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Creepy Archives #4
Creepy Archives Volume 4
Pulpy, smart, and scary, the stories in Creepy constituted some of the best short-form horror fiction ever told in comics. With legendary comics writer/editor Archie Goodwin both editing the magazine and crafting most of its storytelling, Creepy was at once a newsstand favorite with fright fans, and a vaunted showcase of fine comics art for serious fans of the art form. For decades, the only sources for these stories were the expensive collectible original issues. Now Dark Horse is collecting all of the original material from the history of Creepy magazine into a hardcover archive library that is garnering rave reviews from fans and critics alike!
240 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 15, 2009
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101 people want to read
About the author
Shawna Gore
14 books7 followersShawna Gore is an editor at Dark Horse where she has worked on such titles as the Creepy, Eerie, Herbie Archives, The Cleaners, and more.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
February 13, 2025
Terrors That Time Cannot Bury: A Review of Creepy Archives, Volume 4
Horror, like the shadows it so often employs, never truly fades. It lingers, waiting—in the forgotten corners of old bookstores, in the dim recesses of memory, in the attic boxes of long-abandoned comics—until it is rediscovered.
And when it is, it is as fresh, as unsettling, as exhilarating as ever.
So it is with Creepy Archives, Volume 4, a collection of issues #16-20 of Warren Publishing’s legendary horror magazine, a volume that solidifies Creepy as not merely a great horror comic, but one of the greatest horror anthologies ever produced.
If Volume 3 was where Creepy perfected its aesthetic and narrative style, Volume 4 is where it fully embraces its identity, delivering stories that are bolder, sharper, and more relentlessly eerie than ever before.
This is Creepy at the height of its power—a collection of stories that do not simply frighten, but unsettle, do not simply entertain, but haunt.
If you love horror, if you revel in the kind of stories that slip under your skin and take up residence in the back of your mind, then you need this book in your collection.
The State of Creepy in 1967: A Genre Defining Itself
By 1967, Creepy was no longer an experiment in reviving horror comics. It was the dominant force in the genre.
The Comics Code Authority had rendered mainstream horror comics toothless, but Creepy had proven that horror, free from censorship, could thrive again.
Warren Publishing had firmly established itself as the new EC Comics, reclaiming the kind of twisted morality tales, ironic comeuppances, and existential terrors that had once made Tales from the Crypt legendary.
And, crucially, Creepy was not just replicating old formulas—it was innovating, experimenting, evolving into something more sophisticated, more cinematic, and more psychologically layered.
This volume is a turning point, the moment where Creepy begins to feel less like a revival and more like a revolution.
The Art: Horror as High Craft
If Creepy had always been a visual masterpiece, Volume 4 takes things even further, with some of the most stunning horror illustration ever put to paper.
The Final Frank Frazetta Covers
It is difficult to overstate the sheer power of Frank Frazetta’s covers.
By this point in Creepy’s run, Frazetta’s tenure as cover artist was coming to an end—but what a farewell it was.
His painted compositions are mythic, filled with creatures and specters that seem as alive as they are grotesque.
His use of color and lighting creates a sense of movement and weight, as if each cover were a still frame from an old, forbidden nightmare.
His understanding of horror’s seductive quality is on full display—his work does not just invite the reader inside, it dares them to enter, knowing full well that terror awaits within.
Frazetta’s covers for Creepy remain some of the greatest horror illustrations ever produced, and his final contributions in this volume are a fitting sendoff to a master of the macabre.
Inside the Pages: The Greatest Horror Artists of Their Time
Once past the covers, Creepy continues to deliver some of the finest black-and-white horror illustration ever created.
Reed Crandall, a master of the EC Comics aesthetic, crafts panels so detailed, so richly textured, that they feel more like etchings in an old tome than modern comics.
Steve Ditko, known for his surrealist tendencies, leans heavily into existential horror, his nightmarish use of angles and distorted space creating a sense of dread that feels deeply personal, deeply psychological.
Gray Morrow, whose illustrative precision is nearly photographic, delivers work that is so strikingly realistic, it feels like we are witnessing horror through a window rather than a comic panel.
Alex Toth, always a master of economy, strips horror down to its most essential visual elements, proving that a few bold strokes of ink can be just as terrifying as intricate, grotesque detail.
This is horror illustration as fine art, proving once again that Creepy was not just a great comic—it was an artistic movement.
The Stories: Twisted Morality and Unforgiving Fate
Volume 4 continues Creepy’s tradition of delivering stories that are as clever as they are chilling.
If you are expecting cheap frights and simple monster tales, look elsewhere.
These are tales of doomed ambition, poetic justice, and slow, creeping inevitability.
Among the highlights:
“Snakes Alive” – A delightfully grotesque revenge tale, in which a man discovers that greed and betrayal often end in serpentine horror.
“The Squaw” – A deeply unsettling adaptation of Bram Stoker’s classic short story, proving that Creepy was not just about new nightmares, but resurrecting old ones.
“The Haunted Sky” – A beautifully illustrated, tragic ghost story set in the skies of World War I, where death is not an enemy to be defeated, but an inevitability to be embraced.
“The Body-Snatcher” – A Creepy take on the classic Robert Louis Stevenson tale, filled with gothic dread and morally compromised characters doomed by their own arrogance.
Every tale in this volume operates on a central, unspoken rule:
In Creepy’s world, there are no heroes—only victims of their own sins, their own desires, their own mistakes.
And that, in the end, is what makes them so powerful.
Why Creepy Still Endures
There is a reason why, decades after its original publication, Creepy remains one of the most revered horror comic series of all time.
And there is a reason why, after first discovering those old, tattered magazines in the back of a comic shop in the 1980s, you felt compelled to race out and collect these restored editions.
Because Creepy was never just a horror comic.
It was a monument to a lost art, a revival of horror as something rich, elegant, psychologically layered.
And, above all, it was a reminder that true horror is timeless.
These stories do not feel old or quaint—they feel as fresh, as terrifying, as eerily relevant as ever.
Because horror, real horror, never dies.
It waits.
In the shadows, in the pages of an old book, in the whispers of an unread tale.
And when you find it again—when you finally return to it—you realize it was never really gone.
It was just waiting for you to come back.
As well it should.
Horror, like the shadows it so often employs, never truly fades. It lingers, waiting—in the forgotten corners of old bookstores, in the dim recesses of memory, in the attic boxes of long-abandoned comics—until it is rediscovered.
And when it is, it is as fresh, as unsettling, as exhilarating as ever.
So it is with Creepy Archives, Volume 4, a collection of issues #16-20 of Warren Publishing’s legendary horror magazine, a volume that solidifies Creepy as not merely a great horror comic, but one of the greatest horror anthologies ever produced.
If Volume 3 was where Creepy perfected its aesthetic and narrative style, Volume 4 is where it fully embraces its identity, delivering stories that are bolder, sharper, and more relentlessly eerie than ever before.
This is Creepy at the height of its power—a collection of stories that do not simply frighten, but unsettle, do not simply entertain, but haunt.
If you love horror, if you revel in the kind of stories that slip under your skin and take up residence in the back of your mind, then you need this book in your collection.
The State of Creepy in 1967: A Genre Defining Itself
By 1967, Creepy was no longer an experiment in reviving horror comics. It was the dominant force in the genre.
The Comics Code Authority had rendered mainstream horror comics toothless, but Creepy had proven that horror, free from censorship, could thrive again.
Warren Publishing had firmly established itself as the new EC Comics, reclaiming the kind of twisted morality tales, ironic comeuppances, and existential terrors that had once made Tales from the Crypt legendary.
And, crucially, Creepy was not just replicating old formulas—it was innovating, experimenting, evolving into something more sophisticated, more cinematic, and more psychologically layered.
This volume is a turning point, the moment where Creepy begins to feel less like a revival and more like a revolution.
The Art: Horror as High Craft
If Creepy had always been a visual masterpiece, Volume 4 takes things even further, with some of the most stunning horror illustration ever put to paper.
The Final Frank Frazetta Covers
It is difficult to overstate the sheer power of Frank Frazetta’s covers.
By this point in Creepy’s run, Frazetta’s tenure as cover artist was coming to an end—but what a farewell it was.
His painted compositions are mythic, filled with creatures and specters that seem as alive as they are grotesque.
His use of color and lighting creates a sense of movement and weight, as if each cover were a still frame from an old, forbidden nightmare.
His understanding of horror’s seductive quality is on full display—his work does not just invite the reader inside, it dares them to enter, knowing full well that terror awaits within.
Frazetta’s covers for Creepy remain some of the greatest horror illustrations ever produced, and his final contributions in this volume are a fitting sendoff to a master of the macabre.
Inside the Pages: The Greatest Horror Artists of Their Time
Once past the covers, Creepy continues to deliver some of the finest black-and-white horror illustration ever created.
Reed Crandall, a master of the EC Comics aesthetic, crafts panels so detailed, so richly textured, that they feel more like etchings in an old tome than modern comics.
Steve Ditko, known for his surrealist tendencies, leans heavily into existential horror, his nightmarish use of angles and distorted space creating a sense of dread that feels deeply personal, deeply psychological.
Gray Morrow, whose illustrative precision is nearly photographic, delivers work that is so strikingly realistic, it feels like we are witnessing horror through a window rather than a comic panel.
Alex Toth, always a master of economy, strips horror down to its most essential visual elements, proving that a few bold strokes of ink can be just as terrifying as intricate, grotesque detail.
This is horror illustration as fine art, proving once again that Creepy was not just a great comic—it was an artistic movement.
The Stories: Twisted Morality and Unforgiving Fate
Volume 4 continues Creepy’s tradition of delivering stories that are as clever as they are chilling.
If you are expecting cheap frights and simple monster tales, look elsewhere.
These are tales of doomed ambition, poetic justice, and slow, creeping inevitability.
Among the highlights:
“Snakes Alive” – A delightfully grotesque revenge tale, in which a man discovers that greed and betrayal often end in serpentine horror.
“The Squaw” – A deeply unsettling adaptation of Bram Stoker’s classic short story, proving that Creepy was not just about new nightmares, but resurrecting old ones.
“The Haunted Sky” – A beautifully illustrated, tragic ghost story set in the skies of World War I, where death is not an enemy to be defeated, but an inevitability to be embraced.
“The Body-Snatcher” – A Creepy take on the classic Robert Louis Stevenson tale, filled with gothic dread and morally compromised characters doomed by their own arrogance.
Every tale in this volume operates on a central, unspoken rule:
In Creepy’s world, there are no heroes—only victims of their own sins, their own desires, their own mistakes.
And that, in the end, is what makes them so powerful.
Why Creepy Still Endures
There is a reason why, decades after its original publication, Creepy remains one of the most revered horror comic series of all time.
And there is a reason why, after first discovering those old, tattered magazines in the back of a comic shop in the 1980s, you felt compelled to race out and collect these restored editions.
Because Creepy was never just a horror comic.
It was a monument to a lost art, a revival of horror as something rich, elegant, psychologically layered.
And, above all, it was a reminder that true horror is timeless.
These stories do not feel old or quaint—they feel as fresh, as terrifying, as eerily relevant as ever.
Because horror, real horror, never dies.
It waits.
In the shadows, in the pages of an old book, in the whispers of an unread tale.
And when you find it again—when you finally return to it—you realize it was never really gone.
It was just waiting for you to come back.
As well it should.
December 8, 2018
By this volume in the series, quality starts to take a turn. First to point out the good: Just a story or two from greats like Tom Sutton, Neal Adams, Steve Ditko, and Reed Crandall. But there is a slightly better turnout from Johnny Craig, and his stuff might be better in Creepy than it was back when he was doing Tomb of Horror. But, by far, the standout artist in this volume is a relative newcomer Rocco Mastroserio, who is featured in every issue in this book. But this volume also has some bad: mostly in the form of forgettable, ugly art from some artists I have never heard of. Also they adapt other stories into comic form like Carmilla, Mummy's Hand, and Mark of the Beast by Kipling. Seems like a good idea to adapt these stories, but they weren't adapted well. Mummy comes across as dull and the other two are so unnaturally shoe-horned into a few pages as to come across as incomprehensible. But Creepy wasn't getting bad. I think they were just going through some growing pains and were going through some transitions with their artists.
December 11, 2010
Really disappointing. The art was often pedestrian and the stories unimaginative. When one story is good it leaps out at you because the previous pap has been so uninspiring. I remember better from Creepy magazine.
April 25, 2021
I didn't like this volume as much as the previous three. A couple of issues into these reprints was when Archie Goodwin left as editor and the stories in the latter part were kind of hit and miss. We'll see what future volumes will be like...
December 7, 2021
A weaker entry in the series. The stories lack the energy of earlier collections, as these mark the point in time when Archie Goodwin was heading out the door.
July 6, 2024
There is a definite shift in quality from the earlier issues, with Archie Goodwin relinquishing much of the writing duty to hands less capable, ditto the artists stable. Not all was lost, as many of the greats still contributed to this series, just not as often. I have been told that the quality picks back up, and I hope so. This wasn't a bad read, but it wasn't as spectacular as the previous volumes.
January 21, 2016
I was lucky and collected a full set of these magazines and got a chance to read the fantastic stories and enjoy the incredible art from many of the greats, many of who got their start here, from the comic world. If you like offbeat horror, supernatural, SiFi and just plan different stories then these are the magazines for you. Very recommended
January 1, 2020
Appropriately focuses on Archie Goodwin in the introduction, since many of the tales are his in this volume. Notable for the Frazetta cover of the Neal Adams/Archie Goodwin "A Curse of the Claws" feature. There are also a few notable adaptations, including Joe Orlando's version of Universal Horror's film The Mummy's Hand, and a fairly longish version of the 1872 vampire classic Carmilla.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews