Review: Eerie Archives Vol. 4

EERIE ARCHIVES VOL. 4 (Dark Horse, 2010; Hardcover)

Collects Eerie Nos. 16-22 (cover dates July, 1968- July, 1969)

These stories range between pretty good and “I could swear I've read that somewhere else before”. The latter feeling is because I have, in fact, read them in the recent past. A handful of these stories were originally in early issues of Creepy, and since Dark Horse has decided to only omit stories reprinted within the series (i.e. Issue 21 was almost entirely comprised of stories from earlier issues of Eerie and were omitted), I get double dipped.

There are some quality names attached to this series, as well as some not-so-quality names. The good stuff is by Al Williamson, Tom Sutton (truth be told, he's pretty uneven here), Johnny Craig, Frank Bolle, Reed Crandall, and a one page Neal Adams bit. There are other decent writers and artists as well. The stories all tread the same classic, Gothic Horror ground. I am a sucker for this sort of thing, but if you like your Horror in a more Saw, snuff porn vein, then this series might disappoint you. This is comfort food, Horror comic book style.

Also of note is the Frank Frazetta cover which graces this book. It was later used as the cover to Wolfmother's self-titled debut LP in 2006.

The OCD zone: Another beautifully done high end hardcover. The black and white material is scanned at insanely high resolution so nothing is lost or blurred. It's neither too dark nor too bright, as is usually the case with scanned black and white material. The paper is thick coated stock, the binding is sewn, and it clocks in at a hefty 250+ pages.