Sword & Sorcery at Warren is a tale of a sub rosa movement within another genre. James Warren’s black & white magazines were an innovation that allowed comics creators to avoid the yoke of the Comics’ Code. That self-imposed doctrine had been necessary in 1954 to bring popular opinion in America back to comics as a harmless pastime. Warren had no desire to be harmless. These were comics for adults.
The success of Creepy and Eerie quickly showed publishers there was a market for horror comics for older readers. What it also did was offer heroic fantasy tales within those pages. If you think Sword & Sorcery comics began in 1970 with Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian, you are missing the build-up that made that comic possible. Much of that work was done at Warren (and in independent and underground magazines). Lying within many issues, beside the werewolves and the gypsy curses, were stories of warriors who go up against magic (and usually lose).
The Warren story (all genres) is a sardonic, grim, dystopic morality play. These were the days of Viet Nam. Readers didn’t want Captain America and simplistic political ideas. There was a sense that there was something rotten in the state of Denmark. This was reflected in the storytelling. The Sword & Sorcery tales were no exception. The gloomy doom-filled destiny of Dax was typical of Warren stories in general. Despite this bummer ending trend, Archie Goodwin offered up the first (and lets be honest, many of the best) of these heroic tales with demons and beautiful women.
And the opening date of 1965 is important. 1965 was the year that J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings appeared in paperback. This was the catalyst that would explode into the late 1960s fantasy boom. By 1967, Lancer would be pumping out the purple-edged Conan paperbacks with Frank Frazetta covers (Warren had been there first!) . Archie was in that flow, penning the comic book version of those amazing S&S tales.
The caliber of artists at Warren in the 1960s is staggering. Frank Frazetta focused cover art to a fantastic blast of energy unseen before. In black & white, Warren offered up old pros like Angelo Torres, Roy G. Krenkel and Reed Crandall, while presenting new (and later important) artists like Jeff Jones, Tom Sutton and Gray Morrow. There were also appearances by DC and Marvel regulars like Steve Ditko and Gil Kane. The Gothic aspect of Warren art in general seeps into the heroic fantasy stuff as well, culminating later with the brilliant work of Esteban Maroto and the Spanish school.
I have written about some of the Warren writers and artists before but I thought it might be nice to have an over-arching listing of all the Sword & Sorcery pieces between 1965 and 1982. My criteria was simple: no Science Fiction elements, no Medieval but unmagical stories, no strange stories with modern and fantastical portions. I haven’t stuck to this rigorously for there were some stories that crossed those lines but were so obviously influenced by S&S (“Quimby the Barbarian” for instance.) I had to include them. I am sure there are stories you would not include here as well as others I have left out. The designation “Sword & Sorcery” is often too personal to be useful. (My own pet peeve is the S&S tale filled with technology, pushing it into Sword & Planet or that homogenized hybrid I can only call “Late 20th Century Heavy Metal“.) Feel free to disagree.
1965
“Ogre’s Castle” (Creepy #2, April 1965) written by Archie Goodwin
1966
“Dark Kingdom” (Creepy #9, June 1966) written by Archie Goodwin
“Black Magic” (Eerie #5, September 1966) written by Archie Goodwin
“Cave of the Druids” (Eerie #6, November 1966) written by Archie Goodwin
1967
“Eerie’s Monster Gallery” (Eerie #7, January 1967)
“The Quest” (Eerie #7, January 1967) written by Archie Goodwin
“Where Sorcery Lives” (Creepy #14, April 1967) written by Archie Goodwin
“Castle Carrion” (Creepy #14, April 1967) written by Archie Goodwin
“Eerie’s Monster Gallery” (Eerie #9, May 1967)
“Creepy’s Loathsome Lore” (Creepy #15, June 1967)
“Thane: City of Doom” (Creepy #15, June 1967) written by Archie Goodwin
“Warrior of Death” (Eerie #19, July 1967) written by Archie Goodwin
“Creepy’s Loathsome Lore” (Creepy #16, August 1967)
“Thane: Angel of Doom” (Creepy #16, August 1967) written by Archie Goodwin
“Eerie’s Monster Gallery” (Eerie #11, September 1967)
“To Slay a Dragon” (Eerie #11, September 1967) written by Archie Goodwin
“Creepy’s Loathsome Lore” (Creepy #17, October 1967) written by Archie Goodwin
1968
Archie Goodwin left in 1967. He was replaced by Bill Parente, who along with new writers, continued Archie’s Sword & Sorcery storytelling. Before Archie departed, he left a gift, the first series character: Thane.
“A Silver Dread Among the Gold” (Creepy #24, December 1968) written by George Hagenauer & Bill Parente
1969
“A Cloak of Darkness” (Eerie #20, March 1969) written by Bill Parente
“Thane: Barbarian of Fear” (Creepy #27, June 1969) written by Bill Parente
“Spellbound” (Creepy #29, September 1969) written by Arnold Hayes
“The Dragon’s Tail” (Eerie #23, September 1969) written by Kim Ball
Conclusion
Sword & Sorcery at Warren in the 1960s is a strong opening with classic stories like “Ogre’s Castle” and “Where Sorcery Lives” that will be reprinted again and again. The writers and artists over at Marvel certainly were aware of what Warren was doing (and would soon imitate). The success of these individual tales bolstered the idea that Sword & Sorcery could be a regular color comic. Roy Thomas and Stan Lee would test that idea before plunging into a regular title. Those experiments look an awful lot like what you see here.
Next: The 1970s….Comics Explosion!
creepy 27[ i just ordered it] indicated that it was the return of thane–what issue did he appear before it?
Thane first appeared in Creepy 15 then Creepy 16 and 27. His last is in 112.
Have you ever done a roundup of Conan clones? They seem to show up on every other page.
That’s a great idea!