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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Getting Better, June 27, 2010
This review is from: Creepy Archives Volume 6 (Hardcover)
I have to be honest with my review. This new batch of Creepy Archives shows the franchise starting to emerge from it's dark period. Dark Horse has given us quality over quantity this time around and there's only a couple of reprints. In issue 32, the fan letter page has a blurb from the editor stating that going forward, there would be no more reprints. With that said, I look very much to future archives from Dark Horse. As for this latest edition, there are a lot of new stories but I just can't give something a good rating just because it's new. The stories have to stand out on their own. I found that there were just too many bad stories this time around. The artwork seemed cartoonish at times and you had some story lines that seemed rushed or not fully thought out. There are some good things about this book. Frank Frazetta did two of the covers. My favorite cover was done by Vic Prezio (#28). It depicts a large vampiric bat with a skull face swooping down on a victim. The backdrop is pink! Strange indeed but this was the 1960's. I did enjoy several stories.
"Valley of the Vampires" provides an interesting twist to the vampire mythos as well as "Bloody Mary". "The Mind of the Monster" was interesting as it's set against a Sci-Fi background. Astronauts are being killed on Mars by a monster. Earth needs it's own monster to go to Mars to defeat the other monster. This monster needs a thinking brain to do battle. Will this idea work? "Dr. Jekyll's Jest" should be noted for a graphic depiction of horror during the story. "Telephoto Troll" was a story I enjoyed very much. It has a good blending of Sci-Fi with horror and without giving the story away, let's just say that having good "on the job communication skills" helps prevent (in Creepy World) sudden death! Lastly, Tom Sutton surprised me with "Snowmen". I wanted to list the storytellers and artists names but I didn't want this review to go on forever. Yes, I gave this a hard three but I know that the best is yet to come in the Creepy Archives collection.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
SEVEN ISSUES OF FREAKY CREEPY LORE, June 24, 2010
This review is from: Creepy Archives Volume 6 (Hardcover)
This is the largest volume yet in the CREEPY Archive series and it is one of the strangest. This volume includes 296 pages and offers a wide range of stories sure to please those who prefer a macabre buffet. Here you will find classic ogres such as vampires, witches, and demons, as well as barbarian warriors for those of us who like a bit of fantasy, and aliens from outer space for those of us with a taste for science fiction. Not all of the stories are good; some are downright choppy with plotlines taking great leaps between panels. Many, though, are excellent. It is within these issues that CREEPY also makes it clear that they are writing for a more adult audience as Warren Publishing begins to feature a bit of female nudity.
As with previous volumes, reprints from previous archive volumes are listed among the tables of content for each issue but are not included. This time around, though, the omitted reprints (approx. 13 by my count) are compensated for by the inclusion of seven rather than five issues. The last issue #32 is the only one without a reprint. That said, there's enough material included in this volume to keep you busy for many, many midnight hours. Even better, the artwork is truly inspiring with huge, generous panels that literally seem to pop from the page, rich with detail.
J.C. Vaughn, former Executive Editor and Associate Publisher for THE EC ARCHIVES, provides a well-written foreward discussing his admiration for the many artists and writers who worked on the magazine through the years. The book jacket describes this set of issues as part of the "psychedelic era" of CREEPY. Read the stories and you're likely to agree; what a freaky trip some of them take you on! Traditional features such as fan letter pages, the Creepy Fan Club, Creepy's Loathsome Lore, and those great advertisement pages all make a welcome return.
Reading this volume makes it clear why the ghoulish appeal of CREEPY remains so strong. It delivers!
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A so-so Archive volume, June 24, 2010
This review is from: Creepy Archives Volume 6 (Hardcover)
Still working my way through this massive tome as I write this, but it's definitely a plus to have practically nothing from the earlier Archive volumes to pad things out. But it's quantity over quality this time, with plenty of comics from Warren/Creepy's "rebuilding years": covers from Frazetta and others, stories from new-to-the title writers like Bill Parente (who tried, but clearly wasn't the equal to Archie Goodwin's writing talent), Nick Cuti and Don Glut, and art from Neal Adams, Ernie Colon and many more. Adams's adaptation of Harlan Ellison's "Rock God" is a real highlight. I wonder, after editor Shawna Gore painstakingly deleted any redundant stories found in earlier volumes, why the oft-reprinted "Brain Trust" from issue 10 (and Creepy Archives Volume 2) slipped through and is again found here. Great story with nice Angelo Torres art, but hardly needed. An editorial oversight? POSTSCRIPT: After finishing the volume, I had to downgrade my starred review from a four to a three. Too many stories in this volume are amateurish and unconvincing. We all know that this was a time of restructuring in the Warren compound, and the resulting issues of this era were very iffy.
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