Sebastien's Reviews > Eerie Archives, Volume 1

I've been working my way through a variety of the Warren catalogue (Vampirella, Creepy, Eerie). I guess a lot of this you could kind of classify as pulp horror. What's amazing is the quality of the art (of course there is variation b/c they used a lot of different artists throughout the years) but overall it maintains a very high level imo. The work is pen and ink, which is perfect for the material and adds a sense of gloom and ominousness. This volume features many incredible artists including Alex Toth (sense of design is superb, I'm looking forward to reading his comic Bravo for Adventure), Al Williamson, covers by Frazetta, Reed Crandall (very tight style), Steve Ditko, Wally Wood (plan on reading his comic Cannon soon), etc etc. For me it is fun to discover all these various artists from this period, opened up an era of comics and illustration that I didn't know much about.

Quite a few stories are written by Archie Goodwin who was the engine behind Warren (at least in this time period, mid 60s). I tend to enjoy his stories. Some pieces are more clever in terms of twists and turns than others, some are a bit basic but in general I enjoy the ride because the stories do a good job of putting you into these dark gloomy atmospheres. There is a magic to the stories, the worlds they inhabit, there's a rawness (and often great imagination) to it that works well and the artwork brings it to life in such magnificent ways. I do recommend these but def will not be to everyone's tastes (but what is?!).