Shocktober 10/5/22

I've long been a fan of Bill Sienkiewicz, a comic book artist best known for his work on Marvel's New Mutants and Elektra: Assassin.

But when I saw this rendering of Max Shreck from the silent horror classic Nosferatu, I just had to share.

Shocktober 10/4/22

In addition to creating the Rocketeer and reviving the memory of Bettie Page, artist Dave Stevens also drew covers for various comic books. This one reprinted 1950s horror comics.

Shocktober 10/2/22

In the early 1970s, Marvel Comics brought back several iconic monsters to appear in their comic book line--Dracula, the Frankenstein Monster and the Wolfman (under the guise of Werewolf by Night) all had their own comics, with varying degrees of success. (Dracula ran for more than 70 issues, while the Werewolf hung around for 40-plus and poor Framkenstein just under 20).

They also brought back a wild west concept--The Ghost Rider--updated for the decade to a motorcycle-riding spirit of vengeance in the form of Johnny Blaze, who sells his soul to the devil to save the life of his adoptive father, who (SUPRISE!) dies anyway. At night, though, Blaze turned into a spirit with a blazing skull who could shoot bursts of hellfire.

Ghost Rider met various Marvel heroes, including Spider-Man, the Hulk and the superteam the Champions (whom he joined in adventures for their brief 15-issue run) and fought various supernatural villains over the course of his 81-issue run.

The trade paperback pictured above reprints his first appearences in Marvel Spotlight as well as the first dozen issues of Ghost Rider.

Every Picture Tells a Story 5/27/22

Blood of My Ancestors

Blood of My Ancestors started out as a graphic novel with a script by Steven Grant and artwork by the great Gil Kane--co-creator of the modern Green Lantern for DC Comics and Morbius the Living Vampire for Marvel, among many, many characters he either created outright or at least worked on in his decades-long career.

When Kane died on January 31, 2000, with only part of Blood of My Ancestors completed, it seemed like the project was doomed to sit in a drawer somewhere at DC Comics.

Then someone somewhere along the line got the brilliant idea to have another legendary comic book artist, John Buscema, finish the book. It was a rare instance of Buscema doing artwork outside of Marvel Comics, where he'd drawn the Avengers, Spider-Man, Conan, the Fantastic Four and damn near every other character in the Marvel Universe over his lengthy career.

Buscema finished the book...then he died as well.

So Blood of My Ancestors represents the final published work for two of the greats of the comic book industry, all of it inked by another noted artist, Kevin Nowlan.

This is the second time I've owned a copy of this book. That can be said for a lot of the books in my collection these days--all a lengthy attempt to rebuild what was lost when I left behind nearly everything I owned at La Casa del Terror after being forced to move out for nonpayment of rent back in 2016.

It's another small step, but a step nonetheless--and one I gladly take.

Shocktober 10/19/21

This collection of stories from EC Comics is the second such collection to come out recently (the first being the Tales from the Crypt volume that came out just a couple of months ago).

Both reprint stories from the 1950s run of EC Comics' horror line, with artwork from some of the best in the business: Johnny Craig (who handled the cover duties for this volume), Wallace Wood, Graham Ingels, etc. And though the artwork has been recolored, the coloring has been matched beautifully with Marie Severin's original work.

The results? Some of the scariest comics ever produced.

The perfect complement to Shocktober!

Shocktober 10/16/21

Tales from the Crypt wasn't the first horror anthology comic book published in the United States. It was, however, verly likely the most popular of the many, many horror comics published in the early 1950 before Frederic Wertham, a German-born psychiatrist/author/cruisader against comic books in general and horror comics in particular, turned the glare of the media spotlight on the garishly colored, luridly drawn and salaciously written horror comics.

Werthan's book, Seduction of the Innocent was, according to Wikipedia, "a minor bestseller" that nonetheless had sweeping effects on the comic book industry: Horror comics, for the most part, ceased publication overnight. Where there had been dozens of publications, only a few survived, and those became more tame than the "funny animal" comics or "Blondie and Dick Tracy reprints.

But they didn't go away. Not forever. And not completely.
Initially, EC tried to shift their comic book lines over to black-and-white prose magazines with illustrations drawn by many of their comic book artists, but the effort was too little, too late: the magazines went bust after a couple of issues, and only one magazine out of EC's whole line--the humor-oriented Mad--survived.
But that wasn't the end of the gory story. Oh no.
In the 1960s, Warren Publishing began a line of black-and-white magazines--Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella--that was a direct throwback to the EC Comics line, even employing some of the same artists and writers (Johnny Craig, Wallace Wood, Frank Frazetta, Reed Crandall and Angelo Torres, to name just a few). Since these were magazines, not comic books, they weren't subject to the Comics Code and, thus, could publish whatever the hell they wanted to. And did.
Creepy lasted until 1983 (with a lone followup issue published in 1985). Eerie ended around the same time. And Vampirella? Her original run ended at the same time as they other two magazines, but she was revived in comic books soon after and has rarely been out of print since.

Take that, Fred.

Shocktober 10/15/21

The second volume of the adventures of Morbius the Living Vampire came out earlier this year, and it features much the same as the first: Michael Morbius, turned into a vampire by an experiment designed to cure him of a rare blood disease, wanders through the Marvel Universe, encountering various monsters and superheroes.

Considering that Morbius is slated to appear in his own big-screen adaptation--with Jared Leto in the title role--next year, now might be a good time to bone up on his past adventures.

Shocktober 10/9/21

Did you know that legendary bloodsucker Count Dracula was based on a real person?

It's true. Vlad Dracul of Wallachia (a province roughly where Romania is now) was, by all accounts, a bloodthirsty ruler who murdered opponents and allies alike in horrible ways--for example, beheading them and displaying said heads on posts for all to see and, um, "enjoy."

The story of Dracula, the vampire, has been told many times in many different media--novels, movies, TV, comic books, stage plays, etc.

But the story of Vlad the Impaler has not been told nearly as often. There was a movie called In Search of Dracula made back in the '70s starring Christopher Lee (a man with no small experience playing Dracula), and I recall a book being published around the same time that explored his old castle and lands. There was even a prologue added to Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula emphasizing that Dracula had started out as a man--a warlord, really, who loved and lost--who became Lord of the Vampires.

Veteran comic book writer Roy Thomas and artist Estaban Maroto, who drew more than a few issues of Vampirella, teamed up to tell the tale of Vlad the Impaler for Topps, the baseball card company that oh-so-briefly had a comic book line a few decades ago.

And now, thanks to the good folks at IDW Comics, Thomas' and Maroto's version of the Dracula origin tale is available again.

Shocktober 10/7/21

Back in the early 1970s, horror comics and characters were relatively few and far between. Marvel Comics would, of course, publish the longest-running character-specific horror comic, Tomb of Dracula, but that wouldn't start until 1972. In the meantime, Marvel introduced the quasi-vampiric Morbius, the Living Vampire, in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man.

I can hear you now, fair reader: "Living vampire? Ain't no such thing." Well, back in the days when the Comics Code, instituted back in the 1950s to curb the proliferation of horror comics, was still enforced, Marvel couldn't introduce a real vampire on their pages, so Michael Morbius--a scientist with a rare blood condition who experimented on himself, as one does--became a creature who needed blood to survive, but didn't have any issues with garlic or crucifixes or stakes and such.

The character was an instant hit and was soon given his own series in the anthology comic Adventures into Fear, which lasted around 12 issues.

But his adventures didn't end there. Oh no. They continued on, as you shall see...another time.

Shocktober 10/21/20

Yes, I know. You've become tired of my going on about Tomb of Dracula, Marvel's signature horror comic for the better part of a decade. 

But you know what? These stories still hold up 40 years later. 

Granted, things got crazier as the series went on--Drac even encounters the Silver Surfer in this volume--but Marv Wolfman's scripts and the Gene Colan/Tom Palmer art still deliver the mood and the food for thought. 

Shocktober 10/16/20

As previously noted, Tomb of Dracula was Marvel Comics' longest-running horror comic, clocking in at an impressive 70 issues. There were also a couple of black & white magazine versions as well: Dracula Lives and (again) Tomb of Dracula. 

The collection pictured above is the third in The Complete Collection, gathering together another 10 issues of Tomb, plus a few more issues of Dracula Lives. The color comics are the most cohesive, telling one continuing story with small stops in between. Dracula Lives was more of an anthology comic, with stories set at various times in Vlad's long, um, "career" and with art from various hands, though the color issues of Tomb all feature the moody, stylish art of Gene Colan and Tom Palmer.

Shocktober 10/12/20

The saga of Dracula in the modern world (well, the 1970s modern world, anyway) continues in Tomb of Dracula: The Complete Collection Volume 2. As I've said before, I loved this comic when I was a young'un, and having these issues back in a sturdy trade paperback is beyond cool. 

The cover art appears to be Gil Kane again, but most of the interior art is penciled by Gene Colan, a longtime Marvel Bullpen denizen best known for his work on Daredevil. The inking on Colan's pencils is all handled by Tom Palmer this time around, smoothing out the sometimes rough edges from the first volume.

So kick back, warm a cup of tea--Celestial Seasons Sleepytime for me, thanks--and enjoy the four-color craziness of Tomb of Dracula.

Shocktober 10/9/20

The saga of Jack Russell--poor young guy unfortunate enough to get bitten by a werewolf and to subsequently become one himself, sending him off on a series of adventures against all sorts of monsters, vigilantes and mutants--continues in this second volume of Werewolf by Night.

Doug Moench continued on as writer from volume one--and, unfortunately, so did the artwork team of Don Perlin and Vince Colletta. Perlin's pencils are fine enough--he goes from stiff caricature to dynamic poses in the space of a couple of panels--but Colletta's inks are offensively bad. It often looks like he erased all of the pencil work and just redrew it himself.

That doesn't make all of these stories bad, though. In fact, a lot of them are pretty good--especially when Werewolf by Night crosses over with Marvel's other veteran horror comic, Tomb of Dracula. (See cover above.)

Shocktober 10/7/20

Back in the mid-1970s, Marvel Comics has a very successful comic book called Tomb of Dracula. (I do believe I've mentioned it once or twice before.) 

At the height of this success, they launched a second Dracula title, this one a black & white magazine called Dracula Lives. It only ran 13 issues over a couple of years, and most of its stories were stand-alone tales from Dracula's past (with a few set in the present) drawn by a number of different hands, including Neal Adams and regular Tomb artist Gene Colan. 

One of the stories that ran in Dracula Lives was the very first Dracula story: An adaptation of the original Bram Stoker novel, with Roy Thomas writing the script and Dick Giordano providing the gray-tone artwork. It was a faithful adaptation, including characters and scenes often left out of film and TV versions.

Unfortunately, Marvel didn't stick with its black-and-white comics for very long, canceling Dracula Lives after only 13 issues. (The main comic ran 70 issues.) And when Dracula Lives was canceled, the adaptation of Stoker's novel was only about one third done.

But you can't keep a good vampire down--or even an exceptionally bad one--and Marvel's adaptation of Stoker's novel was revived in 2004: first as a four-issue miniseries (with Thomas and Giordano returning to finish what they'd started), then as a hardcover collection of that miniseries.

I recently reacquired that hardcover. Color me blood red...er, I mean happy.

Shocktober 10/2/20

Did you know that, at one point, Godzilla was part of the Marvel Universe?

It's true: From 1977 to 1979, for 24 issues, "The Big G" occupied the same cultural space as Spider-Man, Captain America and the Fantastic Four--all of whom have cameos in this series, along with Jack Kirby's Devil Dinosaur and select agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., most notably "Dum-Dum" Dugan and Jimmy Woo. (Nick Fury pops up a few times as well.)

Doug Moench, better known for writing Werewolf by Night, wrote every issue, and Herb Trimpe, best known for his long run on Marvel's The Incredible Hulk, drew most of the issues, with Tom Sutton logging in for a chapter or two.

I was a big fan of the series when it first came out, and I had the Marvel Essentials volume pictured above--until I had to abandon La Casa del Terror (and nearly all of its contents) back in 2016.

But you know what? Ebay and Amazon Marketplace are wonderful places to visit. You can find damn near anything there.

Even a sorta/kinda treasured link to your past. Like this.

Shocktober 10/24/19

After Dracula and the Wolf Man...er, I mean Werewolf by Night...got their own comic books at Marvel Comics in the early 1970s, it was almost a given that Mary Shelley's famous creation would get his turn. And so he did, in a bimonthly effort originally entitled The Monster of Frankenstein and later retitled The Frankenstein Monster. The title changed made no difference in sales--whatever Marvel chose to call it, they called in "cancelled" after 18 issues (though stories did continue to appear in various Marvel black-and-white horror magazines for a few months more).

That's a shame, because it started with such promise, with writer Gary Freidrich and artist Michael Ploog basically adapting Shelley's novel for the first few issues, then continuing the story as the monster roamed the world, looking at first for revenge on his creator, and then just for some damn peace and quiet. No such luck, though--the Monster not only couldn't rest, he had to face off against Dracula (Marvel's take on the Count, anyway). Then? He got frozen and thawed out in modern times, where he fought/teamed up with the aforementioned Werewolf, as well as Spider-Man and Marvel's other resident lycanthrope, Man-Wolf.

The early issues drawn by Ploog were the best, though. He made the Monster more sympathetic and soulful than subsequent artists could.

Shocktober 10/18/19

He's not a man...not a wolf...but a MAN-WOLF!

Introduced in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man way back in the early 1970s, Man-Wolf soon graduated to his own series and carried on howling and fighting bad guys until his inevitable cancellation. But wasn't it odd that Marvel had TWO werewolf-themed comics (including the previously mentioned Werewolf by Night)?

Every Picture Tells a Story 11/24/18

Seen at a comic book shop today.

Shocktober 10/20/18

When I was a young'un, one of my favorite comic books was Marvel's Werewolf by Night. It was the story of Jack Russell (who was supposed to be in his late teens, but as drawn by Mike Ploog and Don Perlin, looked much older), who gets a, um, unique birthday present: Lycanthropy!

Actually, this was the tried-and-true Marvel "wandering hero" story--epitomized by The Incredible Hulk--only much more, um, hirsute. Jack would go from place to place, often aided by his friend, screenwriter Buck Cowan, battling all sorts of monsters, heroes and freaks, like Atlas, an actor whose face was burned off doing a stunt on one of Buck's movies; the Hangman who...well, look at his name; and Moon Knight, later to be a superhero in his own right.

Werewolf by Night ran for 43 issues (46 if you count the three issues it initially ran in Marvel Spotlight), and the Werewolf has popped up from time to time in other comics since. Not a resounding success (especially compared to Tomb of Dracula, which ran 71 issues), but still not bad for a feisty furball.