THE SPOOK (1974-1975) – FROM ICONIC EERIE MAGAZINE

This weekend’s superhero blog post will go with the Halloween theme. The Spook was one of the recurring characters in Warren Publications’ iconic magazine Eerie.

EERIE #57 (June 1974)

Title: Stridespider Sponge-Rot

Oh, what is the fungus that digests moist wood? 

STRIDESPIDER SPONGE-ROT!

The xylophagus fungus that eats what it should

STRIDESPIDER SPONGE-ROT!

Breaks down hemicellulose all well and good

STRIDESPIDER SPONGE-ROT!

Okay, I’ll stop right there. Had to be done, though. We were all thinking it.

NOTE: Warren Publications are fondly remembered for their horror and sci-fi magazines like Creepy, Eerie, 1984 and Vampirella (at right). As magazines and not comic books, Warren’s output was not limited by the comics code and could therefore delve into adult themes and intense violence.

        Marvel Comics even imitated Warren for a while in the 1970s with their own magazine-sized publications with black & white interior art, like Vampire Tales, Haunt of Horror, etc.

        Which brings us back to Eerie #57, in which one of the stories introduced the magazine’s latest recurring character the Spook.

Synopsis: In life, the Spook was John Mathew Tobias, a black plantation slave in the American south of the 1800s. He was brought back from the dead as a zombie and set out for revenge on his former owners and those like him.

The very first words in this story really hook the reader: “The Spook … He likes midnight best, cause some say that’s when he was born and others say that’s when he died. But midnight suits Spook just fine. He sees best then.”

Our undead hero is summoned by the Voodoo priestess (Mambo) Jaseela, who asks Tobias to forego his usual slaying of slave-owners and slave-hunters this night. Instead, she has sensed that the evil Mambo Sarena, who killed the Spook years earlier, is getting ready to strike.

Jaseela informs Tobias that Sarena has tired of trying to convince enough living slaves to follow her in an uprising and has decided to raise an army of zombies from their graves. She plans to use the army to slaughter not just the plantation owners but the slaves who refused to follow her.

Then the evil Mambo plans to resurrect the slain slaves to add to the ranks of her zombie army and repeat the process elsewhere. The Spook rows his way into the depths of the bayou, where Jaseela has sensed Sarena’s ritual being held.

Through a ritual in which the beautiful Mambo defiles graves and engages in behavior that not even an R-Rated movie could get away with, Sarena raises her army of zombies. Tobias confronts this woman who made him love her long ago and she soon sics her undead slaves on him.

The Spook kills untold numbers of them with his massive strength, his chain and his long knife, but eventually sheer numbers begin to tell the tale. Before he can be completely overwhelmed, he manages to kick Sarena into the fire, and as she burns alive the zombie army drops dead in unison.

EERIE Vol 1 #58 (July 1974)

Title: Knucklebones to Fever Twitch

Synopsis: When an especially cruel and inhumane captain of a slaver ship arrives in New Orleans, he is furious that the entire cargo of slaves perished from his treatment. He leaves some crew members aboard ship while he goes into the city to get more supplies. He can then dump the dead bodies at sea where they won’t wash ashore.

The Spook, with Michael Myers/ Jason Voorhees stealth, climbs aboard the night-darkened ship as it sits docked. He relentlessly butchers the crew members and cuts off their fingers at the knuckles for the Voodoo ritual that he and Jaseela have planned for this vile captain and his away team.

Jaseela burns the fingers in a raging fire and has Tobias wear the charred bones around his neck as he returns to the docked ship. The captain and the rest of his crew have returned and the sole escapee from earlier makes it clear that it was the legendary undead Spook who killed his shipmates earlier. 

Thanks to Jaseela’s ritual with the fingers, the entire group of dead slaves emerge to kill the captain and the rest of his men while Tobias cuts the ship loose and blows it up with gunpowder when it is far enough from land.

NOTE: The fact that the Spook’s deadly slasher-style war on slave-owners and slave-hunters makes him a virtual bogeyman in Louisiana is a nice touch.

EERIE #62 (January 1975)

Title: Crackermeyer’s Churchyard

Synopsis: An evil southern landowner enlists the help of the army to remove black people trying to hold onto their church and its graveyard where their loved ones have been buried for years.

The people plead for help from an old Voodoo Houngan named Crackermeyer. The Houngan summons the Spook from the depths of the Louisiana swamps. Overnight, Tobias slaughters the few dozen soldiers and the landowner in proto-slasher fashion, then feeds their remains to the swamp wildlife. 

EERIE #63 (February 1975)

Title: Stumpful of Grandaddies

Synopsis: The Spook is reduced to a very small role in this one. Crackermeyer once again summons Tobias for help when he finds himself accused of murdering the daughter and son-in-law of a notoriously cruel plantation owner.

Voodoo magic brings the two victims back to life to reveal that the plantation owner is really the murderer. The Spook cuts down Crackermeyer before he can be hanged. Boring as hell, and with almost no horror elements. 

EERIE #64 (March 1975)

Title: The Caul

Synopsis: The Warren creative team continued devaluing what had started out as a brilliant horror creation. The interior artwork by now presented the Spook as a normal-sized man AND he suddenly had to share the title of his series, which was now “The Spook and Crackermeyer.” WTF?

(By the way, though undead the Spook could speak just fine, so Crackermeyer was not needed as a dramatic device.)

This time around the story is much better but still features more of Crackermeyer than Tobias. The Spook and his spotlight-stealing pal investigate the goings-on at Louisiana’s isolated Toorean Mansion.

Hundreds of slaves are purchased by Mr. Toorean but once they enter his mansion they are never seen again and the sinister man simply buys more, and so on and so forth. Using a caul cut off a newborn child’s face as a protective charm, Tobias and you-know-who enter Toorean Mansion after dark.

In a nearly death-camp tableau our heroes see that Toorean has the purchased slaves hung upside down and beheaded, assembly line style. Their heads are kept in large jars for display and Toorean is revealed as a ghoul who feasts on the flesh of the dead slaves.

The Spook kills Toorean and his complicit butcher, then helps the still-living slaves escape. Following that, he and Crackermeyer burn down the mansion.   

EERIE #65 (April 1975)

Title: A Killing Rain

NOTE: Well, at least this final tale of the Spook wasn’t titled Crackermeyer’s World or something similar. And yes, this is indeed the final Spook story. Some sources claim his series ran until Eerie #66 but if you actually read that issue, neither the Spook nor the show-hog are in it.   

Synopsis: In a truly dumb ending, we jump forward from the 1840s to 1862. With the Civil War raging, the Spook and Crackermeyer steal a Gatling Gun from a Union detachment and … use the gun to start killing the soldiers from both sides.

Moronically, Crackermeyer keeps insisting that this will end the war, but realizes differently when the Spook is blown to bits during the battle and the war resumes, unchanged. Crackermeyer survives and wound up in a one-issue sequel story of his own in Eerie #67. I’m sure as hell not bothering to review it after this brain-dead conclusion to a once-promising horror series. 

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