I think you're right in saying that it wouldn't exactly influence every writer to put out their best as there wouldn't be any accountability but as a creative experiment I've often found the exercise to be a lot of fun.

"Bed of Roses" (from Creepy #51, March 1973)

art by Felix Mas

my grade: A+



Plot synopsis: A young woman dreams of living free among flowers but wakes to find herself alienated in a confined world in which she still lives with her oppressive mother and constantly lives in dread of confined spaces as they remind her of how her mother used to lock her in the closet for being bad. She also has a persecution delusion, in which men are coming to take her away for every little stupid thing she does wrong (again, going back to how her mother raised her). Ultimately, she is convinced that a customer at work has come to get her, so she murders him, fleeing to her home and, there, killing her mother too. The police come, discover that the mother's corpse has been locked in the closet, and take the young woman away, who we finally see in a small padded cell, acting as if she is a child again, once more locked in the closet.

This has ALWAYS been a favorite Warren story of mine, and this re-read did not disappoint. Moench does SO much right here.

1. The narration. Moench has been experimenting constantly with new narrative themes to try as of late, and most have not worked, but what he does here, the defining of words, somehow inexplicably suits the action of the story. I can't explain it, so I'll just quote it:







Maybe it's the fact that these cold definitions are so detached from the wild mind we watch gradually breaking down throughout the story. Or that they reflect her dawning understanding of the world and herself, articulated as if she is a small, complicit child reciting definitions for an overly demanding teacher.


2. The visual premise. Fear of a confined closet, perceived even by being in a small bathroom, and then having that drive the protagonist into a small padded cell. It's not the best part of the story, but it certainly adds to it.


3. The horror. Moench really got a taste for sick/demented with "Ecology of Death" last month, and continues that here. What's so powerful in both instances is watching characters that we perceive as innocent do horribly corrupt deeds without their even understanding it. Prince Hal once stated that "horror stems from incongruity," and that's exactly what Moench is tapping into here with an unexpected and alarming mixture of innocence and darkness.


The symbolism. We also saw Moench begin to toy more with symbolism in "Ecology of Death," and that's present here as well, as the flowers the protagonist covets are symbolic of maturing into a liberated adult woman (as depicted quite graphically on that title page). That the one place where she is trusted/respected as an adult is at her job in a flower shop is indicative of this, as is the fact that the sheets she sleeps in while living with her mother as a supposedly grown woman are a pale imitation of real flowers. This whole story is truly a quest for a disturbed young woman, emotionally arrested in the past, trying to attain liberty and adulthood and, ultimately, finding the quest impossible. This is a universal struggle, to be sure, and one that evokes immense empathy from the reader.


Mas' artwork isn't as phenomenal in parallel, but he does what he needs to, especially in getting across completely different personas on the protagonist's face, depending upon her context. On the title page, she is mature, free, and sultry. A page later, she is deflated and emotionally dead while dwelling in the real world:



And, by the close, she is 10 years old again, or at least a twisted caricature of her ten year old self:





All told, this is Moench's best script thus far, hands down.

"The Message is the Medium" (from Eerie #47, April 1973)

art by Paul Neary

my grade: C



Plot synopsis: A husband kills his wife to make way for his lover. On their night of celebration, she insists that they visit a medium and that he believe in such mysticism. Inevitably, the murdered wife appears, sending the husband into a panic, at which point he murders the medium. In a surprising twist, the medium then haunts him as a spirit, the murdered wife assisting, until they have caused he and his lover to die. In a final twist, the mystic has been returned to life ("those who govern the spirit world are kind to ones who pass away before their ordained times") and has brought back the murdered wife with her, while the husband and lover are now their undead spirit familiars.


Much like "Hit and Run: Miss and Die!" this story feels a lot more rushed than Moench's standard work, lacking in a visual premise and a clever narrative style, and borrowing hopelessly from the trope Moench already exhumed for "Hand of the Discarnate" only three issues back in this same publication.

What Moench does add here to make the story stand out is an almost excessive number of twists, as the murderer unexpectedly kills the fortune teller, the fortune teller then unexpectedly rises from the grave, and by the end, the murdered are somehow alive again while the murderers are undead servants. Wow.

Granted, very little of it makes sense, and really, why in the world would a murderer and his lover decide it's a good time to go to a medium RIGHT after killing someone? But it did provide an ample amount of shock value and, as much as this thread appreciates Moench as a writer of true literature in hindsight, it's important to keep in mind that he was only being paid to produce cheap shocks and thrills. In that respect, he succeeded with this tale.


For what it's worth, Paul Neary turns in some dynamite panel arrangements. In the past, I would have unflinchingly credited this to Moench's direction, but it's hard to tell whether he was all that involved in the visuals at this point. Certainly, with Paul Neary being an English-speaking artist, there was more opportunity for Moench to provide him with detailed direction.

FYI -- We're now halfway through the Warren Era. 31 reviews left before Moench arrives at Marvel.

"Mench," though I still always hear it in my head as "Moe-nch"

"A Most Private Terror" (from Creepy #52, April 1973)

art by Esteban Maroto

my grade: B-



plot synopsis: A warrior in the frozen Canadian wasteland senses a beast stalking him, recalls falling in love with a native in the steaming jungles of the Amazon who turned out to be a monster that he had to kill in order to survive, battles freezing to death by setting his own legs on fire in order to wake them up, but ultimately falls to his death attempting to escape whatever is haunting him now -- which proves to be a bunny rabbit.

There are several things I really enjoy about this story beyond the obvious twist ending (and, let's be clear, rabbits are in no way indigenous to frozen wastelands). There's the Jack London-style survival story in which the protagonist must be surprisingly resourceful in order to prevent himself from freezing to death, and there's also the doubt cast on the protagonist's perspective by the end of the story -- does his overwhelming fear come from his run-in with the monster woman, or did he just imagine she was a monster woman because he's obviously crazy?

But there are aspects that don't work, as well. For one, I absolutely cannot place the genre of this story. Maroto has the guy decked out like the warrior of some fantasy realm, and Moench refers to him once as "the hailed Warlord of Fire and Earth," but he speaks with a sort of back-woods Southern accent and carries a rifle with him. Plus, we're given real-world geography for the story.

The other is Maroto. Moench has indicated that Maroto was his least favorite artist to work with because he never followed Moench's directions for the visuals. Moench chalked this up to the language barrier, but the majority of artists who did Moench's stories for Warren were non-English speaking. Really, what seems to go wrong here is less a matter of misunderstanding and more a matter of Maroto applying his own stylistic choices in ways that just don't fit the story.

Example 1:


This layout is pretty confusing to follow (you have to read the center box first). Moench is very intuitive in his arrangements. They've never been hard to follow, except when Ernie Colon did Deathslaker.

Example 2:


Though Moench excels at thinking visually, he is, first and foremost, a writer. When he has panels without words, they serve a very definite purpose and are intended to convey a clear and important meaning. These three panels are beautiful, but what are they trying to show us? What in the world is happening in that second panel, anyway? Is she sliding the dagger under her wrist bracelet, taking her pulse, or pinching herself to see if she's awake? Whatever the case, it just isn't Moench's style to give us three silent panels without conveying a clear and significant message through them; not even the transition from fear/readiness to a come-hither look. Just not Moench's style to give so much time to one simple change of demeanor, especially when this is back-story and not critical present action.


Example 3: (concealed due to nudity)


"Confused, he ran!" not "Confused, he lingered in the doorway, gazing at the moon."

Also, if I know Moench, those subjective flashbacks with the Amazon woman that we are intended to later doubt would have looked artistically different than the present action of the story. Maroto draws them the same.


I just don't think this can be chalked up to a language barrier anymore. Maroto has his own style and doesn't seem to feel obligated to follow Moench's written directions. I don't dislike what Maroto has done in the examples above, but they don't jibe with Moench's visual style of story-telling at all. I think one key thing folks don't often understand about Moench was how visually he saw his stories. Imagine Jack Kirby could see all those fantastic layouts and poses in his mind but couldn't draw to save his life, so he provided elaborate written descriptions of how the artists should convey those panels and arrangements instead. Most artists have done a good job of conveying Moench's visual artistry while also bringing their own style to the table, but Maroto doesn't seem to give a damn how Moench sees his stories and just draws whatever he wants instead.