Eerie #135 [1982]

Until recently, EERIE #135 [1982] was the best quick source for Ditko's 1966/1967 work at Warren, reprinting ten of the sixteen stories that Ditko drew for the publisher's two magazines. All of the ten were written by Archie Goodwin.

CREEPY #9 [1966]  - "The Spirit Of The Thing"

CREEPY #10 [1966]  - "Collector's Edition"

CREEPY #11 [1966]  - "Beast Man"

CREEPY #12 [1966]  - "Blood Of The Werewolf"

CREEPY #13 [1967]  - "Second Chance"

CREEPY #14 [1967]  - "Where Sorcery Lives"

CREEPY #15 [1967]  - "City Of Doom"

EERIE #4 [1966]  - "Shrieking Man"

EERIE #7 [1967]  - "Fly"

EERIE #8 [1967]  - "Demon Sword"

There are a lot of minor alterations in the stories, such as changing the host from Uncle Creepy to Cousin Eerie as needed, and altering the title lettering and story introductions (sometimes omitted entirely). The reproduction also isn't great, with the grey wash tones sometimes coming out a bit darker than they should. And the cover by Sanjulian is a bit incongruous for an all-Ditko issue in style, though it fits in subject matter.

All of the stories are pretty good, some are spectacular. Of special note is "City Of Doom", since as far as I know it was the only one of the stories which hadn't been reprinted by Warren prior to this. It features a barely dressed barbarian warrior named Thane. I'm not sure if Thane appeared before this, but there is at least one more story with the character (by Goodwin and artist Jeff Jones) in the following issue of its original publication. I'm also not up on the history of barbarian warriors in comics, but I do know this is well before Marvel licensed Conan for their comics.

Anyway, Thane opens the story betrayed and left to be eaten by some great looking vultures at the beginning of the story, but manages to escape and make short work of the vultures. He then encounters Livia, the also barely dressed high priestess of the ancient city of Kadith in the middle of the desert, and follows her there in hopes of both revenge on his betrayers and some treasure. As you'd expect, what follows is a mix of monsters, betrayal and death amidst the mazelike interior of the Kadith.

Overall not one of the best of the Ditko/Goodwin collaborations at Warren, but pretty decent, and a few great visual moments from Ditko.

Eerie Greatest Hits [1994]

The companion volume to CREEPY THE CLASSIC YEARS [1991], Harris comics reprinted this selection of stories from the first few years of Warren's EERIE magazine, mostly written by Archie Goodwin. It's not as good as the prior book. The choice of stories is fine, but overall the book is just cheaper looking, with thinner paper, weaker reproduction of the art and less relevant editorial material. There were two Godwin/Ditko stories.

"Room With A View" is a 6-page story from EERIE #3 [1966], the first Ditko story for Warren. It's a haunted hotel room story, where a traveler insists on taking the only empty room in a hotel, despite the desk clerks warnings that no one is ever happy there. Turns out to be a haunted mirror, which give progressively more terrifying visions. The story isn't one of Goodwin's better ones, but Ditko does a pretty good job with his imaginative renderings of the visions in the mirror. This one is drawn closer to the more common Ditko style, although more detailed than most of his colour comics.

The 6-page "Deep Ruby" is from EERIE #6 [1966], although the host framing sequences have Uncle Creepy instead of Cousin Eerie, so it seems to be taken from the prior reprint in CREEPY #25 [1969]. It's a quick little story about a jeweler approached by a decrepit homeless man, and being surprised by the red ruby the man shows him. His desire for the stone leads him into a horrific nightmare dimension, and of course Ditko's detailed renderings of that dimension are the heart of the story. He'd drawn some comics that evoked that kind of imagery before, but it's in some of these Warren stories that those concepts appear fully-formed. The combination of the lack of Comics Code restrictions and the freedom that comes with drawing for black and white, so the art that leaves the drawing board is the art that people see, really seems to have brought something out. This story uses the inkwash style that the majority of Ditko's Warren work was done in, and even in this lackluster reprint the attention to detail is impressive.

Creepy The Classic Years [1991]

After Warren stopped publishing around 1983 their titles were next seen after a gap of a few years from publisher Harris Comics. While Harris published about a million new and reprint Vampirella comics (approximate number, may be higher) they made far less use of the CREEPY and EERIE brands, with only a few new CREEPY comics and one reprint book of 1960s material for each title.

CREEPY THE CLASSIC YEARS [1991] came first.  Editor Richard Howell provides the introduction, which includes a few notes on each artist, including Ditko, and also the page header seen here which I'm still looking for information on. In the book are two Ditko reprints, both written by Archie Goodwin.

The 6-page "Second Chance" from CREEPY #13 [1967] has a spectacular splash page, and it's no surprise that Dark Horse is using a cropped and colourized version of that page for their upcoming reprint of Ditko's Warren stories. Trust me, the full page in the original black and white is even better. Featuring Edward Norton's descent into Hell, where he confronts Beelzebub and demands their bargain to give Nugent a second shot at life after his death. Ditko really lets his imagination run wild in the land of the damned, using similar concepts to his famous fantasy landscapes in Doctor Strange, but rendered in ways the Comics Code probably would have objected to. There's also an earthbound component to the story, set in a graveyard, which allows for a few more macabre backgrounds and looks of sheer terror that Ditko excelled in. The plot itself is pretty routine, but Goodwin keeps it moving along and lets the artwork do the heavy lifting on this one.

The book concludes with the 8-page "Collector's Edition" from CREEPY #10 [1966], which is, for those of you familiar with it, an appropriate story to finish a book. Howell's introduction mentions that some consider it "the single finest story Ditko ever turned out", and it's definitely a contender. The story features Colin Danforth, a collector of obscure and forbidden occult books, an obsession which forces him to do business with the unsavory Murch, who dangles the possibility of the rarest of artifacts, the Marquis LeMode's "Dark Visions". One of Goodwin's best, and Ditko was the perfect artistic partner for the story, rendering it in a detailed style, with some key parts using some very unusual technique that I can't quite figure out. I think it's some sort of mechanical tone, but used very delicate way, creating almost a wood-cut effect. And to top it all off, his detailed rendering never gets in the way of the storytelling.

Creepy #16 [1967]

"The Sands That Change" from CREEPY #16 [1967] is the final Ditko story published by Warren, and the only one of the sixteen Warren stories not written by Archie Goodwin, with Clark Dimond and Terry Bisson scripting.

This time around we have comic book artist Tom Newman and his new wife honeymooning in the Mojave Desert, ignoring some warnings from the local Indians about thee dangers of the territory and "drawing the desert only as it really is". Turns out that whatever he draws comes to life, unfortunately they only figure that out after he designs a new monster for an upcoming comic.

Nice story with a clever visual hook for Ditko to play with, and a pretty decent twist at the end.

One of the interesting things about Ditko's work at Warren is the variety of art styles he used. The inkwash ones are the most famous, and the tight rendering on "Collector's Edition" make that a favourite of many, but this one has a pretty interesting technique that I don't think I've seen Ditko use elsewhere. I'm not sure, it looks like he might be using some sort of charcoal or crayon for the shading, or maybe drawing on a different kind of paper with some texture, definitely not the pen or brush of his typical work.

Eerie #10 [1967]

Archie Goodwin and Steve Ditko bring us the 8-page "Warrior Of Death" from Warren's EERIE #10 [1967], where the barbarian warrior Zahran finds himself mortally wounded after a lifetime of bloody combat and convinces Death to let him live and continue battling in the service of Death.  You know that's not going to end well for anyone but Death.

This is the last published of the fifteen Ditko/Goodwin stories for Warren in 1966/67 (with one more Ditko story written by others). It's obvious why these stories are remembered so fondly, with a lot of vivid imagery by Ditko (the face of Death is great) and some nice detail in the grey inkwash shading that you hardly ever see in the colour comics of that era. Goodwin does a nice pulp story without overwriting and letting the art speak for itself.

Eerie #9 [1967]

From Ditko's run of 16 stories for the Warren mags CREEPY and EERIE, this issue features the 6-page "Isle Of The Beast", written by Archie Goodwin. It begins in mid-story, as a man named Amberson is run down to the point of collapse through a thick jungle, hunted by a barely human beast. Flashing back, we see how he was rescued from a shipwreck by a man named Rochefort, who it turns out is quite crazy, having mistaken Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game" for an instruction manual, creating a formula which gives him the strength and cunning of beasts and using it to hunt men, as you can see from his wall decorations. Unfortunately for him, the hunt on this full moon is going to be foiled by Amberson's dark secret. Emphasizing the full moon there didn't give it away, did it?

While not the most original story by Goodwin, he at least does namecheck the big influence, and tells it well. The real point of something like this is to give Ditko interesting stuff to draw, which he does even more than normal here. Most of his Warren work used an inkwash effect that Ditko proved to be an absolute master of, but this one is probably the most extreme, not just using the various grey tones for shading but for the most part not using solid blacks at all and doing the full drawing in various shades of grey. It's really an unsettling effect, especially with the subject matter, and the scenes in the jungle, with multiples shades and levels, are very effective.

It really is one of those "what could have been" situations when you look at how quickly Ditko grew in this style in the previous year and realize that because of circumstances he'd only be there for a few more months.

Dark Horse has all of that era of the mags reprinted now, so all 16 of Ditko's stories are available now. Unfortunately, you need to get 5 books at $50 cover price each to get all of them. I guess you can write them to let them know if you'd like to see some artist-specific collections, starting with a Ditko book.

Creepy Archives #2
Creepy Archives #3
Creepy Archives #4
Eerie Archives #1
Eerie Archives #2

Eerie #5 [1966]

Archie Goodwin writes the 8-page story "Black Magic" for Ditko to provide the full ink-wash treatment.  In this tale, the wizard Valdar, confident in his long-studied mastery of black magic, aspires to raise the dead, despite the warnings of his old teacher.  Unfortunately for him, he's unaware of one of secret that the master kept from the apprentice.

A great story by Goodwin, with some smart dialogue and a clever twist that is completely fair, well foreshadowed and still a surprise. Ditko matches him all the way, with one of the best of the stories he did with the ink-wash effect. The smokey demons Valdar conjures in the first scene set the mood nicely, and the effect of the final spell gone wrong are about as scary as anything he ever drew.