Day 2 of my Halloween countdown reads is a 1975 humor book from Marvel. During the 70s, the House of Ideas had the idea to publish several comedy related titles. Crazy, perhaps the most famous of the releases, was a magazine kin to MAD and Cracked. Not quite 70s Not Brand Ecch spoofed the company's super heroes. Aptly titled Spoof was designed to poke fun at TV and movies. And then there was Arrgh!Arrgh! took on horror. Dracula. Frankenstein and his monster. King Kong. The Wolfman and the Mummy. Nobody in the realm of the creepy and crawly was safe from the likes of Roy Thomas, Marie Severin, Tom Sutton, Mike Sekowsky, Don Glut and others. When it came to this issue, unfortunately, the readers weren't safe either.
I own 3 issues of this series which lasted only 5 issues. I chose the beautifully silly cover penciled by EC Comics legend Marie Severin. It shows a trio of Universal Studios icons poking through the fourth wall into a theater of goofballs. I really thought I was in for a Bronze Age treat.
Once you open the pages, that great treat turns out to be a trick. The first story has a guy obsessed with late night horror movies on TV getting literally sucked into the action. It's a predictable story with bad jokes and lame parodies. For some reason, all of the characters have spoofed names which for characters in the public domain just doesn't make sense.
The middle tale had the most promise. A man living in a slum has a major roach problem. In the man's fervor to get rid of the bugs, he turns to a late night exterminator for help. Only there's a twist to just who this Orkin Man is there to get rid of.
Lastly, in a very silly modern retelling of Frankenstein, the monster's criminal brain is replaced with a childlike brain. The prose was disjointed and the over-sexualized young girl that Frank becomes friends with was off-putting.
Like I said, the middle story was the best one. It reminded me a lot of that story in Creepshow where the mean old man with a fear of roaches seals himself off in a hermetically sealed bunker. I wouldn't be surprised if known comic book lover Stephen King maybe read this Marvel story and was inspired by it.
I wonder if that bug story with it's lack of humor was the reason that piece was the best. Tom Sutton (Vampirella) wrote all 3 stories here. And his just doesn't seem to have that right sense of humor. But his true horror take is quite good. I think if I hadn't accidentally spoiled the ending with a over thumb of the next to last page, that story would have been all that much better. Having the twist ending on the right and not on the left really harmed the reveal. You'd think EC vet Severin would've advised on that. But maybe the cover artist was only relegated to the cover.
An interesting look at an almost forgotten piece of Marvel Comics history that just fails at it's main premise: comedic horror.
Rating: 5 out of 10 stars.
