Dracula

Tomb of Dracula #45 (June, 1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Before we dive into the individual comic book that’s the main topic of today’s post, your humble blogger would like to call your attention to a more general aspect of comics history, one that’s making its debut on this site with the Gene Colan-Tom Palmer cover shown above.  Yes, it’s the Uniform Product Code — which, as best as I can tell, actually first started appearing on DC Comics’ publications in February, 1976, but, as we didn’t cover any DC books last month, had to wait for March to show up here, in conjunction with the fiftieth anniversary of its adoption by Marvel.  I don’t really have anything else to say about the UPC, except that we’d all best get used to it (again), because it’s not going away anytime soon.  (Yeah, sure, around the turn of the next decade the big publishers will begin using a different graphic in its place on their direct-sales editions.  But the real estate consumed by that rectangular box won’t be coming back for a long, long time.)  Read More

Doctor Strange #14 (May, 1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

One week ago, we had a look at Tomb of Dracula #44, which, as regular readers will recall, ended with not one, but two cliffhangers.  To find out what happened next in regards to the second of those, which promised a face-off between Blade, the Vampire Slayer, and Hannibal King, Vampire Detective, we’ll have to wait another few weeks — but as to the first, which saw Doctor Strange succumb to the fatal bite of Count Dracula, all we have to do is turn past the cover of the comic that’s our topic today to pick up things up right where they left off.  (Although, if we’re to be honest, Gene Colan and Tom Palmer’s cover illo kind of gives the game away, at least as far as Doc’s survival is concerned — but, really, what else could you expect?)  Read More

Tomb of Dracula #44 (May, 1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

When you look back on it, it seems inevitable.  In 1976, Marvel Comics had these two leading men who, along with sharing a heavily mysterioso vibe, had a strikingly similar penchant for high-collared cloaks and neatly trimmed mustaches.  Not to mention that the exploits of both gentlemen were then being illustrated by the same art team of penciller Gene Colan and inker/colorist Tom Palmer.  If you were Marvel editor-in-chief Marv Wolfman, why wouldn’t you stage a crossover between Tomb of Dracula and Doctor Strange — especially since you, i.e., Marv, were also the regular writer of the former book?  Sure, it might take some time to coordinate the two stars’ respective continuities; but, as it happened, in February, 1976, both Wolfman and his counterpart over at Doctor Strange, writer Steve Englehart, were simultaneously in-between multi-issue storylines.  There would never be a more opportune moment for the Lord of Vampires and the Sorcerer Supreme to cross paths… and, in the end, that’s just what occurred, over the first two weeks of that month — as, naturally, we’ll be discussing here over the first two weeks of this month.  Read More

Howard the Duck #1 (January, 1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

What a difference a couple of years can make.

From Fear #19 (Dec., 1973). Text by Steve Gerber; art by Val Mayerik and Sal Trapani.

From Man-Thing #1 (Jan., 1974). Text by Steve Gerber; art by Val Mayerik and Sal Trapani.

In the autumn of 1973, Howard the Duck’s debut in the last few pages of the “Man-Thing” story in Fear #19 had been followed just one month later by his apparent demise in the first few pages of Man-Thing #1.  Marvel Comics’ editor-in-chief at that time, Roy Thomas, hadn’t thought that the publisher’s readers were ready for a “funny animal”-style character in what was at least ostensibly a horror comic, and had asked Man-Thing writer Steve Gerber to get Howard out of the book as quickly as possible.  But Thomas turned out to be wrong; the fan response to the acerbic waterfowl was overwhelmingly favorable, and Gerber was eventually given the go-ahead to resurrect Howard in his own solo backup feature in Giant-Size Man-Thing.  After two such stories had appeared, and were again well-received, the author pitched Marvel publisher Stan Lee on the idea of giving Howard his very own solo title — and Lee, who not all that long before had reportedly been utterly bewildered when attendees at his college campus appearances quizzed him about when Howard the Duck would be coming back, immediately said yes.  And thus it came to pass that in late October, 1975, Howard the Duck #1 — featuring a guest-appearance by Marvel flagship character Spider-Man, no less — was hatched into the comic-book-buying world. Read More

Beowulf #1 (April, 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Readers of this blog who have been following it for a while will probably have noticed the relative dearth of DC Comics-centered posts in recent months.  In all of 2024, your humble blogger wrote a mere eight posts devoted to DC’s offerings of half a century ago, compared to fifty-four about those of DC’s primary competitor, Marvel Comics.  That’s a far cry from 2022, when the breakdown was thirty posts about DC books to thirty-four about Marvel’s.  And if you have noticed the change, you may have wondered: how come?

To fully explain why the blog’s coverage of DC has changed over the past couple of years, we’ll need to look at how DC itself changed during the historical period covered by the blog these last 36 months: i.e., the years 1972 through 1974.  Read More

Tomb of Dracula #25 (October, 1974)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

The story told within the pages of this issue of Tomb of Dracula is, for the most part, a self-contained narrative; what’s often referred to as a “done in one”.  That said, it’s still one episode in an ongoing serial continuity, which means that it inevitably makes reference to past events — and thus, to help us make the most of this look back, we’ll start by briefly reviewing a few relevant story beats that have transpired since the last time we checked in with Count Dracula and his supporting cast, via the two-part crossover between Tomb of Dracula #18 and Werewolf by Night #15 covered here late last year.  Read More

Dracula Lives #6 (May, 1974)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

In March, 1974, Marvel Comics’ black-and-white magazine Dracula Lives entered its second year of publication with a format relatively little changed from its first issue — meaning that it featured three all-new stories of the titular vampire (one set in the present, two set in the past), supplemented by illustrated text features and a reprint or two, all packaged behind a color painted cover.  (In this case, the cover was provided by Luis Dominguez, an Argentinian artist who’d been busy of late drawing covers [and occasional stories] for various DC Comics anthology titles; this was his third published cover for a Marvel horror magazine.)  Read More

Werewolf by Night #15 (March, 1974)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

The second and concluding chapter of Marvel Comics’ 1973 crossover between Tomb of Dracula and Werewolf by Night introduces itself with a spectacular cover by Mike Ploog: one that epitomizes Marvel’s early-’70s horror trend as well or better than any other I can think of; and, truth be told, one of my very favorite covers in any genre from this particular era of comics.

Beyond the cover, writer Marv Wolfman, penciller Ploog, and inker Frank Chiaramonte pick up the story right where Wolfman, penciller Gene Colan, and inker Tom Palmer left off at the end of ToD #18, with our two series’ protagonists quite literally at each other’s throats: Read More

Tomb of Dracula #18 (March, 1974)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

I suppose we should probably begin today’s post by acknowledging that the battle between two of Marvel Comics’ biggest horror stars — the vampiric Count Dracula and the lycanthropic Jack Russell — that ran through that duo’s respective titles in November and December of 1973 wasn’t quite the first time that two of Marvel Comics’ monstrous headliners faced off with one another.  That distinction belongs instead to Frankenstein #8, which beat ToD #18 to the stands by just one month. Even so, while that comics’ Gary Friedrich-John Buscema tale certainly had its charms, it was set in the 19th century, and didn’t cross over from one monster’s title to the other’s; instead, the dust-up between Drac and the Frankenstein Monster concluded in the following bi-monthly issue of Frankenstein itself, which came out in December.  For those two reasons, it didn’t feel quite as special as the almost-concurrent Tomb of Dracula/Werewolf by Night crossover — at least, it didn’t to your humble blogger, either then or now.  (Naturally, your own mileage may vary, but for better or worse, the Dracula/Werewolf event is the one I’ve opted to write about.)  Read More

Avengers #118 (December, 1973)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

It’s September, and we’ve finally arrived at the climax of Marvel Comics’ pioneering crossover event of the summer of 1973, the Avengers/Defenders War.  Having realized at last that they share a common enemy, the superheroes of the two feuding teams have united to save the world.

So it’s fitting that, for the first time since the storyline began, the cover of this chapter gives us a group shot of multiple members from both teams — although artists Ron Wilson and John Romita have probably chosen wisely in not trying to cram all fourteen heroes, plus supervillains Dormammu and Loki, into a single shot.  Rather, they’ve opted to go with just nine, and it’s interesting to take note of who’s been included.  Unsurprisingly, every character starring in their own series — that’s Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, and Black Panther (in Jungle Action) from the Avengers, plus Sub-Mariner, Hulk, and Doctor Strange (in Marvel Premiere) from the Defenders — makes the cut.  But that still leaves two slots, and they’ve both gone to female characters — the Avengers’ Scarlet Witch and the Defenders’ Valkyrie — which serves to make the cover at least slightly less of a sausage fest.  Better luck next time, Silver Surfer, Vision, Hawkeye, Swordsman, and Mantis (the only shero who didn’t make the cover).

Still, if you’re hankering for a big group shot featuring all the heroes from both teams, no exceptions, then have no worries; Marvel’s got you covered on the book’s opening splash page:  Read More