Selling Horror: the early Warren comics magazines

Abstract

Creepy and Eerie, two horror comics magazines published by Warren Publishing after 1964 are commonly read as the heirs to the horror titles put out by EC Comics in the previous decades. This text seeks to demonstrate that these magazines can also be placed in a different genealogy, which includes the 50s and 60s monster craze, as well as horror film magazines such as Warren’s own Famous Monsters of Filmland. Close readings and quantitative analyses show that the content of the Creepy and Eerie differ significantly from the EC titles, and borrows thematic elements as well as representations not only from horror cinema but also from the horror merchandising, which the Warren magazines prominently advertised.

Keywords

• horror
• monsters
• comic books
• adaptation
• intermediality
• magazine