Abstract
Calling back to EC Comics’ horror line, and reuniting several members EC’s stable of artists, Warren Publications’ anthology-style comic magazines, Creepy and Eerie, were a highwater mark for both Warren and the horror comics genre. Series editor and head writer Archie Goodwin shepherded stories that recalled both the exquisitely gruesome and terrifying tales from EC’s heyday as well as EC’s sharp, left-leaning political tongue. This chapter will consider several collaborations between Goodwin and artist Gray Morrow, released in 1965. Each is thematically linked, calling into question patriarichal and colonial power, literally dehumanizing and bestializing white patriarchy. Together, Goodwin and Morrow argue that white, colonial patriarchy is a globally destructive force which is threatened by its own consumptive greed, in some cases literally eating its own.
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- 1.
Detailed studies such as Qiana J. Whitted, EC Comics: Race, Shock, and Social Protest (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2019) and Qiana Whitted and Brannon Costello, eds., Comics and the U.S. South (Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 2013) are excellent entry points in considering how the horror genre has addressed significant racial and other political concerns in the comics medium.
- 2.
Blazing Combat lasted for just four issues for Warren Publications across 1965 and 1966. The series was in the vein of the war comics edited and produced by Harvey Kurtzman at EC in the 1950s and carried a similar anti-war message that was delivered through its “realism.” The series was written and edited by Goodwin and featured a number of Warren stable-artists, like Goodwin and EC Comics veterans like John Severin. Of note for this exploration is that the political messaging was consistent between the war and horror comics at Warren, and Blazing Combat’s anti-war edge, like Creepy and Eerie, coincided with the escalating Vietnam-era anti-war movement.
- 3.
For further consideration, I would encourage the reader to consider the arguments I set forth about Goodwin’s collaborations with Steve Ditko, as discussed in the introduction and chapter six of Mysterious Travelers: Steve Ditko and the Search for New Liberal Identity.
- 4.
Mark Evanier, Foreword, Creepy Presents Steve Ditko: The Definitive Collection of Steve Ditko’s Stories from Creepy and Eerie, By Steve Ditko and Archie Goodwin, (Milwaukie: Dark Horse, 2013), p. 8.
- 5.
I cover Goodwin’s collaborations with Steve Ditko extensively in Mysterious Travelers: Steve Ditko and the Search for New Liberal Identity, and, in the case of Ditko, Goodwin’s scripts at Warren played Ditko’s strengths as an artist but still allowed plenty of room for Ditko to include his own brand of liberal philosophy and politics, which may or may not have lined up with Goodwin’s.
- 6.
Andrei Molotiu, “Abstract Form: Sequential Dynamism and Iconostasis in Abstract Comics and Steve Ditko’s Amazing Spider-Man,” in Critical Approaches to Comics: Theories and Methods, ed. Matthew J. Smith and Randy Duncan (New York: Routledge, 2012), 89–94.
- 7.
Recognizing that “science fiction” is a contested term and that “SF” (science fantasy) is a more contemporarily accepted term, as it helps account the often fantastical elements of such stories, I am more comfortable using science fiction in this context because it more accurately reflects the terminology used during the development of these stories and the distinction it makes among the weird, horror, and sword-and-sorcery fantasy tales also featured in Creepy and Eerie.
- 8.
As an example of this, one might consider the work of Steve Ditko who, in the pages of Creepy and Eerie, frequently employed an ink wash to his work that was never present in the comics he produced for other publishers like Marvel or DC, or even for those who were less restrictive, like Charlton Comics.
- 9.
Archie Goodwin and Gray Morrow, “Incident in the Beyond!,” 1965, in Creepy Archives, ed. Shawna Gore and Archie Goodwin (Milwaukie, OR: Dark Horse, 2008), 1: 139. Emphasis added.
- 10.
Archie Goodwin and Gray Morrow, “Revenge of the Beast!,” 1965, in Creepy Archives, ed. Shawna Gore and Archie Goodwin (Milwaukie, OR: Dark Horse, 2008), 1: 241.
- 11.
Goodwin and Morrow, “Revenge of the Beast!,” in Creepy Archives, 1: 246.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Damien Picariello for the opportunity to contribute to this collection as well as Andrew Kunka for acquainting us.
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Kruse, Z. (2020). …Just as You Will Do to One Another!: Colonialism That Consumes Itself in Warren Publications’ Creepy. In: Picariello, D.K. (eds) The Politics of Horror. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42015-4_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42015-4_11
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