Dracula Month Day 31: Unearthed: Fright #1!

Happy Halloween!

Welcome to the end of Dracula Month and another installment of my occasional series Unearthed wherein I delve into forgotten comic books of the past. Once again I'm going back into the archives of the 1970s Atlas comics; before I begin, here's what I've previously featured:
The Destructor #1
The Destructor #2
The Destructor #3
The Destructor #4
The Hands of the Dragon #1
Morlock 2001 and the Midnight Men #3
Tigerman #1
Tigerman #2
Tigerman #3

Today it is Atlas' one-and-only Dracula comic, natch. Said comic book is Fright #1 with the feature 'Son of Dracula'! This was the only issue of Fright, printed in June, 1975. By the time it came out Marvel Comics' Tomb of Dracula was well underway and had proven there was an audience for a monthly dose of the ol' count. Let's get started!

The cover depicts Dracula's image looming over that of his son while said son is trying to neck with a lady. "Spwaned in Hell to stalk the night! The strangest vampire of all!" Note the chalk-white skin on the son, which is also how Marvel initially coloured Dracula in their comics before granting him fleshy tones. The story is entitled "And Unto Dracula Was Born a Son" by writer Gary Friedrich and artist Frank Thorne. Friedrich is no stranger to Atlas or this feature, having also written Morlock 2001 and the Midnight Men. Frank Thorne remains best-known for his lovely renderings of Red Sonja. This is another Atlas book with a perfectly fine creative team; again, this publisher had all the resources they needed to succeed.

We open in rural Transylvania as some villagers who look like they came straight from Universal casting are trying to burn a supposed witch to death upon a brier. Dracula sees and judges them "Fools! Such a waste of young beauty -- of fresh blood!" Dracula swoops in and easily frightens the villagers then carries the woman back to his castle in the form of an immense bat. Some spectacular horror art from Thorne ensues as his giant bat is rendered as something perfectly monstrous.

As Dracula examines the woman he discovers a mark upon her breast which he identifies as "the mark of my family." He determines the woman is his only living relative and decides to spare her life (the mark is not depicted on-panel). When she awakens Dracula greets her as his cousin, identifying her as his fourth cousin. However, the woman knows what Dracula is and is afraid of him. Dracula offers to transform her into a vampire but she offers him something better: "A son, cousin!" Yes, inbreeding is popular amongst hillbilles, royalty and vampires. The woman's only condition is that Dracula not transform her into a vampire, then he can have their son to raise as his heir. The duo are seen "hours later" in what is supposed to be a post-lovemaking session (but although this is Thorne it's tasteful).

Nine months later the woman shows off her newborn son to Dracula but informs him: "As soon as I'm able, you'll not see him again! He must never become one of your kind!" That wasn't part of the bargain she made which makes one wonder why she made the proposal to begin with - sure, it saved her life in the short-term, but why didn't she escape during those nine months when she knew what would happen at the end? Anyway, threatening a vampire never goes well and when she claims she'll smother the child if Dracula draws too close he determines "You are of no further use to me!" and lunges in to drink her blood to transform her into a vampire. However, although she's weakened from the assault she slips out of the castle with her baby the next morning and rides to the sea, entrusting her child to someone else for safekeeping. She places a charm around her son's neck and claims if anything happens to the charm, "the boy might die!"

Dracula catches up to the woman at the docks, noting that in one more night she'll be a vampire like him and he wants their son to join them (this is some odd vampire lore - usually vampire victims are dead while transforming into vampires whereas here they can apparently remain alive and human during the interval). The woman refuses to become a vampire and throws herself upon a sharp piece of wood, dying. Dracula vows to find his son.

Seven years later in Appalachia... because again, hillbillies, royalty and vampires have much in common... we see the woman who was charged with protecting Dracula's son (now called 'Derek') has kept the charm around Derek's neck and has him sleep with a cross in his arms each night. As Derek wonders why he must do these strange things, Dracula bursts in to explain. The adopted mother drives Dracula off with a cross but Dracula vows to return and claim Derek. Or rather 'Adam' because the adopted mother suddenly begun calling him that. Anyway, she seals Adam up inside a wine cellar then blows up the entrance with gunpowder so that Dracula won't be able to find him... so instead he'll suffocate inside the buried wine cellar? And how is it helping Adam to deprive him of his only caregiver and sole person who understood his condition as the son of Dracula? Pay no attention to those questions because once the explosion clears we jump ahead to Adam's adulthood.

It's now 1975 (present-day) and Adam Lucard (because the Dracula family has that terrible knack for choosing obvious aliases) is a teacher at Columbia University, New York City. Adam lectures his students abothe the occult and shows off his charm to the class as an example of supernatural belief. Adam's student Debbie Porter is quite hot for teacher and reveals she's a practising witch, but Adam is brooding for that evening he must seal himself up in his home with his cross to abate his thrist for human blood. Hold up, what? It seems even though Dracula didn't convert Adam into vampirism he has basically inherited it and must be eternally vigilant against it. A flashback reveals Adam only recently learned all of this when his 2nd adopted mother was on her deathbed and gave him a book which the 1st adopted mother had left with him, containing details of the occult powers of vampires.

While Adam is trying to sleep Debbie breaks into his apartment because she doesn't understand 'personal space.' Debbie sees Adam asleep with the cross on his chest and decides to awaken him with a kiss - but first removes the cross. The joke's on her as he awakens to kiss her - as a vampire! Yes, despite all the long decades of work done by Adam's mother, adopted mother and 2nd adopted mother it's all for naught - he's become a vampire and he bites Debbie in the neck for her blood. In his vampire form Adam doesn't even recognize Debbie.

Adam leaves his apartment to go hunting for more blood. It turns out Debbie brought a friend with her who was waiting down in the street and he attacks her as well. Adam returns to his apartment and falls asleep. He awakens in the morning as a human but at the sight of Debbie's body Adam realizes he must have lost control and claimed other people's lives. Adam drives a stake into Debbie's heart to prevent her becoming a vampire then ponders whether he should destroy himself to keep him from killing again. And on this somber note, the book ends.

Thoughts: This premise suggests not only that Atlas was looking to Marvel Comics' Tomb of Dracula but also to their hero Morbius, the Living Vampire, a similarly human who transformed into a vampire. It also reminds one of heroes who transformed into monsters at night such as Werewolf by Night and Gary Friedrich's own Ghost Rider.

There are glitches in the story - as noted, there is confusion about the Son of Dracula's name as it appears he was supposed to be 'Derek' with the 1st adopted mother and 'Adam' with the 2nd, but through a slip-up he was called 'Adam' before the 1st adopted mother's death. Frankly, I'm not sure why the entire scene of the 1st mother killing herself and burying Adam alive is even in the story - it necessitates the creation of a 2nd adopted mother who then dies herself in flashback and I have no idea how burying Adam alive was supposed to deter Dracula.

Still, as noted, this could have worked out in the same way other reluctant monsters such as Morbius, Ghost Rider and the Werewolf. This is a decent Atlas comic with great Frank Thorne artwork.

(Scans in this post from The Horrors of It All blog)

Dracula Month Day 30: Adventures into the Unknown #29

I'm nearing the end of Dracula Month so let's have a little fun; turning to comic book publisher ACQ I'm going to examine Adventures into the Unknown #29 (1952) and the story "Invasion of the Ghost-Monsters" by artist Ken Bald (writer unknown).

In this tale the wealthy eccentric Silas Inwood has died and in his will charged his nephew Barry with writing his biography. Barry and his fiancee Fay follow the instructions and after adding a copy of Silas' biography to Silas' library they have to perform an incantation to complete the will's conditions. The spell causes Silas' ghost to appear, his spirit having lived on through the pages of his biography. Silas intends to conquer the world with an army of ghosts conjured from his library, including the likes of Captain Kidd, Jack the Ripper and Dracula. Dracula is given the job of guarding Barry & Fay while the other ghosts rampage through the city. Barry defeats Dracula by forming a cross to drive him away, then he conjures up literary heroes such as Paul Bunyan and Robin Hood to defeat the evil ghost monsters and Silas' wife Martha emerges from the biography to force Silas back into his rest.

This is an utterly ridiculous story. This is a story where a ghost delivers a ransom demand to the mayor over a telephone. It's the kind of glorious stupidity which gave comic books their reputation as trash. But how does Dracula fare? Although he makes a poor showing against Barry, he receives more attention than any of the other ghosts. That 'Dracula' name gets you respect, my friends.

The concept of literary characters having life because of people's belief in them would later be mined for a good seven years in comic book form via Mike Carey & Peter Gross' The Unwritten. You can read "Invasion of the Ghost-Monsters" for yourself at the Digital Comic Museum.

Dracula Month Day 29: Count Dracula

As I think has come clear in many of my musings on Dracula, I'm a man who values fidelity to source material. Unfortunately, Stoker's original novel has only seldom received film adaptations which were in anyway faithful to the novel, this in despite of the dozens of pictures which have been made. My pick for the most authentic adaptation is the 1977 BBC TV mini-series Count Dracula, directed by Philip Saville and featuring Louis Jourdan as the titular count.

Now, I should be up front, this is not a truly faithful adaptation. As per usual, the most obvious telltale sign is the presence of Quincey Morris; this time, he almost made it, instead merged with Arthur Holmwood into one character. It's appropriate as Holmwood is the second-most frequently omitted character.

The little bits and pieces from the novel which don't normally turn up in film adaptations - such as Van Helsing pressing a communion wafer into Mina's forehead - caught my eye. This may not be the best adaptation of Dracula production-wise, but it is quite faithful and that goes a long way towards satisfying me.

Dracula Month Day 28: Quiet, Please - "My Son, John."

Many of the legends and lores surrounding vampires were only ever codified by A) Bram Stoker's Dracula novel and B) Hollywood adaptations of said novel. As such, it's always interesting to me to look at horror tales from the 1940s or earlier, before it was decided that Bram Stoker & Bela Lugosi were the be-all end-all of vampires. For instance, check out the 1948 episode of the radio program Quiet, Please entitled "My Son, John".

This is the tale of a father who wants so desperately to be reunited with his lost son that he turns to black magic to restore his son to life. However, the father believed his son died in battle as a war hero; upon his revival, the son reveals he was a deserter and that while in Europe he met a certain gent named Dracula; now that he's been brought home to the USA, John is free to spread vampirism stateside.

Where this tale may strike some fans as odd is that the vampires have the power to turn into just about anything - not only a bat or a wolf but a cat, a dog, a gorilla... it may not sound quite right, but hey, there's no such thing as vampires; you can change the rules on a whim.

You can listen to this episode on the excellent Quiet, Please fan website.

Dracula Month Day 27: The House of Hammer #6

It's a little strange how in the dying days of the Hammer films studio they seemed to be expanding, rather than dying - what with the short-lived 1980 TV show Hammer House of Horror and the late 70s authorized magazine The House of Hammer from legendary UK comics editor Dez Skinn. The House of Hammer offered a number of black & white comic book stories in their pages, some of them original tales, others truncated adaptations of popular Hammer film titles. Many of the adaptations were drawn by John Bolton and that's the case with my subject today, Dracula: Prince of Darkness from The House of Hammer #6 (1977), based on the 1966 horror film and adapted by Bolton with writer Donne Avenell.

John Bolton is certainly an artist in the tradition of photorealism, but I find his adaptation of Dracula: Prince of Darkness to be a little too stiff. Still, there are beautiful shadows throughout this story and Dracula's eventual destruction as he falls into a frozen lake looks beautiful with Bolton's black & white storytelling. Several other Hammer Dracula pictures were adapted into these magazines and they're not terribly well-known; check 'em out if you can.

Dracula Month Day 26: Journey into Unknown Worlds #29

I didn't want to let Dracula Month slip by without getting into another side of Marvel Comics' depictions of Dracula - their usage of him in their 1950s Atlas comics. He made various appearances of a limited sort across their titles and perhaps the best-known is "Of Royal Blood" a story which appeared in Journey into Unknown Worlds #29 (1954) shortly before the Comics Code Authority tore the medium apart.

"Of Royal Blood" reappeared in 1974 when Marvel printed it in the black & white magazine Dracula Lives. Throughout the history of their black & white horror magazines there were many Atlas horror tales placed back into print, but "Of Royal Blood" is one of the few to actually tie into the magazine's stated theme (ie, Dracula). The story was drawn by Tony Mortellaro (writer unknown) and features a man named Kroner who is determined to find a suitable husband for his daughter Maria. However, Maria is quite picky and when she rejects the suitors each time the father kills them. Kroner despairs of ever finding a husband for Maria who meets her demand "of royal blood," until he finds a very willing nobleman by the name of... Dracula.

"Of Royal Blood" is an effective four-pager with a simple twist upon which the entire story is constructed. The use of Dracula simply brings a little more attention to this work than what it would have otherwise obtained.

Dracula Month Day 25: Uncanny X-Men #159

I think my first encounter with the character of Dracula may have been Uncanny X-Men #159 (1982) and the story "Night Screams!" by writer Chris Claremont and artists Bill Sienkiewicz & Bob Wiacek. It came to me in the same batch of comic books which included Uncanny X-Men #161, which you may recall I blogged about how it frightened me as a child. Well, "Night Screams" certainly did as well. The story pits Dracula against the X-Men and includes scenes of him attempting to convert Storm into one of his brides (because it's a Chris Claremont comic - of course there's a theme of attempted corruption and of course the intended victim is Storm).

At the time of this story's publication Marv Wolfman & Gene Colan's Tomb of Dracula had wrapped up - indeed, both men had left Marvel for greener pastures at DC Comics. This appearance of Dracula was one of several he made around that period in various Marvel super hero titles (ie, Thor), but like virtually all of Marvel 1970s horror leads he would soon be put to rest (until the horror characters returned in the 1990s). Claremont had dabbled a little in the black & white Dracula Lives magazine earlier in his career so he had some legitimacy in picking up the character, but Dracula can't help but suffer when pit against a Marvel super hero. Claremont demonstrated some interesting ideas in this issue with regards to the cast members' faith (notably, Wolverine's atheism, Nightcrawler's Catholicism & Kitty Pryde's Judaism) but scenes of Dracula turning into a man-bat feel tonally wrong for the character Wolfman & Colan portrayed.

As the story was drawn by Bill Sienkiewicz, you'd think it's pretty chilling material, right? Um, think again. This is still early in Sienkiewicz's career back in his Neal Adams phase and the rough edges of his art were considerably softened by Wiacek's inks. Claremont & Sienkiewicz would later prove they could combine super heroes and horror effectively in New Mutants, but this story lacks a little in atmosphere. As a tiny tot scenes of Dracula looming over Storm's throat were almost too much for me to bear; as a grown man it's simply 'all right.'