By Bill DuBey, Richard Corben, et. al.
Publisher: Warren Publishing September, 1978
Softcover, 92 pages
On to issue three of the
adult fantasy magazine 1984. This was published by Warren Publishing in the
late 1970s to mid- 1980s, where it ended at issue 29 due to the publisher’s
bankruptcy. I comment on the last post about how most stories were written by Bill
DuBey and as such many of the stories have the same feel to them. Especially
when dealing with sexual issues. As it turns out, that is because DuBey had a
bad habit of rewriting other people’s dialogue and rearranging artwork without
consulting the artist first.
In
the first issue, the story by Wallace Wood was cut down, rearranged and totally
rewritten to make a very different story. As a result, Wallace Wood refused to
ever work with the company again. The Mutant
World continuing series in 1984 by Jan Strnad and Richard Corben often
struggled with DuBey who would add what Strnad called, ”a spew of juvenile
obscenities." This arrogance would ultimately cost the Publisher everything.
As we will see next issue.
Despite
what I said, this is a great issue of stories, with an amazing cover by Patrick
Woddroffe. DuBey could write fast and
quick, and produce quality material - which is perhaps why he was so dismissive
of other people’s abilities. Eventually the only writers who stuck around were
hungry and just needed a paycheck. One thing which I do miss, that exists in
the more popular magazines, are the lack of advertisements. Where is the weird
old stuff? The lockets containing dirt from Dracula’s Castle. The creepy masks
and ancient paperbacks? Ah well.
First
story, drawn by Jose Ortiz, must have recycled from an old issue of Creepy or
Eerie, because I swear I’ve read it before. It’s a weird sci-fi tale about a
pair of old telepaths secretly run the world’s military apparatus. Next we have
the first in a recurring character, Idi Amin - yes, that one - it’s another
truly odd tale, set in the near-future where a character called Dogmeat Jones,
part of the America’s Dirty Tricks Squad, causes the African dictator to have a
sex change. In retaliation, he unleashes several genetic diseases which wipes
out most life and leaves the rest as hate-filled mutants. This is another story
which I swear the art was drawn for a different story and DuBey slapped new
text onto. Third is, “In the Beginning” where scientists send a group of
scientists back in time to observe the very first appearance of microscopic
life on Earth, only to be terribly surprised.
Fourth,
we have the next installment of Mutant World, which continues to be the
highlight of the magazine - partially because it’s a color insert, partially because
of Richard Corben’s art. The story itself is simple, but enjoyable. Fifth is,
“Bring Me the Head of Omar Barsidian” illustrated by Jim James and Rudy Nebres,
one of the more sexual tales in this issue. In it, the titular Omar is chased
for escaping from the planet Orgasty, where he as one of the beautiful people
he isn’t allowed to quit society. Sixth is a silent feature, illustrated by the
mononym Nebot, called “The Strange Adventure of Doctor Jerkyll”. This obvious reference
postulates what would happen if the scientist’s potion had turned him female.
Seventh
is “Scourge of All Disneyspace”, another bizarre story where men have been
mutated so they have no genitals, and a group of renegade women from the
insemination factories run across a real penis for the first time. Eighth is
‘COMMFU” - Complete Monumental Military Fuck Up, where a psycho, trained by the
government, accidentally initializes a killing spree in Flordia, rather than
his intended target. Last is “The Harvest”, a story which caused controversy at
the time. In a future world, where there are limited resources, white people
hunt blacks for food. The ending splash page was particularly messed up. It
depicts a man pulling a fetus from a dead woman and proclaiming to his son,
“Your mama was asking for some veal”. Or words to that effect.
For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst
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