Scream! #13, 16 June 1984

• The Nightcomers (artist John Richardson, writer Tom Tully)
• Library of Death: The Sea Beast part 1 (artist J. Parkhouse, writer Simon Furman)
• The Thirteenth Floor (artist José Ortiz, writer Ian Holland)
• Tales from the Grave: The Escape – final episode (artist Jim Watson, writer S. Goodall)
• A Ghastly Tale – Unlucky for Some
• Monster (artist Jesus Redondo, writer Rick Clark)
• Fiends and Neighbours – cartoon (artist Graham Allen)
• The Dracula File (artist Eric Bradbury, writer Simon Furman)

Scream hits its 13^th issue, which is a celebration for a comic like that, and that is precisely what Scream does. On the cover, The Thirteenth Floor (what else?) kicks off the theme of 13 and unlucky for some. In the story itself, Mr Bullock the callous housing official is subjected to a shark-infested ocean and being attacked by giant crabs on a desert island until he agrees to give five-star treatment to the family he treated so badly.

The Ghastly Tale also has an “unlucky for some” theme, with a boy showing the yearly pictures of his birthdays. They progressively show his life going on a downward spiral that includes falling strangely ill and being put in a top secret MOD establishment, until he hits his nadir with – you guessed it – his 13th birthday photograph shows what he has become by then. There are no photographs of his 14th birthday.

Dracula’s a bit unlucky as well, you might say. Having a vampire hunter on his tail is giving him horrible nightmares of his previous experiences with vampire hunters, which range from torch-wielding lynch mobs attacking his castle to a professional vampire hunter, Alexander Quinn.

In this episode of “The Nightcomers” Raven’s Meet is really throwing everything but the kitchen sink at Rogans to destroy them. The Rogans dodge everything but clonks on the head from Simon Cutler. He’s taken them prisoner and he intends to sacrifice them to Raven’s Meet. At least it sounds like they’re going to hear the full story now.

The Library of Death does something new – a two-part story. It’s about a giant sea beast that emerges from the depths of the ocean and lands on the beach – and boy, is it a whopper! Eat your heart out, Jaws! Of course it’s scaring the hell out of everyone. The sea beast was probably inspired by “The Horror of Party Beach” as it was created from radioactive waste dumped in the ocean.

In the final episode of “The Escape” from Tales of the Grave, Barry White thinks he has gotten away with murder (which becomes double murder in this episode) and his booty by stowing away in a coffin that is sailing away to America. But he finds out too late that the coffin was intended for a burial at sea! Well, there’s his execution.

Unlucky for some, they say, but in this week’s episode of “Monster”, Uncle Terry and Ken turn out to be lucky – for a while, anyway. They finally met a more friendly person, a lady named Mrs McCrone who is not fazed by Uncle Terry’s appearance. Mind you, that’s because she’s blind. Mrs McCrone wants to turn them over because she says Uncle Terry needs help. But when Ken insists, she gives them a motorbike to help them along. But then they bump right into the police! Luck’s run out again.

Scream! #12, 9 June 1984

• The Dracula File (artist Eric Bradbury, writer Ken Noble)
• The Nightcomers (artist John Richardson, writer Tom Tully)
• The Thirteenth Floor (artist José Ortiz, writer Ian Holland)
• Tales from the Grave: The Escape – first episode (artist Jim Watson, writer S. Goodall)
• A Ghastly Tale – The Final Cut!
• Library of Death: Terror of the Tomb (artist José Casanovas, writer Simon Furman)
• Fiends and Neighbours – cartoon (artist Graham Allen)
• Monster (artist Jesus Redondo, writer Rick Clark)

More attempts at Ghastly’s face, and another clue is dropped. The fourth entry is the one that is paying more attention to the clues already dropped, but Ghastly makes no acknowledgment of it. Nobody is in the London Dungeon this week.

Here we have another wrap-around cover, this time of this week’s Library of Death story. The story is rendered by the ever-popular José Casanovas. Well, we don’t often see Casanovas drawing ancient Egypt and walking mummies, so here is the story for Casanovas fans.

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Dracula is using some surprising tactics in his quest for blood tonight: first he turns bus driver (now where did he get his HT licence?) and later he lies in wait in a post box. But he’s also rumbled that vampire hunter Stakis survived his trap, and it’s rousing memories of another vampire hunter. Woo…has our Dracula actually been traumatised by his experiences with Van Helsing?

The Nightcomers make their way into Raven’s Meet and discover the first evidence of why it is so horribly haunted. Someone was clearly messing around with the supernatural and unleashed forces they couldn’t control, and it could only have been that Simon Cutler. Beforehand, they found a very unhappy woman haunting the well, and think she might be the key to the mystery. But now there is a more pressing problem they haven’t seen yet – a bony hand reaching for Rick…

Max is at it again. This time it’s with a pompous housing official, Mr Bullock, who made a blunder in the booking for new tenants, the Sopers, and is not exactly anxious to correct his mistake. Instead, the remedy he offers splits the Soper family up and he doesn’t care squat. The punishment of the Thirteenth Floor has Bullock washed up on a raft and headed for a desert island, with sharks right behind him. Not quite sure how this punishment fits the crime, but let’s see how it plays out next week.

The Leper begins a new story about another nasty undertaker, Old Jeb, who likes taking rich pickings off corpses and counting them each night (talk about Scrooge!) and his ill-used apprentice, Billy White. But don’t spare any sympathy for Billy; he’s just as bad and greedy as Old Jeb. So bad in fact, that he murders Old Jeb, takes his pickings, and puts himself into a client’s coffin, which is intended to carry the corpse away on a ship. It looks like a great way to escape, but we suspect this will only have grave consequences for Billy…

In “Monster”, a bounty hunter has a go at Uncle Terry with a rifle. The result is another death at Uncle Terry’s hands and Ken being shot. Uncle Terry carries the injured Ken to a house in search of help. Unfortunately for him he has no concept of what “Beware of the Dogs” means and can’t read the warning sign because he has never been taught to read – and the dogs are lunging for him already.

We also get an Uncle Terry type in the Ghastly Tale, who takes the film director’s call to “cut” a bit too literally…

Next issue is #13, and for a comic like this, that’s a call for a special celebration. Indeed, we have a half-page blurb on how Scream will celebrate its 13^th.

Scream #9, 19 May 1984

• The Dracula File (artist Eric Bradbury, writer Simon Furman)
• Library of Death: Ghost Town (artist Steve Dillon, writer Simon Furman)
• The Thirteenth Floor (artist José Ortiz, writer Ian Holland)
• Tales from the Grave: A Fatal Extraction – first episode (artist Jim Watson, writer R. Hunter)
• A Ghastly Tale – The Summoning (artist Tony Coleman)
• Monster (artist Jesus Redondo, writer Rick Clark)
• Fiends and Neighbours – cartoon (artist Graham Allen)
• The Nightcomers (artist John Richardson, writer Tom Tully)

The cover for Scream #9 is one of Scream’s gorgeous wrap around covers, so both back and front cover are produced here. In addition to the regulars on the cover we see some familiar faces from complete stories in previous issues (The Punch and Judy Horror Show, The Drowning Pond and Beware the Werewolf!). No attempts at Ghastly’s face are published in this issue. Ghastly launches a second creepy captions competition because the first was so popular.

The writing credits for The Dracula File change again. Was Gerry Finley-Day writing under pseudonyms for this or were some of the episodes farmed out to other writers?

In the story, Drac’s a bit put out to find his servants have housed his home soil in the (hee, hee!) bathtub because there is no coffin in his new hideout. Waahh! Wanna coffin! While his servants scramble to find one Drac is off in search of more victims to feed on. Meanwhile, Stakis arrives in Britain to hunt the vampire down, and he’s assembled a full vampire-hunting kit.

The Library of Death story is about an American ghost town, which is haunted by skeletal ghosts. The ghosts constantly set a deadly trap – which includes lynching – for unsuspecting motorists. It’s their revenge for a motorcar causing a catastrophe that destroyed their town years before, albeit accidentally.

Max demonstrates a new power – the power to hypnotise people. He uses it to get a tenant to take the latest victim of his Thirteenth Floor back home because he can’t risk any more Thirteenth Floor victims, dead or otherwise, to be found in that lift.

We know going to the dentist in the 19^th century must have been murder, but this is ridiculous. In the new Tales from the Grave story, dentist Thomas Thorpe isn’t “too particular” in how he treats his patients, but for the rich ones he has an extra-special treatment – murdering them Sweeney Todd-style in order to rob them. However, Thorpe’s latest victim, George Makepiece, is rising up from the river swearing revenge, and he looks kind of ghostly…

This week’s Ghastly Tale has some dark magic practitioners in a graveyard trying to summon a demon. Instead, they get one angry corpse telling them to stop making such a racket.

Ken and Uncle Terry went on the run without any place to run to. But in this week’s episode of “Monster” they finally find a destination from a newspaper – a doctor who could help with Uncle Terry’s temper problems that can cause him to kill. The trouble is, the doctor is in Scotland, which means a long trek to get there. They manage to sneak aboard a lorry, but while Ken is buying food the lorry takes off – with Uncle Terry on board. Oops!

In “The Nightcomers”, Raven’s Meet is making The Amityville Horror look like a G-rated film. First, the Rogans meet an enormous demon. It is obvious that this demon is what is haunting the house, and Beth’s psychic powers tell her it killed their parents too. Next, blood comes pouring down the front steps of the house!

Scream! #8, 12 May 1984

• The Dracula File (artist Eric Bradbury, writer Ken Noble)
• The Nightcomers (artist John Richardson, writer Tom Tully)
• A Ghastly Tale – The Pharaoh’s Curse (artist Tony Coleman)
• The Thirteenth Floor (artist José Ortiz, writer Ian Holland)
• Library of Death: Beware the Werewolf! (artist Steve Dillon, writer Simon Furman)
• Tales from the Grave: The Cabbie and the Hanging Judge – final episode (artist Jim Watson, writer Ian Rimmer)
• Fiends and Neighbours – cartoon (artist Graham Allen)
• Monster (artist Jesus Redondo, writer Rick Clark)

Dogs, wolves and werewolves are cropping up a lot in this issue, starting with the cover. Even our vampire in “The Dracula File” takes his wolf form. He rescues his servants, claims a couple more victims, and sets up shop in London. Meanwhile, Stakis is on his way to stop the vampire, but at the cost of defecting from the KGB, becoming a fugitive, and getting out of the Eastern bloc without paying the price of a Soviet gulag or something.

The Nightcomers arrive at Raven’s Meet. They are quick to realise that whatever is in there wants them dead. Simon Cutler, who definitely knows something about it, escaped by the skin of his teeth after the evil of Raven’s Meet possessed his dog and nearly killed him. At least the blurb for next week will tell us what the horror actually is.

A dog also attacks and frightens a man to death during a visit to King Tut’s tomb. The twist is the hieroglyphics on the door aren’t about a pharaoh’s curse – they say “Beware of the dog”.

In “The Thirteenth Floor” Max manages to squirm his way out of the cloud of suspicion. How very prudent of the policeman to tip him off about the error that aroused his suspicions, which enabled Max to cover it up quickly. Back to business, which Max resolves must be conducted with more care in future. The next victim at the Thirteenth Floor arrives in response to Max’s call about knocking down a girl’s dog and not stopping. He finds himself in the middle of a road filled with cars threatening to knock him down.

In “Tales from the Grave” we learn how the wheels of justice turned for “The Cabbie and the Hanging Judge”. There is a final twist that has the Leper laughing, but might have someone turning in his grave…

The Library of Death story is of the werewolf that appears on the cover. The hunter on his tail looks a bit like a fascist in the way he is dressed and is the werewolf’s own father.

In “Monster” the police hunt for Ken and Uncle Terry intensifies now they have a very good lead – a man who almost got killed by Uncle Terry and got a very terry-fying look at what looks like a monster. And they’re bringing in tracker dogs. Dogs again…

Scream! #7, 5 May 1984

• The Nightcomers – first episode (artist John Richardson, writer Tom Tully)
• The Thirteenth Floor (artist José Ortiz, writer Ian Holland)
• Library of Death: The Punch and Judy Horror Show (artist B. McCarthy, writer James Nicholas)
• Tales from the Grave: The Cabbie and the Hanging Judge – first episode (artist Jim Watson, writer Ian Rimmer)
• Monster (artist Jesus Redondo, writer Rick Clark)
• A Ghastly Tale – Young at Heart! (artist Tony Coleman)
• Fiends and Neighbours (artist Graham Allen)
• The Dracula File (artist Eric Bradbury, writer Gerry Finley-Day)

J.R. Ewing from Dallas is in the London Dungeon this week. Best place for him, eh?

The Dracula File has been pushed from its usual spot by new serial “The Nightcomers”. Rick and Beth Rogan take up the mantle of their deceased parents. Ostensibly stage magicians, they were also psychic investigators. Unfortunately they met their deaths in their latest case, a house called Raven’s Meet. The evil in that house was too strong for them and killed them. The junior Rogans take on the case in their parents’ name.

Another thing the Rogans need to investigate is Simon Cutler, who hired the parents to investigate Raven’s Meet. The parents suspect he knew more than he was telling. Sure enough, Cutler is telling the evil forces that he gave them the Rogans. But all he’s getting in return is a spectral dog on his tail.

Another man dies in the lift after visiting Max’s “The Thirteenth Floor”. That’s one too many and the authorities are getting suspicious of Max. Moreover, Max made a mistake in his faked footage of the Fogerty criminals shooting each other to death (in fact they are shooting at computer-induced terrors on the Thirteenth Floor), and the police have found it. Is someone about to pull the plug on Max and his Thirteenth Floor?

In The Library of Death Fred Fresco hates being Punch and Judy man. Yet he kills his manager for closing his Punch and Judy pitch. Anyway, as Fred soon finds out, Punch and Judy don’t relish sharing their basket with a murdered corpse. The rest is…well, talk about judge, jury and executioner.

Speaking of which, the new Tales from the Grave story (below) is about justice for an innocent man who suffered injustice at the hands of one of those notorious hanging judges of the 19^th century (throwbacks of which you can still sometimes encounter today, unfortunately).

In “Monster”, the sight of those murdered corpses resurfacing in the garden cements Ken’s decision to go on the run with Uncle Terry, with no place to run to and Uncle Terry having only just stepped out of his attic prison. After a good start, disaster strikes when Uncle Terry looks set to kill for the third time. Meanwhile, the hunt for him and Ken has started because those two corpses have led the police to find out everything.

This week’s Ghastly Tale is about two Victorian scientists who discover a youth potion. One kills the other because he does not want to share the profits. Retribution comes when the potion backfires on him. It makes him way too young to use the antidote that would restore him.

Finally, we get to The Dracula File. The vampire escapes the M15 agents. His servants are arrested but the agents don’t realise what happened to them. They just think they are crazy or something. The vampire assumes the form of a wolf to intercept their vehicle and rescue them. Meanwhile, KGB agent Stakis has to go on the run from the KGB in order to get to Britain and stop the vampire because they won’t let him use official channels.

Scream! #4, 14 April 1984

• The Dracula File (artist Eric Bradbury, writer Gerry Finley-Day)
• The Library of Death: All Done with Wires (artist Cam Kennedy, writer J.H. Teed)
• The Thirteenth Floor (artist Ortiz, writer Ian Holland)
• Tales from the Grave: “The Undertaker” – final episode (artist Jim Watson, writer Tom Tully)
• Terror of the Cats (artist John Richardson, writer Simon Furman)
• Fiends and Neighbours – cartoon (artist Graham Allen)
• A Ghastly Tale! – Mirror, Mirror
• Monster (artist Jesus Redondo, writer Rick Clark)

Ghastly introduces another competition. Meanwhile, he publishes another failed attempt to capture his likeness.

The vampire from Rumania has turned the agent who was on his tail into another servant to do his bidding. Then he’s off to the cinema in pursuit of more victims. And they would just happen to be watching a movie called “Dracula’s Death”. Dracula, of all things!

In the Library of Death a fraudulent medium gets his punishment-fitting-the-crime comeuppance, and it’s all done with wires. And in the Ghastly Tale “Mirror, Mirror”, the mirrors in the Hall of Mirrors are, shall we say, producing some unusual effects on people.

As shown below, the punks out to beat up a tenant emerge from The Thirteenth Floor as nervous wrecks. They won’t be in any condition to beat up anyone for a long time. But another transgressor is always coming along to the Thirteenth Floor, and this time it’s a gang of actual criminals.

(Click thru)

It’s the last episode of the Tales from the Grave story, “The Undertaker”. Murder plotters Sleeth and Emily discover too late that Emily’s fiancé Clive had committed the murder himself, for the same reason as Emily. The wires of the two murder plots got crossed, causing everything to backfire on all the plotters. Clive kills Sleeth and goes down for double murder. Emily tries to feign innocence with the police, but Sleeth’s apprentice Smyte is a witness to the truth, so she ends up in prison. And whose coffin on the cover is the Leper burying? Sleeth, the undertaker he was talking about the whole time, of course.

It is finally revealed why “The Terror of the Cats” is attacking the hospital. The cats are after a male nurse, Jim Wardon. Wardon helped Dr Kruhl with his diabolical experiments that are making the cats go crazy, and now he’s regretting it. Wardon’s making a run for it, not realising Kruhl’s cats are watching. Meanwhile, Woodward makes his way into Kruhl’s lair surprisingly unmolested by the killer cats. But then he bumps into a killer cat of a different sort – a tiger!

“Monster” Uncle Terry is out of his attic prison for the very first time in his life. It’s in response to one of Dad’s dodgy creditors, Joe Thacker, attacking Kenny and robbing him of money in order to reclaim his debt. Unfortunately Uncle Terry ends up killing Thacker. Oh, no, that’s the second time he’s killed someone, and it’s another corpse for the garden.

 

 

Scream! #3, 7 April 1984

• The Dracula File (artist Eric Bradbury, writer Gerry Finley-Day)
• Terror of the Cats (artist John Richardson, writer Simon Furman)
• The Thirteenth Floor (artist Ortiz, writer Ian Holland)
• Tales from the Grave: “The Undertaker” (artist Jim Watson, writer Tom Tully)
• The Library of Death: The Drowning Pond! (artist Julian Vivas, writer B. Burrell)
• Fiends and Neighbours – cartoon (artist Graham Allen)
• A Ghastly Tale! – Green Fingers (artist John Richardson)
• Monster (artist Jesus Redondo, writer Rick Clark)
• Ghastly’s Creepy Creature Quiz!

No free gift came with the third issue of Scream!, which goes against the tradition of a free gift with the first three issues of a new IPC title. However, the first attempt at Ghastly’s face is in, as is the second person to spend the week in the London Dungeon.

A British agent is on the trail of the Rumanian defector who’s a vampire and the nurse he’s hypnotised into becoming his servant. But the vampire escapes him. In the preview for next week there’s a panel of the vampire going to the cinema, and it looks like he’s going to make a Dracula film more realistic than usual…

Last week “Monster” changed credits completely. This week it is “Terror of the Cats”, with new artist John Richardson and writer Simon Furman. In the story, the cats have the hospital under siege now. The man in charge of the cat victims tells Woodward he suspects Dr Kruhl is behind the crazy cat attacks. So Woodward is off to check out Kruhl – and finds the killer cats waiting outside. How can he get past them?

The second round of transgressors arrives for Max’s special treatment on “The Thirteenth Floor”. A tattoo one of them has provides the inspiration for their punishment, as seen below.

(click thru)

In “Tales from the Grave”, Sleeth the Undertaker thinks he’s got the murder he was contracted to commit all sewn up and his victim is now at the bottom of the river, eaten up by rats. But his client Emily has a nasty surprise for him – she has just found that same victim (her uncle) poisoned. So who the heck was Sleeth killing just now? Er, it looks like that horribly injured, but still alive and very angry man who’s now barging in through your door, Sleeth. What’s more, he’s saying, “I have survived to wreak the vengeance of death on your foul and treacherous soul!”

The story in this week’s “Library of Death” is the one that readers request the most on Ghastly’s “Back from the Depths” site. It appears below for the benefit of any curious readers.

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It’s back to the one-page format in this week’s Ghastly Tale, and the moral is never to touch strange meteors. A boy does and it gives him the power to make plant life grow out of everything and everyone he touches – including his mum, and now’s she’s a horrible plant freak. He’s worried about what will happen when his father comes home. Never mind that, laddie – how are you going to eat when everything you touch turns into these freaks?

This week we learn more about Uncle Terry from the note Kenny’s mother left behind. As we do, we are more horrified by how Uncle Terry has been treated all his life than his appearance. Poor Uncle Terry has spent the whole 32 years of his life locked in the attic, in neglect and squalor, because his parents couldn’t stand his appearance. As a result, he is retarded, clearly brain damaged, and can barely string a few words together, but he is dangerous if provoked and can kill. Terry’s treatment improved somewhat under Kenny’s kindly mother, but she could not help him fully because of her abusive husband (why the heck did you marry him, lady?). After she died, cruelty towards Terry resumed under the husband. Now Kenny has inherited the task of minding Uncle Terry, and he’s only 12, but the note says Mum was dead against the idea of institutionalisation for Uncle Terry. As if an institution could be any worse than that squalid attic.

Scream! #2, 31 March 1984

• The Dracula File (artist Eric Bradbury, writer Gerry Finley-Day)
• Monster (artist Jesus Redondo, writer Rick Clark)
• The Thirteenth Floor (artist Ortiz, writer Ian Holland)
• Tales from the Grave: “The Undertaker” (artist Jim Watson, writer Tom Tully)
• The Library of Death: Spiders Can’t Scream! (artist Ron Smith, writer John Agee)
• Fiends and Neighbours – cartoon (artist Graham Allen)
• Terror of the Cats (artist Gonzales, later John Richardson, writer John Agee)
• A Ghastly Tale! – a complete story (artist José Casanovas)

The free gift that came with Scream #2 was a big, black, spooky spider, so it’s little wonder that spiders are big in this issue, beginning with the cover (front and back) profiling what horror awaits in this week’s Library of Death story. We are also told that Max will unleash spider terror as his next punishment in issue three.

Meantime, Max forces the harsh debt collector to enter a debt collector computer game – where the computer always wins, of course. The concept might almost be funny if the debt collector had not died of a heart attack because The Thirteenth Floor frightened him to death.

More ghoulies get added to the “From the Depths” letters page. It’s the “grislies”, and you are invited to draw your own.

In “The Dracula File”, the East is confident the Rumanian vampire defector they allowed to escape to the West will not unleash a reign of vampire terror there because he cannot live without his home soil. They don’t realise he has found the answer to that problem – the home soil left behind from previous Rumanian vampires who got to Britain. So his reign of terror has started.

The plot between “The Undertaker” and Emily Carlisle to kill her uncle looks simple and foolproof (and gruesome!). All it needs to kill him is a sudden shock, so the Undertaker takes him to the river and unleashes some rats in his carriage to not only frighten him but also eat him alive. And it would look like he just drove too close to the river and the river rats got him. What could possibly go wrong? Well, the blurb for next week does say “A fatal mistake…”.

The credits for “Monster” change to Jesus Redondo (artist) and Rick Clark (writer). Strangely, the reprint volume gives the change of writer as John Wagner. Was Wagner writing under a pseudonym here? Anyway, Kenneth has now seen what’s in the attic and it’s…the Hunchback of Notre Dame?! Something tells us Kenneth is now lumbered with the role of Esmeralda. Too right. Kenneth finds a letter from his late mother explaining that the, um, “monster” as the family dubbed him is in fact his Uncle Terry. Terry’s parents (Kenneth’s grandparents) kept him locked in the attic because of his appearance, and Mum says it’s now Kenneth’s job to look after him. Whoopee…

Allen Woodward tried to stop “The Terror of the Cats” striking the hospital, but all it’s done for him is get him into trouble with the police and on the run. But that’s nothing compared to what he finds when he hides in a cupboard – another crazy killer cat!

A Ghastly Tale is longer than the one-page spread last week. It’s also a tale of nature striking back at the abuses of humanity in the 21^st century. How far ahead of its time was this story? It has been posted here for your judgement. Besides, it’s drawn by José Casanovas, and who doesn’t like his artwork?

(Click thru)

 

 

 

Scream! No. 1, 24 March 1984

• The Dracula File – first episode (artist Eric Bradbury, writer Gerry Finley-Day)
• Monster – first episode (artist Heinzl, later Jesus Redondo, writer Alan Moore)
• The Thirteenth Floor – first episode (artist Ortiz, writer Ian Holland)
• Tales from the Grave: “The Undertaker” – first episode (artist Jim Watson, writer Tom Tully, later John Wagner)
• A Ghastly Tale! (complete story)
• Fiends and Neighbours – humour cartoon reprinted from Cor!! (artist Graham Allen)
• Library of Death: At Death’s Door… – complete story (artist Cam Kennedy, writer Barrie Tomlinson)
• Terror of the Cats – first episode (artist Gonzales, later John Richardson, writer John Agee)

Our Halloween theme continues with Scream! This was a short-lived publication, lasting only 15 issues before it disappeared during the same strike that brought down Tammy (though opinions from former IPC staff differ as to just what killed it off). Nevertheless, Scream achieved a cult status that has made its issues collectors’ items, spawned fanzines and websites, and now it is enjoying a revival with the Misty & Scream Halloween specials and volume reprints of its strips.

The gift that came with the first issue of Scream was a set of Dracula fangs, approved by the famous vampire himself, who leads off with his very own strip inside, “The Dracula File”. A Rumanian defector has escaped to the West. However, his Eastern bloc pursuers have realised that he is a vampire and decide the West can have him: “He is their problem now!” The poor RAF pilots flying the defector into Britain don’t realise the horror they are about to unleash…

Hang on, how come this Rumanian defector who’s a vampire looks like Dracula? Since when was Dracula a defector from the Iron Curtain? Either some vampire’s stolen the patent on Dracula or…the KGB’s got things a bit wrong here and it’s not the defector who’s the vampire – it’s King of Vampires himself! Put the bite on the defector and taken his place eh, Drac?

Before the strips begin, however, the host of the comic, Ghastly McNasty, sets things up with the letters page and the special features it offers. There is “The Dracula Spectacular”, where Ghastly has fun turning someone into something hideous. To make it even more fun for readers, he wants them to provide the victims (teachers, family members, themselves, etc) and the reason why. Ghastly also invites readers to nominate someone for appearing in “The London Dungeon” for the week and the reason for this punishment, and the comeuppances would be drawn accordingly. Who would you like to see in the London Dungeon for the week? How about the Tammy editor for leaving us dangling on the final episode of “Cora Can’t Lose”? Or how about Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin?

Of course a new comic would not be complete without a competition, and this is one that really tests deductive, artistic and maybe even clairvoyant skills. The challenge is to draw Ghastly McNasty’s face absolutely right. This is no easy task as the face is hidden in complete darkness under his hood with only lights shining where his eyes are. Clues include him being extremely ugly, too much tree root in the beauty treatment he tried that backfired, and other clues that would be dropped as the competition progressed. An actual likeness of Ghastly had been drawn and was being kept secure. The best but still-failed attempts would be printed, comments were made about any clues the pictures had hit upon, and the winner would get £5. The one to hit the absolute mark would win £50. The top prize was still unclaimed when Scream abruptly disappeared.

“Monster” is one of the Scream stories that would continue and finish in Eagle. It is the “something monstrous hidden in the attic” story. It’s so secret that Kenneth Corman’s abusive father gives him yet another walloping for even saying he heard something up there in the locked attic room. The father goes up to the attic to get rid of it, only to get horribly murdered, with deep claw marks on his body. Kenneth opts for secretly burying his father in the garden instead of calling in the police, and now he’s heading for the attic himself to deal with whatever is up there.

“The Thirteenth Floor” was another Scream strip to continue in Eagle, and now it has its own reprint volume and return appearances in the Scream & Misty Halloween special. Max is the computerised superintendent of council-run Maxwell Towers. Max takes his duty of looking after his tenants very seriously. In fact, it’s so seriously that anyone who threatens the safety and well-being of Max’s tenants is sent on a trip to his secret Thirteenth Floor through the lift, where Max wreaks a computerised, holographic punishment upon them that he deems the most fit for their crime. The first transgressor to pay a trip to the Thirteenth Floor is a merciless debt collector. On the Thirteenth Floor he meets the Grim Reaper, who says, “Welcome…to your death.” Erk! Is Max really going to go as far as murder? We find out next week.

The Leper (so named because of his medical condition, appearance and lack of social acceptance) is a 19^thcentury gravedigger and host of “Tales from the Grave”. Not surprisingly, these tales are associated with death, the Victorian fascination with it (murders, executions, body snatching, Goth etc) and the stories behind the graves in the cemetery. The Leper’s first story is “The Undertaker”, about a Burke and Hare-type undertaker named Joshua Sleeth: “If you wanted someone buried, ole Sleeth was the man to do it, no questions asked […] Sleeth was an evil beggar all right. If yer needed a helpin’ hand into the next world, so to speak, he was always ready to give it…”. Sleeth’s reputation has reached the ears of Emily Carlisle, who wants a helping hand in getting her Uncle Henry into the next world so she can inherit.

The final serial is “The Terror of the Cats”. All the cats in the neighbourhood are going crazy and attacking people for no apparent reason. Reporter Allen Woodward is on the story and also that of Dr Kruhl (nicknamed “Cruel” because of his reputation), the Director of the Government Research Institute. It’s soon obvious to the readers that the two stories are linked somehow, though Woodward hasn’t clicked yet.

As with Misty, Scream has complete stories, though less prolific. One format is uncredited one-page one-shot stories, some of which end with a dash of humour. The other format is the “Library of Death” (yes, more death tales), which has more pages. The first tale is about a boy who gets strange, frightening visitations in his bedroom after his parents deny him his request to go into the Ghost House at the fair.

For the resident funny cartoon, Scream is reprinting Fiends and Neighbours from Cor!! An ordinary couple are looking forward to meeting their new neighbours – only to get the shock of their lives when they find the newcomers are a regular Addams family.