Good Lord, I'm still surprised this book even exists! As a long-time fan of Warren's black and white horror comics, I have often come across Skywald's titles "Scream", "Psycho" and "Nightmare" in similar back issue bins, but never really knew their history, or even of their excellent quality.

What this book does SO well, is to fully immerse you in the workings of this often eccentric and ambitious company. Every time I read it, Skywald director "Archaic" Al Hewetson's energy and passion just jumps off the page in a very infectious way. It's also so evocative of the early 70's that I can easily imagine walking through the summer heat of midtown Manhattan (where I actually work only two blocks from Skywald's old building!) and heading up to their wood-paneled offices to spend my days drawing. I WISH!!!

Finally, it teaches by example. I mean that the creators of this book had the vision to include a good number of full comic stories from the original magazines, which really represent the flavor of Skywald, without feeling like easy filler for the book. There is context for each story and the integration is well done, as opposed to a bunch of stories crammed together in the last 100 pages.

If you happen to read my review of the slightly less impressive "Warren Companion" book, you'll learn that I LOVE many of the Spanish artists that worked for that company, so I was more than happy to see that not only did Skywald have a roster of their own artists from Spain, but even shared some (to the chagrin of Jim Warren)! One of my favorites, Ramon Torrents, has a story here, "The Filthy Little House of Voodoo", done completely in wash. Not quite as superb as his usual intricate line work, but very interesting to see!

For many collectors this will be a fond look back but, for me, it was kind of a late but pleasant welcoming. I will always love the Warren magazines but, by the late-70's, they were really straying further and further from their horror roots to explore the more fashionable Star Wars influenced science fiction, as well as the decade-long fantasy boom which they had always dabbled in. Skywald's three signature titles, however, seem to have remained more purely fixed in their dedication to evoking Al Hewetson's insane "horror mood"! This means years of collecting for me! Cheers Al.

I purchased this book and was very pleased with it! I collected the Skywald titles back in the days. This book does a very nice job covering the company history. This was as good as the book that was published for the Warren history.

This book is fabulous. It is lovingly compiled, and marvelously detailed. If you grew up with Skywald, or are just getting into them - this book is very, very thorough, and delivers exactly as it promises. It is an overview of the Skywald history, with several stories placed throughout - giving insight into not only the history, but of the various writers and artists who contributed to the Skywald titles in the early-to-mid Seventies. A must companion to the Skywald horror-mood comics collector - - and a must for anyone who may not be familiar with Skywald, and just interested in comics and horror history. The presentation is very professional - it's a great-looking book. This has my very highest recommendation - it's a total payoff for your investment!! A+

It does not really matter much if you appreciated Skywald's horror comic magazines when they hit the racks decades ago, for the worth of this book is not just a reminiscence for their fans, but an interesting and in-depth exposition on one man's effort to challenge the publishing titan of the day (Warren Publishing) at their own game. Authored by Alan Hewetson, Skywald's "Stan Lee," and filled cover to cover with the writers and artists of their 3 magazines (Nightmare, Psycho, and Scream) Skywald Horror-Mood is a must have anyone interested in a closer look at the goings on behind the scene of a struggling horror magazine during the horror boom of the 70s.

The Complete Illustrated History of the Skywald Horror-Mood is a fascinating book, mostly a collection of interviews with the surviving Skywald principals, which chronicles Alan Hewetson's experiences as the editor and chief writer of three black & white horror comic magazines put out by Skywald in the early `70s. There was a lot of competition in the field then, from Warren, Eerie and even Marvel, and Skywald was known as the bottom of the barrel. They paid the lowest rates and many of the stories were actually written by Hewetson himself under a variety of pseudonyms. He was a wordy comic book writer who found inspiration in the works of Poe and Lovecraft. Many of the stories were extremely gory and the plots were utterly mad. The art was often exceptional, though, and "Archaic Al" established a unique persona for the line. This is a fun if self-serving book illustrated with tons of photographs, unpublished art and 19 original stories from the magazines. Particularly interesting is the section on Dr. Fredric Wertham, author of the notorious Seduction of the Innocent, with whom Hewetson struck up a tenuous friendship in the late `60s.