The Thing In Denny Colt's Grave!

Warren Magazines wanted to promote its new Spirit mag and so it got Will Eisner to condone a crossover of sorts in the fiftieth issue of Vampirella. Jose Ortiz was a top artist at Warren during this era, able to deliver both atmosphere and action. Both are on display in this Bill Dubay story. 

If you blink, you'll almost miss Denny Colt giving a high sign to Pendragon. My favorite panel is the one with the tell-tale shadow on the coffin on the final page. They have solved one mystery only to reveal another. That's how it usually works. 

More on Warren's Spirit output tomorrow. 

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Eerie Presents El Cid!

Here's a strange and weirdly wonderful tome featuring a strange sword and sorcery character from Warren Magazines named El Cid. He springs from the imagination of Gonzalo Mayo and Budd Lewis. He was concocted when Warren ran out of handy-dandy Esteban Maroto stories about a guy named Dax. He was Warren's real last stab at putting out some serial sword and sorcery. 

This Sanjulian painting which originally appeared on Eerie #66 doesn't really capture the tone of Mayo's rendition which is quite a bit more civilized, at least in the beginning. It's a fantastic painting nonetheless. 

The collection begins with "El Cid and The Troll", which it turns out has something of a twist ending. We are treated in this one to terrible images of giant and repellant trolls. Written by Budd Lewis. 

"El Cid and the Seven Curses" is a lush tale not unlike the Odyssey in which our hero slays a wizard to puts these curses on which play out in extremely violent ways. But our hero finds love even in the middle of all the slaughter. This is the longest of the tales and is told in two parts. Story by Bill DuBay and Budd Lewis. 

"El Cid and the Vision" pits the hero against a doughty Black Knight. But it turns out that Knight was merely a hallucination. Later Cid learns why he had the vision when a real Knight shows up. Story by Gerry Boudreau and Budd Lewis. 

"The Lady and the Lie" pits the Cid against two demons named Az and Ahriman -- the Lust and the Lie. These two plot to bring down the noble Cid with all manner of nubile temptations. The Boudreau and Lewis team returns. 

"The Emir of Aragon" shows the Cid entranced by a woman named Arias who in actuality serves the Emir of Aragon. Many times she schemes against the Cid all the while entrancing him with her body. Jeff Rovin and Budd Lewis team to write this one. 

"Crooked Mouth" shows up the Cid as he demonstrates both mercy and wisdom by welcoming Moors into his home. An old man is angered by this and goes to an old enemy of the Cid's named "Crooked Mouth" who uses magic to stop his rival. Written by Budd Lewis. 

"Demon's Treasure" is the tale about a man who wakes a wizard when he seeks treasure. That wizard corrupts the kingdom and it's up to the Cid to bring end his misrule. Budd Lewis finishes his run on the hero. 

(Berni Wrightson)

The adventures of El Cid feature some outstanding Gonzalo Mayo artwork. The work is lush and entrancing, if at times a tad difficult to decode. All of Mayo's women are full-bodied and quite bodacious. 

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Not Brand Echh #13 - The Final Issue!

 Dear Marble Gang, 

    While not as strong an issue as last, this was still a pretty good entertainment for a quarter. It was nice to see some new talent in the ranks of the NBE squadron and hopefully we'll see more of them going forward. "Mirthful" Marie Severin's cover is not as stunning as many recent ones, but just as funny if not funnier. She never fails to deliver. 

    "Dr. Deranged vs. Deadpan" by "Rascally" Roy Thomas, "Genial" Gene Colan, and newcome "Slaming" Sammy Grainger" was the highlight of the issue for me. I love Gene's work on the new Dr. Strange and love the new costume. Nice to see that look get a parody this time out and just as awesome was Deadman by Neal Adams. That these two mystical types might meet is a supernatural must and I'm glad that NBE found a way. 

    "The Origin of the Simple Surfer" by Roy and Marie gets my nod as second best feature this issue. The blow by blow parody of Stan "The Man" Lee's and "Big' John Buscema's debut issue of The Silver Surfer showcasing his origin was totally on point. Great work to everyone involved in the original and the spoof. "Galacticus" never looked so cheesy. 

    "The Return of Forbush Man" gets the third-place showing in this run and Roy and "Terrific" Tom Sutton do great work capturing the nuttiness of Irving Forbush's existence as well as knocking off a pretty lean spoof of Silver Surfer #5. It was tragic in its own hilarous way. 

    The fourth spot is taken by "Guess What's Coming to Dinner!" by "Stunning" Stu Schwartzberg, a new name and one well represented this issue. The artwork was a bit tamer than usual but Tom Sutton's inks helped keep it focused. The last page is a gas, though it requires a strong understanding of Marvel lore. 

    "Cheap Shrills" in the "Golden Wreckord Dept" by "Groovy" Gary Friedrich and "Hapless" Herb Trimpe was dynamite and makes laugh every time if glance at it. 

    'Who Says A Carnival Has to Be Good?" by Arnold Drake and Marie was a two-page winner with a host of gags filling up the colorful pages. Nifty jokes all. Close on its heels and in a tie for the fifth spot overall was "Rent-a-Super-Hero" by Marie and Stu. 

    Great art by Ronn Foss on "Valentines" and some pretty good gags Roy. Likewise Bill DuBay supplied some tasty illustrations for "Adult Super-Hero Daydreams". Tom Sutton was on hand again I see to keep things tight. "Liltin' Limericks" by Roy and Phil Seuling tops the bottom rung but still made me laugh, so good overall gents and lady. 

    As for Sue Richard's sizzling pin-up, the less said the better. I don't want Reed coming looking for me. Va-va-voom though for sure. (What do you mean you can't see her? She's right there.)

    You've survived to unlucky thirteen and hopefully no bad luck will befall Not Brand Echh from here on out. Long live NBE!

                                                                                                                       Sincerely (Not)

                                                                                                                       Rip Jagger

Notes and Comments: Sadly this was the last issue of Not Brand Echh for forty years, until at long last a fourteenth issue was published only a few years ago. Happily that issue focused on Forbush Man but the Marvel Universe it mocked was one I'd long ago abandoned and the jokes fell flat. This thirteenth issue of NBE does point the way forward to what the comic might've become in its own time as Roy had solicited his fanzine friends and colleagues to work on the book. Ronn Foss is widely considered the best talent in the fan ranks never to successfully break into the pros and this effort here is just a taste of what he might've done. Bill DuBay did go onto a darn good career, mostly at Warren as an editor and sometimes artist. Phil Seuling is most famous now for his comic book conventions. Of the talents only Sam Grainger went on to be a regular at Marvel, doing some little penciling but mostly inking in a magnificent style for several years and becoming one of my favorites. It's a peculiarity that NBE has effectively two Silver Surfer spoofs in this one issue and I cannot imagine that was some grand plan. Silver Surfer was along with NBE the only other quarter book for Marvel at the time (apart from annuals) and while NBE was cancelled the Surfer book slipped down to normal pricing and normal size and survived for a few more measly months. NBE was a nifty experiment that started strong with top-flight talent but by its end was buttressed by the twin talents of Marie Severin and Tom Sutton with newbies being brought into the game to sustain it. I'd loved to have been able to see what it became. 

Here are some covers, comic and otherwise which inspired the features this issue. 

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The Rook Archives - Volume Three!

With the third volume of The Rook Archives we see the end of the first phase of Rook adventures. Luis Bermejo leaves the strip and to my eye much of the charm which he brought to the characters especially the lovely ladies is lost. Stepping in to fill that void are capable artists like Alfredo Alcala, Jim Starlin, and Jim Janes, but none of these captures the fragile essence of the Rook. We get instead stories which seem interchangeable in many sci-fi comics.

Also there becomes a fixed story telling notion that Restin Dane, the titular Rook will act alone while in a parallel story his elder Bishop Dane and his robot Manners travel lines that will ultimately intersect with the primary story, if not directly then thematically. Frankly it seems that after establishing the cast in the earliest stories, Bill DuBay doesn't quite know how to manage them all. He clearly wants to move on from the Alamo stories, but can't seem to drop the cast. The girls especially have almost nothing to do and disappear entirely in certain tales.

The advent of Lee Elias is a good move as his lush black lines go far to recall the Bermejo original artwork. But for most of this volume he  is not present. It's fun sci-fi with that specific Warren flavor, but nothing in these stories really says "Rook".

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The Rook Archives - Volume Two!

The second volume of The Rook Archives is quite good as we continue to follow the temporal-challenging adventures of Restin Dane and his cohorts. But the gloss is beginning to come off the creation just a bit. There is a certain formula which is settling in to the story telling which cuts against the freshness which had marked the earliest issues. Also attempts at comedy fall a bit short of hitting the mark and that always leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

Among the highlights in this tome are a beautiful story drawn by the incomparable Alex Nino. Also quite strong is the final story entitled "Quarb and the Warball" which revives the uncanny sense of time travel  and also is based to some extent on fan ideas. Luis Bermejo does an absolute fantastic job on Bill DuBay's script.

The crossover with the Vampirella magazine is a focus of this volume and it's a perfectly good story, but not the best in the volume by any measure, save for the ability to look at the lovely Vampi and her associate Pantha.

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The Rook Archives - Volume One!

I was a Warren fan at just the right moment to latch onto The Rook by Bill DuBay and Luis Bermejo. As the collection notes, these are stories "from the pages of Eerie", a magazine which at this point in time shifting away from the one-off horror tales which had defined it as a younger version of Creepy. Eerie was giving the world offbeat heroes from across the span of space, time, and imagination, many with a decidedly anti-heroic nature. One of the good guys was Restin Dane, a handsome swashbuckling adventurer who just also happened to be a marvelous inventor and who became master of time travel.

(Gulacy's cover as published -- minus the fabulous detials.)

The first stories of The Rook saga are far and away the best. In these stories, collected under an robust Paul Gulacy cover presented for the first time in all its detailed glory, we meet Restin and his ancestor Bishop Dane, his robot assistant Manners, and others who fill the rough and tumble adventures with heart and specific character. These stories have the whipsaw charm that time travel stories can deliver with twists and turns coming at a breakneck pace.

If you read no other Rook stories, read these presented in The Rook Archives Volume 1. These are the ones which fixed the character into the popular imagination. He would become arguably for a time Warren's most popular character and his run only ended when his creator Bill DuBay left Warren for other climes.

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Getting Rooked Again!

There was a time when I was a big Warren publications fan. That time pretty much coincided with the era when Eerie magazine featured weird and offbeat heroes (or anti-heroes) and let loose a bit the pure horror brand and embraced the wonders of sci-fi. I was led to Warren by way of Will Eisner's The Spirit, but hung around to get a better look at the vivacious Vampirella, a character who perfectly blended horror and science fiction into a delightful whole.

But one of my favorite features was Bill DuBay's time-crossed cowboy Restin Dane, better known as The Rook. I know that some folks don't like time travel stories but I'm not one of those, I love them. And this kind of ongoing tomfoolery with time is just the kind of thing I love. We have here a series by more than competent creators a series which takes bits of Doc Savage, blends in a little Doctor Who, and throws it all into a Tom Mixer. The result are some well-crafted yarns about the past, the future and all that's in between.

The Rook continued to appear in Eerie magazine and later got his own title, which according some reports I've read was Warren's best seller for a time. Some fine artists worked on the feature, but Luis Bermejo's work on the earliest installments is some of the sweetest. Dark Horse has collected up some of the earliest Rook adventures in three slim but handsome volumes. Here are the covers  of the issues of Eerie collected which feature the Rook. Other stories from other issues are included.

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Thriller!

Thriller is a limited series from the 80's I'd love to read again. I got rid of all my issues long ago, but I really remember liking the energetic art of Trevor Von Eeden on the first eight issues and the wild designs of Alex Nino on the final four issues. The premise is fantastic and full of pulp vibes. With practically everything published at DC having been reprinted, I'm wondering why this particular series created by Robert Loren Fleming and Von Eeden which seems so ripe for it hasn't been. The back issues can be had cheap, but I'd prefer a more permanent volume. If you don't know much about Thriller, here's a link with a bit more on this offbeat crime-fighting team dubbed "The Seven Seconds". I think you'll be intrigued.












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