In 1976, the Warren magazines enter a more mature phase, either because its readers had grown tired of stories about vampires, mummies, and werewolves, or simply because it was time for a change. What was once a kiddie magazine with many stories featuring the monsters from the Universal pictures, was now touching on more mature, adult subjects.
This volume features some of the early stories by Bruce Jones, who began, as Bill Du Bay, as an artist. But like Du Bay, Jones found he had a knack for telling stories, and would soon become Warren's best writer, and a fan favorite for years. Unfortunately, most of his best work appeared in the Warren magazines, as he didn't seem to be able to pull the same quality working for any other editor or publisher (even when he edited his own line of comics at Pacific in the late 80's). That said, there are some real gems by him in here, beginning with "As ye sow...", a modern take on vampire stories, and very similar to most horror/gore films being made nowadays, though this story was written more than 30 years ago, which shows how much in advance of his time Bruce Jones was, and culminating in "In deep", illustrated by Corben with his incomparable color, and the return of Al Williamson with the whimsical sci-fi story "Now you see it...", which foreshadows Jones' own Alien Encounters comic book for Pacific as well.
As if that weren't enough, we also get Russ Heath back (though he'd only contributed one story for Blazing Combat before), illustrating the magnificent Bruce Jones-penned "Process of elimination". Seeing this, and Heath's other job in this volume, "The shadow of the axe!", written by a young Dave Sim prior to Cerebus, makes you wonder why Warren didn't contact him before, as Heath surely was one of the best artists they had (and many of his best stuff was done for Warren, so hold on for future volumes!).
Among the Spanish artists, we get in the first issue Miguel Quesada, an artist I hadn't mentioned before in my earlier reviews, mainly because he hardly contributed anything else for Warren. The story he illustrates isn't that great, but he was an incredible artist (unfortunately much of his work is marred by Du Bay's insistence on adding gray tones over the artwork). Quesada would illustrate, among other things, "The Trigan Empire" for British weeklies after Don Lawrence left, and that was some big shoes to fill, since all the artwork was done entirely in watercolors. Quesada has now quit the business, and spends his time painting.
Ortiz, Bermejo, Blazquez, Monés, Galvez and Maroto (who gets a whole issue devoted to him), are among the other Spaniards featured here. Martin Salvador continues to astonish me with his clean, precise work, and why he never achieved the fame he so justly deserved, is something I'll never understand. His best contribution here (though we see him in almost every issue), is for the Doug Moench story "Ain't it just like the night", done with hardly any text (a rarity for someone as verbose as Moench; he must've felt a little lazy that day), but made up by Martin's absolutely astounding and almost cinematic graphics, something that was very rare for the times, where most American comic books relied on heavy texts that explained everything you saw in the drawings.
I'd just like to finish with the Spanish artists by mentioning here a blunder Warren made for an artist that isn't even Spanish. Jorge Moliterni is an argentine artist who gets credited as "Claude" Moliterni, whom older fans among you might remember as a French critic, editor, and comic book writer that had nothing to do with Jorge. As to how Jorge Moliterni got published in a Warren magazine, after many of his fellow citizens had tried, but to no avail (among others, Solano Lopez, who practically drew dozens of series for the British), was simply a case of his going over to New York and knocking at Warren's offices. Fellow citizen Leo Duranona would do the same (his work appearing a couple of issues later), and even end up working in the Tonight Show for Johnny Carson! That said, couldn't Dark Horse correct blunders such as this, instead of reprinting them again?
There are also some interesting American artists back in the fold, too. Besides Russ Heath, we've got Alex Toth contributing some of his most memorable stories, and John Severin, who even inks a story drawn by Wally Wood and written by Archie Goodwin called "Creeps". Moreover, Severin takes the palm this time around, by turning in some of his best work ever. He would even get a whole issue devoted to him in the near future. All his stories and artwork here are classics, and shouldn't be missed under any pretext, if you're a fan of great comic book art!
A last artist I've got to mention is Carmine Infantino, who after being the boss at DC, had been kicked out and left with nothing. Warren told him to come work for him, and for a while we would get Infantino art in every Warren magazine, usually inked by some other artist (here we got Berni Wrightson doing the job). I was never fond of Infantino's later work, but it's interesting seeing his work inked by other people (there would even be one inked by Alex Niño). However, Infantino belonged to the superhero comic book genre, and his work pales in comparison with the other artists here.
As a final note, I'd like to point out that the Dark Horse archives are also reprinting Joe Brancatelli's articles on comic books, one of the most severe and scathing criticisms ever done on the comic book industry. But that just shows that Warren was fair game (even the readers' letters are quite mean against his own magazines, writers and artists, something you'd never find in a Marvel or DC letter col).
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Top reviews from other countries
Peter Robertson
Great Addition to my Collectionj
Reviewed in Canada on January 30, 2014