A MAGAZINE DESIGNED TO GIVE YOU - THE CREEPS...

Images copyright WARRANT PUBLISHING COMPANY

If you're a fan of WARREN mags CREEPY and EERIE, then you'll be interested in this title I picked off the shelves of a comicbook store recently.  It's an excellent 'tribute' magazine, but I feel it could be improved in a few ways.  Let's get the 'minor' faults out of the way first.

The lettering.  Done by computer font, but that in itself isn't the problem - it's the spacing.  When words are italicised, any 'screamers' (exclamation marks) run into the first letter of the next sentence, resulting in the balloons and captions having a squashed appearance that's sore on the eyes.  A bigger space needs to be left between sentences to avoid this.  Occasional missing punctuation also detracts from smooth reading.

Not so minor - the plots.  The story, 'FAIR TRADE', involves a mind swap between bodies by the method of sorcery.  (Spoiler alert:)  The process reverses itself the day after the sorcerer is killed, before he'd cast his next spell which would've 'halted the physical transfer which naturally follows any mental transfer'.  Er, run that past me again?

A sorcerer transfers one person's mind into the body of another, but unless he casts a second spell, the body will automatically reunite with its mind - rendering the first spell totally redundant.  H'mm, maybe the writer needs to put more thought into his plots as this aspect is too contrived to be convincing.  (If a tale about sorcery and mind-transference can ever be convincing, but I'm sure you get my point.)

Anyway, don't be put off by me being pernickety.  This mag is like a time tunnel into the 1960s and '70s and is well worth a look.  Available from all good comics shops.  Dig one up as soon as you can.

Spot the misspelling of 'Pharaoh' in the contents above