If you’ve never heard of Creepy Magazine, you’re missing one of the greatest black-and-white pulp-horror comic publications of the past 50 years (which certainly narrows it down) — sort of a bastard love child, and perhaps the result of a tryst between tamer fare like Tales From The Crypt and The Vault of Horror. Under the Taliban-like regime of the Comics Code Authority, that silly little ban on anything having to do with dirty language and naughty bits, though, the twisted genius of Creepy remained largely unknown for decades.

On hand to revel in its glorious re-release today, fortunately, were several lifelong industry genuises (or is it genuii?) to promote something that, in the world of horror, was seemingly left out ot die long ago. Original Creepy artist Angelo Torres has now teamed up with renowned musician and horror enthusiast Dan Braun to bring back the series that changed horror comics forever.

That’s Dennis Calero above, clearly feeling the burden of having to undo decades of damage under the Comics Code’s McCarthy-ist logic. One of the best things about Creepy is the obligatory twist that comes at the end of each story, and the fact that you (may) feel like you’re having a really bad acid trip each time you finish one. This isn’t for the faint of heart — pick up any issue and you’ll find that not only are the endings not exactly happy-go-lucky, but plenty gory as well. But if you’re a horror aficionado in the least, pick this up — no excuses; you can even just poke your fingers at the keyboard and order it through a link on the Dark Horse website now.

Words by Jeff Nau, Photos by Zoetica Ebb