By: Joe Lansdale, Keith Lansdale, Dan Braun, Bill Morrison, Martin Salvador & Archie Goodwin (writers), Guus Floor, Patric Reynolds, Wilfredo Torres, Steve Skeates & Steve Ditko (artists) and Nate Piekos (letters)
The Story: Uncle Creepy is back with three new tales of terror and two old reprints from the Creepy archives.
Review: This isn’t a “bad” issue of Creepy, but it does commit the cardinal sin of an anthology: It doesn’t have a singular story that sets your socks on fire. Probably the closest to excellence that this issue comes is with the second story: “The Shroud” by Dan Braun and Patric Reynolds. This snappy little story involves a young couple that visits an auction and acquires a creepy shroud with a demonic face on it. It’s kind of an evil-looking Shroud of Turin. That’s just not going to turn out well! Reynolds’ art is crisp and the only thing holding this story back is that it ended kinda suddenly. My two cents is that they could’ve ditched a panel or two of people nagging the guy to get rid of the shroud and had another couple panels at the end.
The other two new stories aren’t bad, but don’t do anything to stand out. ”Mud” was an interesting concept, but the art was too… well… muddy for me to really enjoy it that much. ”Bloodsuckers” was also just okay.
Dark Horse gives us TWO old reprint stories in this issue. On one hand, it DOES expose readers to the excellence of those old Warren Publishing Creepy magazines. Whether you collect the single issues (like me) or buy the archives that Dark Horse is publishing, those are MUST READS for any horror fan. On the other hand, neither of these two stories are picked from the A-list of old Creepy material and it seems a little cheap to sell us a “new” comic that is 40% reprint material.
Conclusion: Not the greatest issue of Creepy, to be honest. With the sheer number of modern day creators who hold the Warren Publishing version of Creepy in such high regard, I’m a little surprised that we can’t get a little better material than this. I expect more than an “okay” comic from something with a quarterly publishing schedule.
Grade: C
-Dean Stell
Filed under: Dark Horse Comics Tagged: | Archie Goodwin, Bill Morrison, Creepy, Creepy #7, Creepy #7 review, Dan Braun, Dark Horse, Dean Stell, Guus Floor, Joe Lansdale, Keith Lansdale, Martin Salvador, Nate Piekos, Patric Reynolds, review, Steve Ditko, Steve Skeates, Wilfredo Torres
Agreed. The artwork for ‘Mud’ was too crude for an issue of Creepy. The art for ‘Bloodsuckers’ has a Cartoon Network look to it – totally out of place for an issue of Creepy. The story somewhat sucked as well – sort of a ‘In the Heat of the Night’/'Generic Vampire Crap’ hybrid. The reverse stereotypes theme is becoming a tired staple of modern minority writers. I want horror stories – not poorly disguised ethnic propaganda.
Maybe this issue was so weak because Shawna Gore was let go, and the people left to pick up the pieces just don’t get it.
If Dark Horse is going wrap stuff like this in the Creepy name, maybe it shouldn’t have been resurrected at all.
Glad to know it isn’t just me. I’d missed that Shawna Gore was let go, but that could be it. Let’s hope that this was just an issue that was caught in between Shawna Gore leaving and whoever the new editor would be. That might explain getting 2 old stories instead of just one.
I’m not going to condem the whole redo of the series yet since it’s been good so far. Let’s hope they can pick it back up.
I hope it improves too. It’s just disappointing to wait for a new issue – then when we finally get our hands on it the reaction is: “It took two-and-a-half months to cobble this together?”
I’ve got the complete original run of Creepy. I read Creepy as a kid back in the 70′s. Maybe expecting the new to measure up to the original is asking too much.
I think DH should return Creepy back to its original format – magazine size and even the original type of paper vs the glossy used now.
That would cut the price per issue and boost the nostalgia, in addition to making it stand out from other comics on the shelf.
Why do people never seem to learn from the simple adage,
“If it ain’t broke, DON’T fix it”?
Yeah….the old stuff is awesome and I agree about the paper. I really prefer nice newsprint to glossy paper even for colored comics. I love it when Vertigo prints some of their series on a nice newsprint.
It’s funny because you don’t hear many people talk about paper, but when you do, it is always, “I wish we could have newsprint” and never “I hate newsprint. I want glossy.”
I agree. This issus was a little light in the pants fot the long wait. I wasn’t aware of the couple of reprints in the story although I suspcted it. I’m not going to be back for Creepy number 8. I don’t like that these guys are half steppin’ it. Sorry but I’d rather save up and get some good reprints of EC or some modern stuff somewhere else. Too bad. The first issue’s were really good and more modern feeling.