Holidaze 12/2/20

In 1990, graphic artist Michael Ploog, best known for his work at Marvel Comics on titles like Werewolf by Night, Monster of Frankenstein and Ghost Rider, adapted a story written by L. Frank Baum, widely acclaimed for his Oz stories.

Here, though, Baum tackles a much more broadly known character: Santa Claus.

The story is much different than what you may think you know about Ol' St. Nick. There's action. Adventure. Romance. Even death. But it all ends up where you'd expect it to: With a large man with a white beard in a red suit.

It's an exciting, refreshing read--highly recommended, if you can track down a copy. (Mine came from eBay. Your mileage may vary.)

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 10/24/19

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 10/20/18

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.