Eerie, hosted by the eponymous Cousin Eerie was one of the great horror magazines along with sister publications Creepy (hosted by Uncle Creepy) and Vampirella (starring barely clothed female blood enthusiast Vampirella).  Eerie, Creepy and Vampirella were the first “adult” comics my father gave to me having collected them himself as a youth.  I don’t mean adult in the “boobs, violence and curse words” sense, though they did occasionally have those, but I mean adult in that “you need to have a certain level of maturity to understand what’s even happening” sense.  The stories are usually complex with solid narrative and vague morals.  The stories don’t always have a happy ending, but then again it is a horror anthology. There’s some really solid art from Richard Corben throughout and a great cover from Frank Frazetta shuffled in there somewhere.  The stories range from more traditional classic movie monster horror tropes to space faring sci-fi to their great Edgar Allen Poe adaptations.  Volume 18 covers Eerie issues 87-89 coming straight at your face from the great late 70’s featuring some of the best artists and horror writers or the era.  It features a wide variety of stories that will provide everything from quick shock scares, like the ones found in The Incredible Illusions of Ira Israel, to more creeping discomfort found in stories like Edgar Allen Poe’s The Oval Portrait to the straight genre adventures of The Rook.  It provides a variety of stories across multiple genres and is many more hits than misses, don’t get me wrong it does have misses.  Misses like Deathball 2100 A.D. which is essentially Space Jam if it were made by David Lynch.  That sounds cool but comes off as more ridiculous than anything else.

This review is going to be pretty light because interest in this is self-evident and entirely subjective.  Do you like anthologies?  Do you like the 70’s?  Do you like the horror genre?  Do you like good black and white art?  Do you like interesting story telling?  If you answer yes to any of those questions then the Slapchop is the all in one kitchen tool you need!  Also this book would be well worth your time and money.

Score: 4/5

Writer: Various Artist: Various Publisher: Dark Horse Comics Price: $49.99 Release Date: 1/28/15 Format: Hardcover; Print/Digital