD MOVIE LIST:

     MORGAN: Charlton Heston; MARIAH: Tina Louicse or Marilyn [sic] Henner; TARA: Buffy St. Marie; MACHISTE: George Foreman & DEIMOS: Leonard Nimoy.

Muffin Thundergrunt

Jack C. Harris responds:

Don't blame our production department for your off-center cover. It was the cutting machine at our printer's and such a happening is rare.  Do you realize how much an off-centered print on a STAMP would be worth?

You all realize that there are no plans in the works for a WARLORD movie, but it's fun to try casting such a project. Who knows? Maybe a producer will pick up an issue of the WARLORD and fget an idea from all of this--JCH

Fan Art to Jim Woodring of "Frank"

Just received FRANK, Bk One and I am blown away by Woodring's originality. Nothing else he does is like FRANK, well, except JIM? Anyway, there is no way I can describe this work and make anyone else understand; you should go see it for yourself.

FanArt to Geoff Darrow

Ask Nick Pitarra of LEVIATHAN (if you didn't already know): Geoff Darrow is the shiznits! Do it! Go now and buy all of Shaolin Cowboy and pour over it again and again. This is the guy who designed the squids in the Matrix trilogy. He also created an amazing animated series, BIG GUY AN D RUSTY THE BOY ROBOT! Don't call yourself a comic fan if you don't know Darrow!

FanArt to Lynda Barry

What can I say about Lynda Barry? Like she says, her comics are drawn ugly and she has too many words. That only buys you several titles on the shelves all over the nation, a college professorship, and cartoons in more magazines than I can remember. She is great!

FanArt to Neil the Horse

Sent this letter out to Katherine Collins (formerly Arn Saba) of Neil the Horse! If you haven't read it, then you are missing out! The Collected Neil the Horse has all the stuff plus commentary. Get it at your local independent bookstore or direct from Conundrum Press.

Letter to Manifest Destiny issues 1/2

Destined:

Yahoo! I can love me some weird! I am all over Manifest Destiny 1 and 2 and eager for 3!  I am so glad to see that I am not the only fan of the coolest niche genre in existence, "weird".  I, too, have long been a fan of such "weird" books as Eerie and Creepy, Heavy Metal, Weird Adventure, Weird War and the like. Remember ole Grimjack and the more recent House of Secrets.

But now comes a mashup of my favorite genre and my favorite explorers! You guys have hit on one of the coolest ideas I've read in 47 years of comics fanaticism.

Dingess' story is both plausible and fantastic. Of course Jefferson would send unconnected men on a dangerous journey, and while Jensen is a coward, he certainly is no fool, though thoroughly, but believably, despicable. I like Clark and Lewis' interactions so far, both true to what I know of the two explorers and carefully played throughout the first two issues. Dingess', you must be having a blast.

And Mr.s Roberts and Gieni seem to be enjoying themselves as well. Roberts renders sufficient identifiable and authentic detail without cluttering a single panel.  His characters are recognizable and expressive through costume and panel changes. Again, Jensen in particular stands out as a character in whose face I can see his thinking.  The first frame of the rat-faced traitor already establishes his ilk.  Three other images stick in my mind: the heron, the skull flower and the buffalotaur.  Mr. Roberts, your attention to detail on the real heron and the totally imaginary flower are only second to the seamless construction of your buffalotaur. Well done. And Gieni's colors are fantastic. Never muddy, the balance of contrast and match makes the artwork even more readable. I was worried that with nothing but earth, sky and greenery, the palette would get bland, but I was wrong.  Of course, a little bright bloody red violence doesn't hurt. 

Even your sound effects work well, specific sounds with plausible spelling without resorting to what I have "heard" a million times before.

Good work, gents.  I can't wait till next month.

Letter to Ice Cream Man re 1-17, 03/23/2020

Gentles: 

Just caught up with you guys through number 17(still a couple holes, but...) and wanted to throw in my own adulation.

ICM gets right up under my skin, like hearing that my gut microbes have a whole society inside me, like realizing i drowned a roach in my hot coffee after pouring it in the dark, like finding blood i can't identify.  It took me a long time to decide this is horror, but it is. I still keep wondering what's the story of the man in white and his foil, the man in black.  Shades of King's Black Tower.  The palindrome issue must have been a design challenge, but it sure works. Tiny Lives creeped me out. Coat Check Story was a straight up psychodelic trip with all the terror of Midsommar. I hope you gotta lot more of these tramping about in your headspace, Mr. Prince.

Mr. Martin's clear line, Mr. Hallorhan's colors, and Good Old Neon's design work make a perfect setting, like the dining room for a feast.  The design creates unity from issue to issue. Clear and clinical colors and the fine black line detail throughout allow the stories' textual creepiness lead. 

This book stays in the collection to read again!  You guys should probably check out DC's FLINCH from 90's(?), a good collection of creep outs.

--

Griffin (like the monster) Mauser (like the gun)

Letter to Grendel Devil's Odyssey 1-3

Gentles:

Just finished reading Grendel Devil’s Odyssey 1-3!

Thanks, Matt et. al., for another incarnation of Grendel. I have about 5000 books in a collection from as early as 1976 and am about to have a major cull down to half, keeping only my most favorite titles and two of ‘em will be all of Mage, and all of Grendel!

Devil’s Odyssey couldn’t be more perfect! Grendel Prime is GrimJack, Judge Dredd, Deathlok, and beyond, and this arc is lovely! Grendel Prime, the reliable authoritarian makes the perfect foil to establish the unique norms of the strange new worlds he is encountering and we have five more issues of exploration ahead with every image lovingly planned and rendered. Matt’s pencils are so consistent yet become more and more refined, leaving all that great design bared at the surface! Brennan’s colors are emblematic and set the black of Grendel Prime the role of the ultimate straight-man.

Can’t wait for issue 4! But I will! Bring it on Misters Wagner, and a “hear hear” for pre-Hunter Rose Grendels!

Vivat Grendel!

Griffin Mauser

Letter to MAD #11, Feb 2020

MAD #11, Feb 2020

Yuck! I hated it all!

Idiots!

Please send me a new copy of MAD #11, Feb 2020! I hated it. And the vomit inducing odalisque of Mueller soiled my magazine.  I can’t hang this off the roller, my guests use that bathroom.

MAD Unredacts--oh, Alfred, there you are!--started out swell if you’d uh just blacked out the bucktoothed one, but nOOOooo. Not as boring as the actual redacted reads so look at that fantastic Table of Contents, so succinct, legible, informative, factual, filled with thematic content and surrounded by by conscious and deliberate thematic design.  Here we have everything, beautiful hilarious art, political statement, legalism, eye-catching color with hormone inducing associations. As if the spirit of Mr. Gaines had reached out from the cover and grabbed me by the throat screaming “BUY THIS MAG YOU DOPE! Logo, Sergio, crafted elements suggesting hand work alongside traditional informational signals styles, fonts, typefaces, upper and lower cases, spacing, and the brilliant and final COVER ARTIST Mark Summers, with its powerful title and respectful capitalisation, the perfect cherry on this issue!

I liked the rest of it. (More Table of Contents!)

El Griffo

Slackjaw TX 7XXXX

Review: Batman: Black Label's "Batman: White Knight"

“The Joker Goes Sane!”

...reads the tag line on the back cover of Sean Murphy’s written and pencilled “Batman: White Knight, an initial offering of Detective Comics’ ne Black Label imprint designated for stand-alone stories not intended to fit in continuity and written for grown-ups.  Without any “Batman’s junk” junk, Murphy manages to create a Batman tale with depth, and the Black Label imprint allows him to change the Batman world in a way that 80 years of serial hasn’t allowed. While there is no story that hasn’t been told about Batman, like syndicated television, each story arc must end up back at the status quo so next month we can see more Batman. But the Black label imprint is specifically designed to quarantine stories from mainstream continuity, so, here we go.

One year ago, the Joker accuses Batman of being the worst of the supervillains in Gotham and swears to prove it through the use of a psychosis suppressant drug that will allow him to revert to his original self, Jack Napier.  As Napier, he pursues a campaign to incorporate Batman’s gear and technology into the Gotham constabulary and to eliminate the vigilante elements of the Batman clan’s crimefighting. Only Batman remains absolutely sure the Joker is still a danger while his allies, Jim Gordon, Nightwing, Batwoman, and Batgirl turn against him. Just remember, this is Batman.

Batman created many of his own villains and over nearly a thousand monthly issues, has not managed to deliver Gotham from its ills, and this is what Sean Murphy explores.  He even manages to make Joker plausibly sympathetic without sacrificing internal logic or mainstream continuity. Handling both pencils and writing allows him a creative freedom that allows one to doubt Batman but lead to a satisfying and iconoclastic finish.  Each character’s journey seems natural and logical as they allies and fans begin to doubt Batman and embrace Napier, and Murphy addresses Harley Quinn as two different women more directly and sensibly than readers have seen so far.

While Murphy’s pencils and inks give voice to his specific vision, Matt Hollingsworth’s colors subtly reinforce the more somber tone of this tale and maintain the expression of Murphy’s extensively dry-brush technique, resulting in an eminently worthy addition to the the caped crusader’s ouvre.

Good comics!

Pillar to Post Issues 22-38!

Black Scientists:

38 issues and every one a Kirbyverse! Imagination fuels existence! My mutated brain, that thinks so much bigger, swelling on layers of layers of layers (I'll have mine with Onionity, thank you) just like the Eververse. I mean, thirty-eight issues of mind bending audacity!

Matteo just cranking out unique design like an eye-treat pinata, cuz what ya gonna do with Remenders brains splattering all around, try to draw it all, I guess, and apparently succeeding.  Like with Paul Pope, I have to up my eye game, can't hardly see how anybody draws in such an idiosyncratic style while reading so clearly, and its just gotten smoother and measured and coarse and chaotic, Remender's nuts concoction of narrative gets amped up to a zillion. 

Remender just throws giant trope pearls into a stew, dropping cavalry realities and subsuming threats like a reality vomiting Marvel and DC crossover giant baby (uh, that doesn't sound like the way I enjoy this book...) It's as if all of imagination is trying to kill Grant McKay.

For a guy whose life went down the turlet like a swirlin turd since the second he pushed the button, Grant's adventure is high drama and fun at the same time. And, as we have learned from a pig farmer from Prydain; it must be adventure because Grant is so miserable so much of the time.

Anyway, centipede death cult, Zirite infestation, fluffy foul-mouthed demon-gods, and Grants, so many Grants, its the grandest Bandersnatch, the choicest Choose Your Own, its any and all of them. 

God, so many individual covers and pages to fawn over, but got comics to read. See you guys again!

Manifest Destiny 19-36 Letter

Gentles:

Here we are again and i can't tell you enough how proud i am of this book! Three years of consistent high adventure, weird creatures, repellant history and layers of mystery. That's a high bar. Usually, i trust in low expectations for my happiness, so you guys are gonna ruin me!

"Sasquatch" was painful and luridly grotesque, i guess we will not soon see the end of atrocities that even well intentioned peoples can justify, but i am sure grateful that you guys don't romanticize just the fine elements of such campaigns as have been common in our history. In each case, the sasquatch, the ferzon before and each other later, Dingess, you've managed to make credible and plausible motivations in the members of the mission.

Roberts and Gieni continue to deliver differentiable character design, and a masterful manipulation of page layouts, detail and negative space like the well experienced engineer/artists they have become. I recently reread from issue 1 through to 36 and this facility is one of the greatest strengths of this title. Creature design, authenticity, and consistently powerful covers make Manifest Destiny a regular feast.

While the three different mission timelines was a bit confusing, once i twigged, they created a tremendous interest in the real history and introduced several interesting and psychological, as well as psychodelic, themes that feed perfectly into the long "winter without monsters" of which some complaint has arrived in this letter col.  Don't worry, these stories are fantastic! I loved Irene's revenge without need a translation. And that final confrontation between York and Jensen is great.  I hate that rat-faced bastard, Jensen! Don't dare kill him off.

So, on now to the resolution of Navath, the aftermath of York's mercy, and whatever-the-hell is going on with that latest arch!

'til next time, make mine Manifest Destiny (ya see what i did there? We'll miss you, Stan.)

Griffin Mauser
(like the monster; like the gun)

Ok to Print Black Science 1-20

Griffin Mauser <griffin.mauser@gmail.com>	Sun, Jul 17, 2016, 11:30 AM
to writeremender

Gentles:

Been reading since number one; Remender's name was enough to get me to subscribe as I had just discovered Fear Agent.

Black Science ain't funny; it ain't Fear Agent; it is Fantastic!

Frankly I was completely baffled for the first few issues; how alienating to find Grant suddenly everywhere; it's like I am in the middle of a David Lynch movie. But, by issue six I discovered that this is exactly how Grant must feel, and all the dimensionauts. Suddenly it's meta (you can claim it if  I can find it)!

I was unsure about Scalera's pages, too, but after recognizing Grant as ape and as praying mantis, I was convinced.  At first panels seem filled with violence and chaos, and they are, but it reads.  What I see is what I am supposed to see and how Scalera makes it work so well I will never know.

 This is great science fiction with a frantic and exhausting pace; when will they get a little rest? And being lost in infinite worlds is only half their trouble; the rest is being human!

I don't know how much you guys still got in ya, but I intend to read it all.  Thanks for a great time!

--

Griffin (like the monster) Mauser (like the gun)

Manifest Destiny Lettercol as of Issue 21

Griffin Mauser <griffin.mauser@gmail.com>	Thu, Aug 11, 2016, 3:52 PM
to manifestdestiny

Well, what to say? Twenty-one issues and I am still here every month braggin on you guys. I will miss the Fezron, and wonder about the Sasquatch.  You continue to deliver on both ends; fabulous monsters and intricate relationships within the party. I hope you don't get skipping over encounters; you guys kinda raced through some fine adventures before getting into the Sasquatch.

What's up with Sacajawea and the baby?

Nice cover motif for the arc; an excellent opportunity to show off Gieni's colors. 

God, what do I want that you don't give me? You already got me going back to research the real history. Any chance of tall tales making an  influence? Meat any tough fur traders out there? Beavers?

I love you guys and your book!

Onward!

-- 

Griffin (like the monster) Mauser (like the gun)