Things That Frightened Me as a Child, Part 6

MORE FRAZETTA

Yes, it didn't stop at the cover reproductions on that fateful Creepy paperback. Inside lurked a story that was to make me feel uneasy for years to come - the story of the...

The story itself was pretty standard Creepy fare, featuring an asshole named Demmon and the ever-popular moral "don't be an asshole" (paraphrasing!). Nothing I hadn't seen before, honestly. The part that really haunted me was the werewolf itself.

I don't know if it's because this was an African werewolf or if Frazetta was just having fun with some crazy monster design, but the thing looked completely eerie and alien to me. The short muzzle and enormous mouth, the spiked black fur, all of it combined to make something that clearly did not belong to the natural world.

Plus: bats! The most frightening of mammals!

Eventually, of course, it came down to a one-on-one between Demmon and the beast, and of course that scared the hell out of me. The very thought of standing there attempting to stare down such a creature... brrr.

And then Demmon gets in a lucky shot and rips off the Gorilla-Man's origin story. That guy - what an asshole. I think that it's safe to assume that he didn't get to spend any time on a delightful super-hero team at any point, thank goodness. Note, however, the emaciated, half-transformed figure in the upper left. Frank Frazetta, why did you hate eight year old me? Why would you haunt me like this? I demand answers!

Or possibly money.