Getting Rooked Again!

There was a time when I was a big Warren publications fan. That time pretty much coincided with the era when Eerie magazine featured weird and offbeat heroes (or anti-heroes) and let loose a bit the pure horror brand and embraced the wonders of sci-fi. I was led to Warren by way of Will Eisner's The Spirit, but hung around to get a better look at the vivacious Vampirella, a character who perfectly blended horror and science fiction into a delightful whole.

But one of my favorite features was Bill DuBay's time-crossed cowboy Restin Dane, better known as The Rook. I know that some folks don't like time travel stories but I'm not one of those, I love them. And this kind of ongoing tomfoolery with time is just the kind of thing I love. We have here a series by more than competent creators a series which takes bits of Doc Savage, blends in a little Doctor Who, and throws it all into a Tom Mixer. The result are some well-crafted yarns about the past, the future and all that's in between.

The Rook continued to appear in Eerie magazine and later got his own title, which according some reports I've read was Warren's best seller for a time. Some fine artists worked on the feature, but Luis Bermejo's work on the earliest installments is some of the sweetest. Dark Horse has collected up some of the earliest Rook adventures in three slim but handsome volumes. Here are the covers  of the issues of Eerie collected which feature the Rook. Other stories from other issues are included.

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