Of the many enterprises inspired by EC's classic line of comics from the 1950s, Jim Warren's Creepy was quite possibly the best of the lot. Edited by the immortal Archie Goodwin and featuring some of the best artists of the 60s (or any era), it is, pound for pound, possibly even better than the ECs that inspired them. Different eras and (slightly) different audiences, for sure, but Creepy is arguably less "clunky" to 21st century eyes. Although those things are happily in the eye of the beholder.
Only 10 years separate the ECs from the Creepys - almost contemporaries, but when Creepy first appeared and in most commentary on it thereafter, it was seen as an heir to EC, not a contemporary. And as a black and white magazine Creepy enjoyed the advantage of being able to actually publish the kind of material EC used to publish, something which the Comics Code at that time prohibited any actual comic book from doing. In a world where Pepsi was verboten, so to speak, Coca Cola enjoyed 100% of the market share. (Swap in your own cola metaphors as you please.) But! Save the speeches for Malcolm X, as they used to say, at least in the movie Heathers. We're here on Scenic Route business. 'Tis the season... for CREEPY.
The stories are all drawn from familiar tropes, and most follow the horror-comic tradition of the twist ending. (Sometimes to amusing effect: not only is character X a werewolf, but character Y is a vampire, and (penultimate panel) they've been wearing bullet-proof vests the whole time!)
And that's all well and good; everything moves along at a fast and familiar clip and the art is relentlessly great.
Here are some panels - I'll do credits all at once at the end of the post - from the first ten issues.
Chances are, even with no context, you'll pick up on what's going on in the larger story of every panel represented.
Reed Crandall knew how to draw pants. It's a skill. I mean no snark here! The guy knew how to draw everything, I'm just saying, but look at all the pants here. Each pair is distinctive. It's the accumulation of perfect little details that give rise to a panorama of illustrative majesty.
Is this from a Hitchcock movie?
From the Poe story adaptation, obviously (one of a few in here.) Now this is a parade.
They might've added a little something at the end.
Twist ending for the Bluebeard saga, as well.
I may be losing people by just posting snippets of different stories, I don't know. I just look at it like a collage or something. We all know the context of these things. No disrespect or irritation intended. The overriding concern is:
2.
ATMOSPHERE
Oh, Jack, you snarky bastard.
3.
DITKO!
I'm going to be honest: there are times when Steve Ditko's approach and/or execution does not appeal to me. Obviously I have the highest respect for him and all the usual accolades, but I think he is at the very least guilty of crimes against finger and knuckles. Not everyone has fingers that bend in 3 different directions, yet all of Ditko's characters do. I exaggerate. Anyway, he has a story in here that is masterfully done.
A bit familiar. (This was 1965, I think.)
This is a motif at the end of every other page of the story -
the eyelids slowly drooping to lifelessness,
before the final panel reveals:
4.
TITLE PAGES
Some great ones in these 10 issues.
The incomparable Angelo Torres and Joe Orlando. Such greats! Again, credits at the end, just a momentary lapse of restraint.
And detail:
5.
LOATHSOME LORE
Creepy had historical snippets strewn throughout, so you learn a little something about the historical legacy of the horrors presented to the reader.
Some of the details may be exaggerated a bit.
This dude right here on the right is just waiting to be meme'd.
As always, the French don't come across too well. Does anyone get mocked more than the French?
6.
POETRY
7.
SOME RANDOMS
What? They've all been randoms! Here's more.
Add Batman to this tree and it's instantly a great 70s Batman comic. Incidentally, I have a craving to watch The Thing with Two Heads now.
Jack Chick? It isn't but looks like him.
...
8.
NEED SOME
HALLOWEEN
MULTI-PURPOSE
MEMES?
~
All screencaps taken from Creepy #s 1-10 (1964-1966) featuring art by all these luminaries and then some:
For the past several Octobers I've listened almost exclusively to a series of Halloween mixes that I downloaded from some retro site circa 2012. They were basically a collection of Halloween-related media from the late 60s through the early 80s. Still are, I guess - I think you can probably find them still over at retrospace, although that site hasn't been updated in awhile.
This year I decided to put my own mix together. You can access the full playlist here with constant YouTube interruption (alas) or click on any of the annotated links below - some of them different versions than the one on my playlist; oh my! - until YouTube decides to kill the links. (Also alas). Pretty much the same deal as my James Bond Mix Tape post; please see there for all context re: cassettes and mixmaking policies and protocols.
I've never actually seen The Vampira Show. But not a bad way to get things started, eh? As for the others, I'd never heard of that Skyhooks tune until the aforementioned retrospace Halloween mix, but it's become a staple of my seasonal listening. The Night Gallery has nothing specifically to do with Halloween, but it's spooky. And, of course, "Headless Horseman" is a classic. "You can't reason with a head-less ma-aa-n."
Damn true.
Can't remember where I got this or what it's from. Cool, though.
Believe it or not, I'd never heard that Ministry tune before. Unless it was in a movie or something and I forgot, which it probably was. But my wife loves it (and - apparently - so does my 7 month old son) so it's been in rotation round the homestead.
I love radio ads for movies. It is a genre with unique considerations. I was looking specifically for the radio spot for Visiting Hours (1982), which is from one of those retrospace mixes and I've grown accustomed to hearing during Halloween season (leading to finally actually viewing the film either last year or the year before; all the since-we-had-kids years blend into one when trying to figure out what I've seen). Couldn't find it, though, but while searching I found the Halloween one. Works for me. Now, as for Der Freischütz, the Wolf's Glen scene that opens Act 2 is great start to finish. But let me link to two specific spots: this one, roughly 8 minutes long but it's really the first 5 or 6 that would make the mix, and this one, from later in the scene. Those links open, respectively, to an avant-garde production of the opera (meaning you'll see some crazy shit on that stage; fair warning) and to a more traditional one. Both have subtitles, so you can read along for yourself.
To set the scene, though: the first link is Kaspar going into the Wolf's Glen (a haunted forest) alone to summon the spirit of Samiel (i.e. Satan). Kaspar has made a deal with the devil years before, and his time on earth is almost over. He wants to buy more time by swapping in the unsullied spirit of his friend Max for his own. Satan shrugs - whomever works, but no more stalling. "Bei den Pforten der Hölle! Morgen, er oder du! / By the gates of Hell - in the morning, him or you."
The second link is later in the scene, after Kaspar has brought Max into the Wolf's Glen to give him the magic bullets for the contest ("Der Freischütz" = "The Free Shooter," and there's a hunting/ shooting competition that is the climax of the opera. The idea is that the bullets will hit any target, but the 7th bullet will take an innocent life - Max's wife's. Satan loves that kind of crap.) The music for this second sequence (both for sure, but all the swirling stuff in between the bullet-count) is goddamn extraordinary - please crank it. Imagine an audience in 1822 seeing and hearing this for the first time. It's amazing they didn't lock Von Weber up, even if the opera ends with good triumphing over evil. No one in Europe had ever seen or heard anything like Der Freischütz before.
"Soul Dracula" and "Totentanz" are, all hyperbole aside, two of the greatest pieces of music ever written. The Omen has never been a favorite of mine. The opening scene is great, but they lose me after that. The only Omen I need is Pt. 3: The Final Conflict. Obviously, many disagree, and more power to them. The theme's awesome, though, and a seasonal fave.
1.14 The Vince Guaraldi Trio - It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown
1.15 Jon and Al - "The Thing (The Musical)"
"Hour of the Time" clearly echoes the intro of Arch Oboler's Lights Out Old Time Radio show. Couldn't find a link just to the intro so that's to an entire episode but link provided only for the intro. (Not to say that "Cat Wife" ain't a fine story/ episode. When I was boxing up all my stuff to move back to Chicago in 2010, I listened to a good 7 or 8 hours of Lights Out, and "Cat Wife" has stayed with me.) The contrast between it and the intro to Great Pumpkin works well to end the side, I think, and that Linus and Lucy tune is (a) welcome anywhere, and (b) another thing I look forward to hearing this time of year. Truthfully, any time of year. Ditto for that "Thing" tune - so many great lines. My favorite may be "You can check on your ancient computer / it's astonishing how fast that I spread / You can pick up an axe and go crazy / but I can grow legs from my head."
The knock-knock joke is from the recently-released Mandy with Nicolas Cage. That excerpt up there from TTCM would really only use the first ten or twenty seconds of that clip. Actually, were this an actual mix, I'd not use it at all but use Boat Chips's "Mulder, the Wrath of Leatherface" in its stead, which blends the beginning of that bit (from "Sally, I hear something - stop!" through the chainsaws and the screaming) with the ethereal intro to Aguirre, Der Zorn Gottes and an altered-at-will version of the X-Files theme. But, since I don't have a link to that one, I include the TTCM clip as a placeholder. All of it is meant as an intro to "Bad Moon Rising," which I actually might replace with the original CCR version. The contrast works better. The junior high kid in my head who occasionally calls the shots is really insistent on the Leatherwolf version, though, so it'd be a dilemma.
2.7 Arnold Schönberg - "Rotte Messe," Pierrot Lunaire
2.8 Cochran's Speech from Halloween III: Season of the Witch
Had I made this tape in the 90s, would I have run the music from that Brotherhood of Satan scene through the 4 track and try to record Cochran's speech over it for this part? It's possible. That Schönberg piece is pretty wild. Great atmosphere for a mix tape such as this.
Seriously - Brotherhood of Satan is so underrated.
2.9 Demon - "One Helluva Night"
2.10 That H-A-double-L-O-double-U-double-E-that-spells-HALLOWEENsong.
I might not use the entirety of that Fog theme - space permitting, though, sure why not. Such atmosphere there. That H-A-double-L... song takes its melody and structure from Saint-Saens wonderful Danse Macabre, which I almost included, as it's also a seasonal favorite, but I figure hey, save the space. I've got a lot of stops to make, and we've only got 45 minutes per side to play with.
"I'm Gonna Haunt You" is perfectly self-explanatory. As is "One Helluva Night," but there's a story, there, which I've told elsewhere, but here goes again. My brother had a Halloween party one year (I want to say 1983 or 1984) and I was told to stay upstairs and out of everyone's way. Which I did, but I came downstairs at one point to go to the kitchen/ peek in. Everyone was gone (I think out in the backyard for something or other) and this song was cranking on the stereo. I remember standing there in the doorway with this cranked, completely by myself in the house, with the chorus blaring over and over again.
The Demon tune in that playlist I made is not this one. I don't know if this link works, but the one I have in mind is the Introduction/ Chorus to Act 1, Scene 3, and the Old Servant's little bit right after. I had trouble finding it on YouTube. This one works great if cranked very loud. It could be something like "Masquerade Waltz" is more appropriate. If so, swap it in. (Hell, drop the 45 minute per side conceit and just add both.) Prince of Darkness has come up a few times lately, which made me think to include that wonderfully spooky bit from the very end of the movie/ very beginning of the expanded soundtrack. (Interesting they did it that way.) And "Werewolf" is another holdover form the retrospace mix(es).
Ain't no party like a Rothschild party because a Rothschild party don't stop.
2.19 The Beatles - "Good Night" (Anthology version)
Although Berlioz's entire Symphonie Fantastique is wonderful, as is the whole 5th movement (The Witches' Sabbath) from which this bit is taken, I'd probably just use a small portion of it. I like the idea of weaving in the "Dies Irae" theme once on each side. Before the Beatles (and there's no Halloween connection there, I just like it as the credits/ exit music) there's that Redbone track. Personally I'll take it over the band's other big hit ("Come and Get Your Love") which isn't a dis to the latter, just "Witch Queen" is so damn slick.
