Expert: Mark Harmon - 5/13/2009

Question
Mark, when I was a kid my uncle worked at a paper mill and used to bring home heaps of comics especially horror, which I loved. I remember they were black and white and that gave them a sort of extra creepiness. I have started collecting the color re-prints of the old EC archives but can't find the stories I remember and the art isn't how I remember them. Do you know or is there anyone you know who recognises these stories and knows where to get them?  1) A nazi concentration camp commendant makes a lampshade out of a female prisoner's skin (she had a distinctive tatoo). He gets away after the war but the corpses of his victims get him in the end!  2) A husband and wife explorer team are exploring a cave when she goes missing. Years later she returns and has turned into a hideous one eyed 8 legged octopus type thing. 3) A scientist with no luck with chicks creates a gorgeous robot wife that just dotes on him all the time, but the over affection starts to annoy him after a while and he accidently pushes and her face gets hideously disfigured by acid before she kills him.  4) A callous playboy dates a plain girl with glasses for her money.  They are in a horror road smash and he wakes up in her place and he can't escape; she is some sort of vampire. 5) A guy notices scratching from under his floor boards and this crazy guy with long hair comes bursting through the fllor before the 1st guy shoots him.  He goes under the house and finds this pit he descends down that goes forever and he can't climb back up so he keeps going down for weeks. Finally he gets to the bottom, and there is a wooden floor.  Starving and half mad he starts to try to scratch and claw his way through, and when he finally succeeds, he goes through only to come out the other side 'right way up' before being shot dead by a guy on the other side who looks down and sees the pit....etc.   Hope someone can help, I would love to know something about these great comics.

Answer
Hi Simon,

I love the old horror magazines/comics as well.  What was the time frame of when your Uncle brought the comics to you?  I ask because the old EC horror comics came out in the early 1950s and were in color format as far as I'm aware of...at least from the one's that I've seen and owned.

What you're describing sounds like the Eerie and Creepy comics that were in black and white format and came out in the 1960s and continued on until the early 1980s I believe.  Both of these series were published by Warren Magazine who was also the publisher of the Vampirella series.

I've included a link below to the Grand Comic Book Database.  You can look at the cover galleries for both the Creepy and Eerie series (look for the series published by Warren) and maybe you'll recognize one of the covers.  One of the stories you described reminded me of a story I read in one of these mags that I thought was called the Thing in the Pit.

http://www.comics.org/

If these are the comics you're thinking of, both series are available from several internet stores and can be found on eBay as well.  If I've guessed wrong, please get back to me on the time frame question and any other details you think might be helpful.

- Mark