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Eerie Archives #4
Eerie Archives Volume 4: Collecting Eerie 16-22
Join Frank Frazetta, Steve Ditko, John Severin, Gene Colan, Angelo Torres, and other legendary artists for an eerie excursion through the haunted halls of comics history, as Dark Horse Comics unleashes the fourth big volume of Eerie magazine archives. Vampires, ghouls, werewolves, and ax-wielding maniacs are only the beginning of the thrills you'll find inside this huge collection crafted by the most gifted storytellers the medium of comics has ever known.
260 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 28, 2010
About the author
Archie Goodwin
979 books71 followersArchie Goodwin was an American comic book writer, editor, and artist. He worked on a number of comic strips in addition to comic books, and is best known for his Warren and Marvel Comics work. For Warren he was chief writer and editor of landmark horror anthology titles Creepy and Eerie, and for Marvel he set up the creator-owned Epic Comics as well as adapting Star Wars into both comics and newspaper strips. He is regularly cited as the "best-loved comic book editor, ever."
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 13, 2024
This review originally published in Looking For a Good Book. Rated 2.5 of 5
Having recently enjoyed The Complete Web of Horror, which collected and reprinted a stunning B&W comic series from a few decades back, I thought I'd go for another book of collected reprints, this time the classic comic magazine, Eerie. Eerie was not a magazine that I ever read, though I'd certainly seen it in the stores and would have admired some of the covers (such as the Frazetta piece used as the cover for this compilation). This seemed like a good opportunity to catch up on what I missed in my youth.
But it turns out I didn't miss much.
While one would want a nice balance between art and story, even in an anthology magazine like Eerie, it's pretty clear that the art takes center stage. This is one of the only comics/graphic novels I've read in which the artist is listed first in the front page credits. (Oddly it isn't consistent, I noticed only one or two instances when the writer was listed first.) So, with an all-star line-up of artists one would expect a really stellar magazine. Represented here are artists such as Frank Frazetta (covers), Steve Ditko, Angelo Torres, Gray Morrow, Gene Colon, Al Williamson, Roy G Krenkel, and Alex Toth, among others. With stories by such names as Archie Goodwin and Otto Binder among a plethora of names I didn't recognize.
I had hoped to be wowed - seeing great B&W art from the heyday of this kind of work - but it was really a disappointment. Neither the stories nor the art made much of an impression.
This collection reprints most of each magazine and I'm almost sad to say that reading the old letters column and the old ads (with the addresses blanked out - probably wisely) was more interesting than the stories. The ads, which were pretty generic among a variety of magazines and comics at the time, brought back a sense of nostalgia for me, and the letters also reflected the mindset and style of letter writing of the day - that casual, we're old friends, in on the gag, vernacular. I'm slightly curious if any of those letter writers (names and hometowns reprinted) have seen these reprinted and what they might think.
Apparently Eerie comics had a 'mascot' of sorts - a schlubby-looking ogre or Igor-like character, Cousin Eerie, whose persona introduced each story and commented at the end of each story. I find it an odd character to be so prominent. He doesn't look creepy or eerie or scary - he looks comical and stupid, which takes away from the supposed dark stories.
This wasn't a magazine of choice for me back in the day and it still isn't worthy of reading now.
Looking for a good book? Eerie Archives, Volume Four is a graphic novel collection of old Eerie Magazine stories. The magazine struggled to maintain a readership in the late 1960's and through the 1970's and its pretty clear why when you look back through a collection such as this.
I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.
Having recently enjoyed The Complete Web of Horror, which collected and reprinted a stunning B&W comic series from a few decades back, I thought I'd go for another book of collected reprints, this time the classic comic magazine, Eerie. Eerie was not a magazine that I ever read, though I'd certainly seen it in the stores and would have admired some of the covers (such as the Frazetta piece used as the cover for this compilation). This seemed like a good opportunity to catch up on what I missed in my youth.
But it turns out I didn't miss much.
While one would want a nice balance between art and story, even in an anthology magazine like Eerie, it's pretty clear that the art takes center stage. This is one of the only comics/graphic novels I've read in which the artist is listed first in the front page credits. (Oddly it isn't consistent, I noticed only one or two instances when the writer was listed first.) So, with an all-star line-up of artists one would expect a really stellar magazine. Represented here are artists such as Frank Frazetta (covers), Steve Ditko, Angelo Torres, Gray Morrow, Gene Colon, Al Williamson, Roy G Krenkel, and Alex Toth, among others. With stories by such names as Archie Goodwin and Otto Binder among a plethora of names I didn't recognize.
I had hoped to be wowed - seeing great B&W art from the heyday of this kind of work - but it was really a disappointment. Neither the stories nor the art made much of an impression.
This collection reprints most of each magazine and I'm almost sad to say that reading the old letters column and the old ads (with the addresses blanked out - probably wisely) was more interesting than the stories. The ads, which were pretty generic among a variety of magazines and comics at the time, brought back a sense of nostalgia for me, and the letters also reflected the mindset and style of letter writing of the day - that casual, we're old friends, in on the gag, vernacular. I'm slightly curious if any of those letter writers (names and hometowns reprinted) have seen these reprinted and what they might think.
Apparently Eerie comics had a 'mascot' of sorts - a schlubby-looking ogre or Igor-like character, Cousin Eerie, whose persona introduced each story and commented at the end of each story. I find it an odd character to be so prominent. He doesn't look creepy or eerie or scary - he looks comical and stupid, which takes away from the supposed dark stories.
This wasn't a magazine of choice for me back in the day and it still isn't worthy of reading now.
Looking for a good book? Eerie Archives, Volume Four is a graphic novel collection of old Eerie Magazine stories. The magazine struggled to maintain a readership in the late 1960's and through the 1970's and its pretty clear why when you look back through a collection such as this.
I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.
October 13, 2019
Another disappointing volume in the series, and I was tricked for a bit by the way Dark Horse set it up. Warren was going through poor times and didn't have the money for new content. So they printed old stories from early in the line. I thought in this volume that they would skip stories that had been reprinted, and they do. But if the stories had been previously printed in Creepy, they make no indication and just reprint the story. So if you are a collector and have purchased books from both series then you're out of luck. I haven't researched enough and I don't want to got through every single story, but my guess is that half this stuff is reprints and half is original content. Is the original content enough to justify purchasing this book? Probably not.
January 11, 2021
A weak entry into the series. The writing and art are not as good as earlier volumes.
June 27, 2024
These stories range between pretty good and “I could swear I've read that somewhere else before”. The latter feeling is because I have, in fact, read them in the recent past. A handful of these stories were originally in early issues of Creepy, and since Dark Horse has decided to only omit stories reprinted within the series (i.e. Issue 21 was almost entirely comprised of stories from earlier issues of Eerie and were omitted), I get double dipped.
There are some quality names attached to this series, as well as some not-so-quality names. The good stuff is by Al Williamson, Tom Sutton (truth be told, he's pretty uneven here), Johnny Craig, Frank Bolle, Reed Crandall, and a one page Neal Adams bit. There are other decent writers and artists as well. The stories all tread the same classic, Gothic Horror ground. I am a sucker for this sort of thing, but if you like your Horror in a more Saw, snuff porn vein, then this series might disappoint you. This is comfort food, Horror comic book style.
Also of note is the Frank Frazetta cover which graces this book. It was later used as the cover to Wolfmother's self-titled debut LP in 2006.
Another beautifully done high end hardcover. The black and white material is scanned at insanely high resolution so nothing is lost or blurred. It's neither too dark nor too bright, as is usually the case with scanned black and white material. The paper is thick coated stock, the binding is sewn, and it clocks in at a hefty 250+ pages.
There are some quality names attached to this series, as well as some not-so-quality names. The good stuff is by Al Williamson, Tom Sutton (truth be told, he's pretty uneven here), Johnny Craig, Frank Bolle, Reed Crandall, and a one page Neal Adams bit. There are other decent writers and artists as well. The stories all tread the same classic, Gothic Horror ground. I am a sucker for this sort of thing, but if you like your Horror in a more Saw, snuff porn vein, then this series might disappoint you. This is comfort food, Horror comic book style.
Also of note is the Frank Frazetta cover which graces this book. It was later used as the cover to Wolfmother's self-titled debut LP in 2006.
Another beautifully done high end hardcover. The black and white material is scanned at insanely high resolution so nothing is lost or blurred. It's neither too dark nor too bright, as is usually the case with scanned black and white material. The paper is thick coated stock, the binding is sewn, and it clocks in at a hefty 250+ pages.
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
March 13, 2012
Another volume from the lost era where they had to rely on old stories from past issues (not reprinted) and stories from CREEPY (are reprinted). It keeps this from being great, but it's still good fun.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews