And what Creepy does it put me in a very happy and calm world where I can detox from a day of bits and loops and schemas and other complexities that stress my already stressed brain more than I should let it.
When I reach for a read right after a stressful day, the last thing I want to do is get into something that’s going to be as difficult or more difficult than what I had already been focusing on for 10+ hours.
Not saying that Creepy is dumb, but far from it. It’s downright witty!
The reason I started picking up the old Creepy books was that Dark Horse has put out a new version of the book (volume 1 recently came out), and I picked that up and started doing some research. The whole story of Warren publishing is inspiring.
Creepy Magazine. #1 was published in 1964, about 10 years after Tales From the Crypt was canceled amid pressure from the Comic Code Authority (assholes). What Warren did was to release the comics in magazine format instead, bypassing the authority. Awesome.
The original Creepy has since been re-released as a series of 5-issue collections by Dark Horse, and is already up to the 9th volume.
Creepy is very much in the vein of TFTC: short stories, good prologue, a build up, and generally, a twist! The content varies from volume to volume, but you’re guaranteed to get a full dose of classic monsters (werewolves, vampires), some sci-fi (weird worlds, space), and lots of “karma is a bitch, now you’ll die” revenge stories. All easy to read, and each like candy, making you crave more after more.
One of the coolest parts of these archives is that they’ve included original read letters, as well as the old advertisements for things like monster rings, ant farms, movies, etc. Brings back memories no matter what era you were born.
I also picked up Eerie Archives Volume 1, and read it, and some consider it better than Creepy, which is weird considering they use the same authors and artists. Both good.
There’s a Creepy website too, although sadly, it is very old.
