Dracula Lives (1973) #3

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There aren’t any pages of the Dracula movie stills with new dialogue. There are still some movie stills with accompanying text, but it’s not for laughs. It’s a welcome change to Dracula Lives, though the pages instead seem to be going to somewhat middling text material.

But first, the comics.

Writer Marv Wolfman contributes another part of Dracula’s Marvel origin. After becoming a vampire, killing his captors, and dropping his infant son off with some gypsies because a vampire can’t be a daddy, a flock of vampire bats descend on Dracula and again take him captive. He’s off to see Nimrod, Lord of the Vampires, only Dracula’s not going to bow to anyone, so he and Nimrod schedule a duel. Only then Nimrod’s lady tries to seduce Dracula, who isn’t into vampire ladies. Too cold.

John Buscema pencils, Syd Shores inks. It’s probably the best art in the issue, with only one real competitor, but it’s somewhat uneven. Close-ups are great, medium and long shots are iffy on the faces. And then the final battle eventually runs out of steam and ends abruptly. Good writing from Wolfman, though, and lots of the art’s solid.

The second story is one of the two fifties reprints in this issue. Larry Woromay does the art on the story, which recounts the tale of a man born disfigured who wants to become a vampire to make people pay for mistreating him. Only he can’t stand the thought of drinking blood. The end has a “twist,” but the story’s primarily successful for Woromy’s art. Lots of personality to it.

Then comes the first text piece—Doug Moench writing about Bela Lugosi and the 1931 Dracula movie. It’s a thoughtful piece examining how the film’s aged. Probably a little long, but Moench’s got good observations.

The following story is Dracula versus Solomon Kane, so Marvel did a multi-license crossover decades before the competition. Only not exactly because Dracula was never copyrighted in the United States, and the British one had run its course already.

Solomon Kane’s trying to find a missing girl in Transylvania. First, he’s fighting bandits, then wolves, with Dracula showing up to save him at the last minute. Dracula doesn’t know anything about the girl, but wouldn’t Solomon like to spend the night at the castle.

Roy Thomas writes, Alan Weiss pencils, and the “Crusty Bunkers” ink. They must sit at the same table with Many Hands. Supposedly Dick Giordano and Neal Adams did some of the inking. The art’s good but occasionally sparse. There’s great action, though, because obviously, Dracula didn’t offer Kane a place to crash not wanting to suck his blood.

It’s a Solomon Kane story guest-starring Dracula; it’s okay.

Next up is Chris Claremont’s text piece from the perspective of Van Helsing, set to pictures from the Hammer movies of Peter Cushing as Van Helsing. I get they needed to fill the pages, and the story’s better than the movie still rewrites, but it’s still a quick gimmick dragged out over six pages.

The second reprint has Chuck Winter art and is a reasonably straightforward Macbeth adaptation until the last panel. Winter’s art is emotive but rushed, and the big reveal at the end isn’t an improvement on Shakespeare. Shocker. The adaptation also severely reduces Lady Macbeth’s part.

The final story is from Gerry Conway and Alfonso Font. It continues last issue’s New Orleans adventure for Drac, this time getting him all the way to Paris. A mystery woman is out to kill him, there’s a gargoyle flying around the city, lots going on.

Font’s art is design-oriented and fairly good, except Dracula looks a little silly. He’s very formally dressed and finely coiffed, but in a very distinct, very not Dracula Lives style. Font does a fantastic job with the Paris setting, just not the count. It might feature the best “bat” action, though it might also just be Paris.

The Conway story is okay. But, unfortunately, it’s a little too busy for the story we end up getting.

Dracula Lives doesn’t have any home run art outings this issue, which really hurts it. It’s a string of “not bad,” though at least the Wolfman one has some emotional weight. Then the text pieces seem like filler even when they’re okay.

Dracula Lives (1973) #1

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Dracula Lives offers a considerable bang for its six-bit cover price. There are three new Dracula features and three old Marvel (from the Atlas days) reprint strips. The reprints are from black and white horror comics and perfectly match Lives’s format. There’s also a Marv Wolfman article covering Dracula movies; Wolfman doesn’t contribute a script for any of the comics. The only places the comic’s not successful are the vampire movie stills with new dialogue; not sure if it was Bullpen interns or if the Marvel guys just aren’t funny, but they’re charmless. Worth skimming to get to the next comic, but charmless.

The first story is the main attraction—Gene Colan and Tom Palmer in glorious black and white. Gerry Conway writes; freed from the Comic Code, it’s so far his best work on a Marvel Dracula. The Count heads to New York City after reading a news blurb about a successful counter-culture psychic who says he’s reincarnated from some old foe of Dracula’s. So naturally, Drac’s going over to take revenge for past insults but isn’t prepared for the New York lifestyle… specifically sucking the blood of heroin addicts.

Though I suppose it’s the early seventies, they could’ve been potheads, which would make the entire thing much more amusing. Dracula whining about having too many edibles for a dozen pages.

But, no, it’s seemingly smack, so Dracula doesn’t just have to recover; he’s got to find a way to get around town in a beleaguered state. He meets a cool chick, and she helps him out—he keeps not having a good opportunity to bite her—before the showdown with the possibly reincarnated nemesis.

It’s a great comic. Colan and Palmer do a foggy, shadowy Manhattan with a good balance of horror and hip folks. And, again, Conway’s best writing on the character.

The second comic is another original Dracula, set in the past, about the first time the Count went to the United States. There’s a brief reference to it in the opening story (having been there before), but I wasn’t expecting an entire feature to explain it.

Roy Thomas writes, Alan Weiss and Dick Giordano do the art. It’s a Salem witch trial story. Dracula’s sick of his low-class vampire brides back in Transylvania, so he uses his dark magic to seek out a willing witchy wife. He, you know, murdered his current wives, turning them into vampires against their will, so they’re damaged goods. It’s not an inappropriate take, given Dracula’s an actual bad guy.

The art’s good, and Dracula’s kind of a swashbuckler-type when he’s around. Most of the story is about his bride-to-be’s problems with gross men (versus suave vampire men). It’s predictable but acceptable.

Then come the reprints, three in a row—interrupted, obviously, by the movie still bumpers and then Wolfman’s essay—and I kept wondering if there’d be another original story. They save it for last.

The first reprint is a Haitian zombie one with art by Tony DiPreta and no credited writer. It’s a little long at six pages but reasonably compelling. It’s moody as hell.

The second reprint is a two-pager about some guy wanting magic powers and the cost incurred from getting them. Bill La Cava art, no credited writer. It’s low okay, kind of set up for a punchline, but it’s a horror punchline, not a funny or ironic one.

The third reprint’s the best. Stan Lee script, Russ Heath art. An evil asylum owner gets what’s coming to him over seven surprising pages. The Heath art’s fantastic, but Lee’s has good characterizations and solid twists.

Then comes the final story, written by Steve Gerber, with art by Rich Buckler and Pablo Marcos. Buckler and Marcos somehow combine John Carradine’s Dracula with the swashbuckler to great effect. It’s the second-best, art-wise, with some great detail.

Dracula’s heard about a French scientist who can cure vampirism, and, feeling sad over that girl he knew from Salem a few hundred years ago, he heads over to see what’s up.

It’s not the best Dracula characterization—Gerber writes him a little too naive, especially if this story comes after the feature (though the loose continuity is only to the second, flashback story, not the contemporaneous one)—but the writing’s not bad. The plot’s predictable; the art’s where the story excels.

Dracula Lives is off to a superb start.

Howard the Duck 16 (September 1977)

Howard the Duck #16 I don’t want to call this comic book strange. Instead of a regular, strange issue of Howard the Duck, it turns out Gerber was just too busy to break out an actual plot for Gene Colan so instead he did an issue in prose.

Howard the Duck #16. It’s Gerber making fun of himself well, which makes one think about how the comic is the same thing. It’s Gerber making fun of a comic book called Howard the Duck well. And how does one accomplish that task well? By being sincere. By going through the artifice of the series to the point of sincerity.

“Howard” even co-narrates, Gerber telling the reader’s Howard’s a voice in his head. True or not, it’s a direct communication between Gerber and the reader without illusion. Gerber still spins a good yarn to go with it. Because it’s how Howard works. Through narrative disruption.

CREDITS

Zen and the Art of Comic Book Writing: A Communique from Colorado; writer and editor, Steve Gerber; pencillers, Gene Colan, Alan Weiss, Ed Hannigan, Marie Severin, Dave Cockrum, Tom Palmer, Al Milgrom, John Buscema, Dick Giordano and Michael Netzer; inkers, Klaus Janson, Weiss, Hannigan, Severin, Cockrum, Palmer, Milgrom, Buscema, Giordano and Terry Austin; colorists, Janson and Doc Martin; letterers, Austin and Irving Watanabe; publisher, Marvel Comics.

Tom Strong 8 (July 2000)

There’s no feature this issue, just three short stories. The first, with art by Alan Weiss, is a throwback to “The Twilight Zone” as Tom and Solomon find themselves in the Old West. All the residents have three eyes, eat weird things and no longer identify colors with the same words.

It’s a fast little story, with a nice resolution, but Moore really doesn’t explore all the implications. I guess that lack is the drawback–Moore’s ideas, even little ones, are just too strong.

The second story is an adventure for some of the Strongmen of America, with Chris Sprouse and Al Gordon on art. It’s a fun little amusement with a psycho principal out to make kids work harder in school.

The final story, again with Sprouse and Gordon, is nearly sublime. It’s a Tesla adventure and Moore ends it on a joke. It’s still almost sublime.

Great stuff.