Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes (1977) #249

The back-up, starring Chameleon Boy, is nine pages, only a page shorter than the feature, which resolves last issue’s shit monster story. Sort of resolves. Also, the shit monster looks leafier this issue, presumably thanks to Jack Abel’s inks (it’s like they’re fighting Oscar the Grouches). Even if the feature weren’t so slight, the back-up would stand out because it contains the most surprising thing I’ve seen in Superboy and the Legion. My world is shook.

Joe Staton inking himself is… not bad.

It’s not great. He does have trouble with faces, but at least when he’s inking himself, he understands how they work. And his figures aren’t as… I’m trying to pick between gelatinous, wobbly, flimsy, and wonky. Comparing the art in the feature with Abel inking Staton to Staton inking himself, it’s hard to believe they’re the same penciller. It raises several questions, but mostly why they would have Staton ink himself on the nine-page back-up to greater success than on the ten-page feature. Is it too much to ask for better art to be on the feature?

Gerry Conway scripts the feature; he also wrote last issue, which I didn’t remember. It feels very fill in.

The shit monster is attacking the Legion headquarters, kicking Sun Boy’s butt. Brainiac 5 is able to stop the monster, all while whining about how no one appreciates him for always being the smartest and bestest Legionnaire. There’s a little bit with Mon-El and his comatose girlfriend, Shadow Lass. He’s refusing to help the Legion, even though Brainiac has figured out Shadow Lass will be fine.

Though I don’t think Brainiac actually tells Mon-El his discoveries.

Another team of Legionaries headed to the sewer; the shit monster kidnapped their financier, R.J. Brande, and they figure the sewer’s the place to be. That subplot actually goes unresolved, presumably for follow-up next issue, but the Legionaries seemingly forget they’re looking for Brande in the sewer. Even after they discover the secret behind the shit monster, it’s all about Brainiac 5 feeling unappreciated, not their bankroller being missing.

And bankrupt, but they don’t know he’s bankrupt yet; maybe next issue.

Even if the art weren’t terrible, it’d be a too slight story.

The back-up is a simple mystery for Chameleon Boy. Some disgruntled employee is terrorizing his place of employment—the Science Police station—and Chameleon Boy’s got to figure it out. Throw in a fetching alien lady and a lot of exposition, and it’s somehow nine pages. Paul Kupperberg scripts; I think it’s his best Legion work I’ve seen so far, but he’s got the added benefit of each competent panel from Staton bewildering more than the mystery ever could. It’s a reasonably pat mystery, actually. It’s unclear why the Science Police couldn’t figure very obvious things out themselves.

The art’s far from a total success, but Staton shows previously unrevealed design chops. It’s a Silver Age story with a decidedly Bronze Age feel, which has its charms.

Who knew Staton inking himself would save the issue?

Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes (1977) #248

So while this issue has Mon-El going around declaring Shadow Lass is “his woman” and people better recognize, cultural mores of the late seventies didn’t allow writer Gerry Conway to point out the Legion is fighting a shit monster.

The Legion is helping with post-Earthwar rebuilding, and something strange is going on down in the sewers. So they investigate and, immediately after making fun of regular people for getting scared of nothing, a giant Lovecraftian shit monster emerges and attacks.

Joe Staton and Dave Hunt do the art this issue. There’s bad, and there’s worse. Mon-El yelling at everyone to save Shadow Lass is the worse; the action is the bad. But the initial action sequence itself isn’t too bad. Conway knows how to juggle the multiple perspectives, and he still gets to use thought balloons, and the tentacles of a shit monster are terrifying, no matter who’s drawing them.

Once the first fight’s over, and Shadow Lass needs medical attention, the comic downshifts. There’s building tension with the shit monster working its way through the city’s plumbing as the Legionnaires go about their days. Superboy’s working out to take his mind off things, Brainiac 5’s being a weirder asshole than usual, and Lightning Lad is making Saturn Girl dinner for the first time. Who knows how those scenes would play with better art. It’s not impossible for Staton pencils to have some charm, but not with Hunt inks. Not here, anyway.

There’s a two-pronged cliffhanger. The shit monster can attack multiple places at once, so it’s after the Legion and their financial benefactor, R.J. Brande. Brande’s just discovered he’s bankrupt, which no doubt will kick off a new plot line.

Despite being a bad-looking comic, it’s fine? The lousy art’s limiting the book’s exposure (and potential), but there are definitely worse badly drawn comics. Conway seems less interested in Legionnaires’ bickering than other scenes, which is a problem since Superboy and the Legion is usually about churlish genetically engineered white men bickering.

Also, shit monsters are terrifying. Especially with tentacles. Drip drip.

Dracula Lives (1973) #5

This issue starts with the Roy Thomas and Dick Giordano adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which I read in reprint. I’m not going to check the original novel, but I’m not sure Stoker had Jonathan Harker be a shitty racist about China (complaining about how their trains ran in 1897). Harker writes in his diary about how after he and Mina get married, they can get screwing… well, maybe Stoker implied it. Never heard a lot of good about Stoker.

Anyway.

The adaptation covers Harker’s arrival in Transylvania up to Dracula opening the door. He goes from train to village to carriage to Dracula’s carriage; for those familiar with the novel (or faithful adaptations), there are good looks at the carriage driver, who’ll turn out to be Drac in disguise. I’m waiting to see if Giordano has visual consistency.

Harker’s far from a sympathetic protagonist as he Karens his way through Eastern Europe, but the goings-on are mysterious (Dracula’s marking the buried treasure blue flames, though Harker doesn’t know it yet), and the art is absolutely gorgeous. Giordano works his whole ass off on the art. It’s magnificent.

And the writing’s fine. Thomas does Harker’s narration well, does his snooty, British superiority well; so far, there’s nothing else.

Though it’s a relatively quick read, sort of half an act.

While that feature is pretty impressive, the rest of the issue is a less exciting Dracula Lives. And not just because of the text pieces. They apparently ran out of old Atlas strips to run and instead have more original text ones, including Gerry Conway doing a full story. Doug Moench’s Transylvania “travelogue” and Dracula: Prince of Darkness reviews are far more successful. Chris Claremont also contributes a book review (Raymond Rudorff’s The Dracula Archives) and there’s a new feature: “Coffin Chronicles,” upcoming Dracula in other media.

The second original story is also written by Conway, who again does much better in these Lives stories than he did in Tomb, though Frank Springer’s got some odd designs. He does full Bela Lugosi Count Dracula (albeit with an angular, gaunt face), but it’s set before the French Revolution. Dracula goes to France, where he tangles with magician Cagliostro for the first time.

The Cagliostro stories have been running in Lives for a while, only in the present. Dracula’s convinced his old foe’s still kicking and is trying to take him out. This story provides the backstory of their rivalry. Or at least the very beginnings of it.

After surviving an assassination attempt, Dracula bribes his way onto Louis XVI’s court. Cagliostro’s already there and already trying to do away with the Count.

It’s an okay but somewhat awkward story. It’s too short because it’s got a part two coming, and while Springer’s art is often good, his designs are not.

The one reprint is a reasonably solid effort with art by Sid Greene. A reporter goes to a village where they feed their local vampire farm animals, and the vampire’s nice to everyone. Unfortunately, some loudmouth in the village convinces everyone they need to get rid of the vampire, which has terrible repercussions. It’s five pages; maybe it could’ve been four, but okay.

The third original story is a disappointment. Not in terms of art. Gene Colan with Pablo Marcos inking. The art’s remarkable. The story not so much.

Tony Isabella writes based on a Marv Wolfman story. It’s Dracula on a plane. Some incel is going to blow the plane up to watch everyone die, only Dracula’s got to get back to the Big Apple and his waiting coffin. It’s a follow-up to his Hollywood adventure last issue.

While no one else on the plane can handle the terrorist (white guy), Dracula’s sure he can handle it. But apparently, Drac doesn’t understand explosives. He also doesn’t think to mist his way behind the guy. It’s not very well-thought-out by Dracula or Isabella.

But the art’s fabulous. The final gag is neat, though it breaks a bunch of vampire rules continuity, both within the story and elsewhere in the issue. But I was expecting a lot more from it. I wonder if Wolfman had the whole story idea or just the setup. Or maybe just the good punchline.

Then there’s a one-page “The Boyhood of Dracula” strip to close the issue; Isabella writing, Val Mayerik on art. It’s about when the Turks imprisoned young Vlad Tepes and tortured him. It’s a fairly tepid account and seems like filler. I was expecting more from it as well.

Still, the novel adaptation makes it more than worth the read, plus Conway’s writing is good on the too-short France story, and Marcos inking Colan is sublime.

Dracula Lives (1973) #4

I’m getting to be such a Mike Ploog snob. Seeing him ink his own pencils, then seeing others ink his pencils… the latter always seems to come with qualifications, asterisks, and compromises. Ploog pencils this issue’s first story, written by Marv Wolfman, with Ernie Chan inking him. Chan keeps much of the detail, even much of the personality, but not the energy.

The story’s about one Louis Belski, Dracula actor. I thought Wolfman was doing a riff on Bela Lugosi: switching the initials, portraying the actor in his has-been days, ready for Ed Wood to show up with an offer, but apparently not. Belski’s instead just a hack who never achieved the greatness of Lugosi, John Carradine, or Christopher Lee—according to Dracula himself, who’s come to Hollywood to stop Belski from continuing his career.

His career’s incredibly long; Belski started at the studio when it was constructed in 1927. It’s the early seventies; the actor’s apparently in his early to mid-sixties, which kind of explains why he’s not doing well in the part. He’s also a raging drunk who starts pretending he’s really Dracula after shooting’s stopped, attacking those who wrong him, and trying to seduce an ingénue. So the actual Count doesn’t just have to contend with an obnoxious actor; he’s also got to intercede in that actor’s drunken, murderous rampage.

It’s a jam-packed story, with Wolfman sort of overwriting it but never thinking about it—Belski’s age, for instance, but then also the idea Dracula got his stake pulled in Tomb and went out to revival theaters to catch up on how he’d been portrayed in popular media. Also, Belski’s a lousy lead to follow around. It’s like a horror comic where you’re waiting for the villain’s comeuppance, but the collateral damage on the comeuppance is almost too much.

While not bad, it’s definitely disappointing. Especially for the only Ploog in Dracula Lives so far.

Then there are some text pieces; lots of text pieces this issue. And the movie stills with new text are back, though not as jokey as they’ve been before. Now they’re just interstitials. The first two text pieces are a book review about the real Dracula from Chris Claremont. The book’s called In Search of Dracula (and appears to still be in print if one’s interested), but the review’s way too overwrought with Claremont trying to be personable, then the typesetting on movie stills makes it hard to read.

Then Dwight R. Decker contributes a one-page joke vacation text about real Romania? It’s too bad the filler’s not better in Lives. Especially since they appear to be upping the text and lowering the reprint count. There are only two reprint stories.

The first is about a village where everyone thinks this lovely lady is a vampire seducing the local boys, then killing them. The truth’s more complicated and not particularly rewarding, but Joe Maneely’s art’s really good, and it’s only six pages.

The following story is another original (thank goodness they’re still doing three an issue). Gardner Fox writes, Dick Ayers does the art. It’s Dracula versus Countess Elizabeth Báthory. She’s the one who bathed in human blood to stay young. Dracula doesn’t like her getting in on his business, especially when she’s a poser. It’s a tedious twelve pages, partially because the idea’s one-note, but also because Fox’s script isn’t great, and then the Ayers art is a considerable downgrade from the rest in the issue. Not just the new features either, the reprints as well.

Then comes a couple more text pieces. One’s a jokey biography of Marv Wolfman, and the other’s a review of Horror of Dracula by Gerry Boudreau. It’s more a combination of behind-the-scenes and scene-by-scene recap with some scant critical commentary. They threaten more reviews at the end.

The second reprint is a short one, art by Tony Mortellaro, and it seems like they should’ve run it in the first issue because it’s so well-suited for Lives. A German villager only wants his daughter to marry royalty, so he kills off her poor suitors, sometimes letting vampires feed on them for cover. Despite his daughter wanting to choose her own destiny, he decides for her and makes an exceptionally bad selection.

The final story is the third original, written by Gerry Conway (easily his best Dracula in Lives or Tomb and some of his best writing from this era), with art by Vicente Alcazar. Alcazar has maybe two less than perfect panels, but otherwise, the art’s consistently breathtaking.

It’s another of the Dracula origin stories, with the former Impaler retaking his castle from the invading Turks. He’s got to deal with the newly installed regional commander but also the neighborhood Catholic priest who’s got a fairly big secret. Then, of course, there’s still the castle, which the Turks have occupied, and the local girls they’ve enslaved.

The feature’s a page shorter than the issue’s other two—eleven pages instead of twelve—, and it’s a bummer they didn’t give Conway and Alcazar more pages because it’s outstanding. Conway’s characterization of Dracula as vampire king is rather thoughtful, and—given the particulars—Drac gets to be an unproblematic protagonist. Everyone else is doing far worse things than just retaking from occupiers.

Alcazar gets a variety of action to visualize, with Dracula fighting soldiers but also finding himself in his first vampire transformation duel. It’s great.

I had been thinking I’d jump off Dracula Lives after a while, so long as Tomb doesn’t keep citing it; I don’t think I can give it up. Not just for the art either; the Conway writing on the last story is fantastic. Plus, the fifties reprints are surprisingly good. I’d always assumed fifties horror comics would be rote and stale, but nope. They’re succinct enough their initial impulse carries through.

The text material, obviously, is take or leave. Meaning leave.

Werewolf by Night (1972) #10

I know people buy Marvel superhero comics in Marvel comics. Still, when a kid’s floppies get knocked from his hands during Sarnak the evil sound engineer’s attack on Century City, and the kid wishes Spider-Man or Thor were here… it feels like he’s talking about his comic book heroes. Otherwise, wouldn’t someone just be whining about how L.A. doesn’t have any good superheroes?

It’s a pretty good issue. Tom Sutton’s art is slightly better this time. Last time he made an excellent first impression, this time, he opens with some of his weakest stuff—not sure what’s going on with Lissa Russell’s head, but it looks painful—and then mostly improves. The Century City attack sequence is goofy—pissed off Jack escapes, Sarnak unleashes his army of mind-controlled sewer men on the citizenry. It doesn’t really play into the main plot, but I guess writer Gerry Conway thought any set piece would do.

While that attack’s happening, Lissa’s presumably passed out in her sewer pit jail, while Jack goes to Venice Beach to get help from Buck, who doesn’t wonder why Jack’s shirtless and smelly. Weird norm.

At the same time, copper Lou Hackett wants to question Phillip Russell, but the bad guys from the Committee show up and—literally—karate chop Russell into submission before kidnapping him. Lots going on at once, but none of it for this issue. We met the Committee earlier during Sarnak’s origin flashback; he was once a great sound engineer, but he started bootlegging records. Apparently, the label guys burned him alive for it. But he still knows his stuff, so he can create a mind-control device and do the Committee’s bidding.

Their bidding in this case? Capture Jack and Lissa; the Committee knows Jack’s a werewolf and suspects Lissa will be one too. They want to control the werewolf siblings, and Sarnak’s just the man to do it, right after he organizes a brainwashed sewer army.

It’s all extremely contrived, but it also makes the story much stranger than it would be without such a silly series of events.

The finale’s good—Sutton obviously enjoys doing the werewolf scenes—and it’s nice to see Jack and Lissa on the same page about his lycanthropy. Even if she only plays damsel in distress when she was actually the Committee’s primary target.

The Larry Talbots… I have it, my father had it, my sister has it.

Conway and Sutton pull it off, rescuing the two-parter.

Dracula Lives (1973) #3

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.

Werewolf by Night (1972) #9

For a while, I thought artist Tom Sutton would be Werewolf by Night’s return to art form. Or at least getting closer to it than it’s been since they started putting consecutively worse inkers on Mike Ploog, then lost Ploog altogether. Sutton’s probably the most successful since then, but he’s not good.

The first sequence has Wolfman Jack running through rainy Los Angeles while some scary-looking guy in a scarecrow outfit chases him in the sewer, eventually attacking. The werewolf holds his own until a supersonic dog whistle paralyzes him, letting the scarecrow guy escape, with the werewolf passing out in public. Jack wakes up in the morning in the LAPD drunk tank, with detective Lou Hackett waiting to question him.

There was also a Len and Glynis Wein cameo, which is cute, but probably shouldn’t be one of Sutton’s most successful “people” panels. Because while Sutton’s better than most at the werewolf and his sewer-dwelling, scary-looking foe… the people are the pits. And they get worse as the story progresses. Then it turns out the sewer-dwelling grotesques are just ugly people who were experiencing homelessness and then hypnotized by some guy with a pied piper pipe… it’s rather dehumanizing and icky.

Pied piper guy is named Sarnak. He works for the Committee. And he wants to brainwash the werewolf into helping them attack Century City, but it’s all actually a ruse to kidnap Lissa Russell (in addition to Jack, in werewolf form). Sarnak sent his bad guys to get Jack from step-dad Phillip’s place, where Lissa was asleep—before the full moon rose, they go to bed early in the Russell household—and the bad guys didn’t go to get her.

There’s a line in Jack’s narration about Lissa’s presence being inexplicable, but go with it, so there may be no explanation next issue in the resolve.

The rainy street scene’s really good. The bad guys fighting the werewolf in the Russell house is good. The rest is pretty blah.

We do get Hackett trying to strong-arm Russell into giving him some answers about the werewolf, but Hackett calls Phillip, who shows up and takes Jack home. Not sure why they didn’t keep questioning him. But then Jack and Phillip get to argue for the first time in almost ten issues (I don’t know if they’ve had a scene together in Werewolf by Night proper). And Jack and Lissa get to briefly talk about the werewolf curse.

She’s seemingly unworried about coming down with it herself.

Gerry Conway’s script is okay. The people talking stuff might work if Sutton didn’t draw the people poorly.

It’s good they’re finally getting to the Russell family drama stuff, but it’s been about a year since the series started putting it off. So hopefully, they’ve got something good planned for next issue’s resolution. But I’m also not holding my breath.

Dracula Lives (1973) #1

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.

Tomb of Dracula (1972) #2

It’s another exquisite issue, thanks to Gene Colan’s pencils. He’s got Vince Colletta inking, but it doesn’t detract. Colan’s so good he even makes the last issue recap page work well, as protagonist Frank Drake (anglicized from Dracula) remembers how he got into his current predicament. This issue follows Drake from Transylvania back to England; in between, he manages to sell off the now destroyed castle and its lands and rescue ostensible best friend Clifton. Dracula threw Clifton into a pit for later snacking last issue, and, surprisingly, he survives to return this issue.

Frank’s plan involves stealing Dracula’s coffin and taking it from Transylvania, while the Count is more concerned with improving his appearance. Luckily, the village doctor used to be a boy in the vampire’s employ and can now do some kind of—off-page—skin therapy to make the Count appear human. However, they still color him shock white, so only Dracula’s fellow comic book characters can see the difference, not the reader. In expository dialogue with the doctor, writer Gerry Conway reveals a little more of Tomb’s timeline; Dracula was “killed” when the doctor was a boy, so within living memory. The doctor’s old now but still capable. Doesn’t seem like Tomb’s going off Bram Stoker’s Dracula continuity or timeline (which the first issue implied but didn’t make definite).

Dracula doesn’t stay in Transylvania either; he follows Frank and Clifton to London, bringing along new vampire Jeanie. Jeanie’s Frank’s fiancée turned vampire (last issue at the very end) who used to date Clifton; Clifton lies to Frank about his role in releasing Dracula. He also fails to reveal he was planning on screwing Frank out of the castle and reclaiming Jeanie. While Frank’s not taken with her new vampiric form, Clifton’s not so picky, and Jeanie’s sure she’ll be able to turn him against Frank.t

Meanwhile, Dracula’s off sampling the seventies London nightlife, including the ladies. There’s a weird throwaway moment where Dracula remembers last issue’s barmaid who he killed and complained was too slutty; here, he remembers and then chastises himself for romanticizing a loose woman. It was a bad detail last issue, so it coming back is strange; maybe it’s just a Marvel Style problem; Colan thought one thing, Conway thought another.

Eventually, the vampires team up against their amateur hunters, and there’s a big fight scene with some excellent Colan art. He does horror, he does “reality” settings, he does fight scenes in mundane hotel rooms; he’s, no punning, a marvel.

Conway does the same overwriting as last time on some of Frank’s scenes; it’s wordy, second-person narration. Luckily, once Frank rescues Clifton, Conway doesn’t use the device (at least not noticeably) the rest of the issue; there’s just too much going on without Frank.

The last issue felt like a done-in-one, and this issue resolves some of its outstanding strands; Tomb of Dracula isn’t quite set up yet, but it’s definitely getting there. And Colan makes reading that set up a rare delight.

Tomb of Dracula (1972) #1

I’m sure there’s a difference between a Gene Colan comic book and a Gene Colan art portfolio but damned if they don’t seem identical. Gerry Conway scripts this issue (from a Roy Thomas plot–according to Thomas), and there’s just the right amount of moody in the text to go with the Colan art. It’s perfect and terrifying and a done-in-one. It’s a first issue, but one without any setup for the series, other than Dracula (and his descendant, one Frank Drake of America).

Set in the present, the issue recounts down-on-his-luck blue blood Drake deciding the only way to get rich with what he’s got is turning his old family castle into a tourist location. Luckily, it’s Castle Dracula, so folks might want to pay for that trip. So along with his girlfriend, Jean, and his ostensible pal, Clifton, Frank heads to Transylvania and the castle.

The comic opens with the trio having car trouble, which forces them into town, where they meet villagers as superstitious as Jonathan Harker came across eighty-plus years before. After some guffawing, a villager agrees to take them out to the castle—for ten dollars American (eighty bucks today), bankrupting them—where they explore, Frank feeling a strange familial connection, Jean being miserable she tagged along, and Clifton scheming to get Frank out of the way both in business and romance. Clifton used to date Jean, but she threw him over for fellow richie Frank.

It’d be soapy if it weren’t for Colan’s truly breathtaking horror art. There’s impending doom in every panel; it’s magnificent.

And, credit where it’s due, Conway’s script is a fine accompaniment. He overwrites, but the wordy exposition means longer attention on each panel, which leads to Colan’s foreboding making more of an impression. There’s some backstory, too, with Frank reading an old family diary to fill everyone—reader, Frank, and Clifton—in on how Dracula works in Tomb of Dracula.

And once the Count arrives, he’s mesmerizing. There’s a lot of vampire horror action, Frank’s constantly defending with whatever baubles work, Dracula’s out to get Jean (the barmaid he feeds on is a little too low class), and Clifton’s pretty sure it’s all an elaborate gag to mess with the villagers.

The comic goes on longer than expected, running twenty-five pages, which Colan and Conway put to good use. Colan’s art is so good, Conway padding out the action doesn’t matter; you just want more panels. The wrap-up’s haunting as well, as everyone—visitors and villagers—start to understand how the world is all of a sudden very different than before.

It’s a great comic, entirely self-contained, and absolutely gorgeous. I can’t wait for the second issue, even though the first doesn’t make any promises of what it’ll contain.

Well, other than Dracula, presumably.