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Dracula Lives!

This is a review of Dracula Lives!, a black-and-white horror magazine published by Marvel in the 1970s. These thirteen issues are best viewed as a companion piece to the horror comic, Tomb of Dracula, also produced by Marvel. You can read my reviews of Tomb of Dracula Volumes One and Two here and here. 

Dracula Lives! is written by comic luminaries such as Roy Thomas, Tony Isabella, Doug Moench, and Steve Gerber. There is a rotating ensemble of illustrators, and in general the art surpasses the writing. The magazine features (mostly) three original Dracula stories per issue, along with trivia and short fiction. We are treated to ‘adult’ content in the form of semi-nudity, most of it female. Dracula himself is naked in a few panels, but we do not see the Vampire Lord’s junk. 

The stories are a mixed bag. Dracula’s origin is recounted. The best part of this tale is the art by the great Neal Adams, with the origin itself being boilerplate villain melodrama. Dracula gains vengeance on his enemies and declares everlasting war on the human race, blah-blah-blah. This story exists because the powers-that-be wanted to give Dracula an origin story, which he doesn’t need.

We have tales featuring a washed-up old horror film actor who believes he’s Dracula, Dracula stalking the halls of the Vatican, and the Count’s ongoing battle with the sorcerer Cagliostro during the French Revolution. Dracula bites a junky in New York City and has to go cold turkey! Dracula encounters a Voodoo Queen in New Orleans! Dracula enjoys the hospitality of Countess Bathory and Marie Antoinette! Dracula vs. The Silver Chastiser, Champion of the Puritans! That last one’s not true, but there is a story with Solomon Kane (a Robert E. Howard character) and werewolves that’s pretty good.

My favorite story is set during the second World War. The Nazis occupy Dracula’s castle and discover that a vampire stalks the halls of the ancient keep. This tale did not go the way I expected, and is the only one of the batch that I found genuinely unsettling. Close second goes to a story written by Gerry Conway about death stalking Dracula. Mr. Conway is a very workmanlike writer, but he can pull a gem out of his hat. 

These stories mostly appear in the first few issues of the magazine. As time goes on, the tie-ins with Tomb of Dracula end, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. No longer having to piece together storylines from multiple titles is a relief, but the magazine loses its identity and becomes a Tales from the Crypt anthology vehicle. Promising storylines are dropped. Dracula vs. Cagliostro goes bye-bye just as it was getting interesting.

In general, the material in later issues is more generic. A New York City street cop encounters Dracula on his last night on the job. A gunslinger stalks Dracula in Europe. A man tries and fails to protect his blind wife from Dracula. A fair bit of the prose in this series is truly purple, which befits a character of Dracula’s stature. In one of the stories, a woman calls Dracula pompous as she sticks a dagger into his belly. When it has no effect, she tells him she didn’t mean it.

Towards the end of Dracula Lives! run, we are treated to two installments of Lilith, Dracula’s Little Girl hanging out in Greenwich Village. Lilith, Mass Murderer is more accurate. After she murdered 75 people on an airplane (in Tomb of Dracula), I have issues taking her seriously as a protagonist. 

Perhaps that’s a Me problem, but I don’t think so. Do you know how much fan mail and how many marriage proposals Ted Bundy got in prison? Lilith may be a mass-murderer, but she sure looks good in those black tights! If you are attractive, you can get away with a lot of shit.

The serialization of Bram Stoker’s Dracula novel, which also takes place in later issues, fares much better. This is a competent retelling of the novel that features great artwork by Dick Giordano. Since Dracula is a melodramatic potboiler, it works very well in graphic format. Too bad they never finished it.  

As far as I know, the issues of Dracula Lives! have never been collected on their own. You can buy the individual issues or purchase them along with the Tomb of Dracula Complete Collection volumes . If you enjoy 1970’s monster magazines and can’t get enough of Dracula, it’s worth the price.

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Tomb of Dracula Complete Collection Volume Two

This is a review of Tomb of Dracula Complete Collection Volume Two. You can read my review of the first volume, here. The premise of this graphic novel is simple. The Lord of Vampires awakens in the Swingin’ Seventies and moves to London, where he feasts upon an endless supply of nubile young women.

Dracula is opposed by a group of fearless vampire hunters – Buffy, er Rachel Van Helsing, crossbow wielder; Blade, vampire hunter; Taj Nital, who does not speak; Quincy Harker, mastermind; and last but least, Frank Drake, total loser. Please note that this comic series was released decades before Buffy.

Highlights of this volume include a visit from green-pants-lover Werewolf by Night. After that, Dracula and Rachel Van Helsing embark on the Hike from Hell in the Alps. The WTF Award goes to Rachel, who waits eight hours until nightfall to try and stake Dracula and misses. We also see the Lord of the Vampires being attacked by a psycho mountain goat.

After that, Dracula is captured by Dr. Sun – a pickled brain in a jar –  and must fight the good doctor’s proxy, a vampire biker dude who has all of Dracula’s memories. Dr. Sun is obsessed with vampires, because he needs an unending supply of human blood to survive. Instead of transferring his brain into the Lord of the Vampires, he decides to, uhhh…

…what the hell is Dr. Sun doing, anyway? I read this, and I honestly don’t know. Maybe I should read it again? Hell, no! Once is enough. Whatever he does, it fails. Let’s just say that the Dr. Sun storyline reads more like science fiction than horror and is the weakest storyline thus far, and leave it at that.

Dracula returns to London and a story set in a haunted mansion that reads like a parody of a Gothic novel. We have our Gothic heroine, Shiela (that’s how it’s spelled) Whittier, who is tormented by a poltergeist/father figure/BDSM daddy. She is rescued by Dracula, who is a thousand times worse. Things end badly for her, just as things end badly for most of the human cast of this book. Unlike Dracula, they are not immortal.

This volume also collects the Vampire Lord’s guest appearance in Frankenstein’s Monster. Yes, the Frankenstein Monster had his own comic in the 1970’s! Why doesn’t anyone remember it? Well, it might be because it wasn’t very good.

The Monster is adopted by a Gypsy (this is the term used in the comic, not a slur) woman at the behest of her grandmother, who turns out to be a vampire. She awakens Dracula and kills a villager. The villagers kill the Gypsies. The Monster rumbles into the village and kills villagers. The villagers try to burn the Monster at the stake.

The Monster leaves the village to kill Dracula after telling the villagers they shouldn’t judge people by appearances. The villagers think maybe they were wrong about the Monster, except in the previous issue he killed a bunch of them. The Monster kills Dracula, who turns into a skeleton so that the next rube can pull the stake from his heart.

We also meet Dracula’s Little Girl, Lilith, who is the daughter of the Vampire Lord’s first wife. Dracula claims he hates Lilith because he hated her mother – in a flashback, we see him slapping his first wife. This is untrue. Dracula hates Lilith because she is a woman, and in this comic he is written as a misogynist who views women as either playthings or a food source. That being said, Lilith is vicious. She is not worse than Dracula – that’s impossible – but she gives him a run for the money.

I will be honest, here. Gene Colan’s phantasmagoric art on Tomb of Dracula is incredible. With the exception of the “team-up” between Dracula and Spider-Man that takes place on a cruise ship and is a lot of fun, the writing is depressing. There is a lot of violence against women, much of it casual – women are slapped, punched, gaslighted, and treated as objects. 

To me, Tomb of Dracula gives off the same vibe as The Walking Dead. If I read too many issues at once, I want to rip my eyes out of my sockets. Perhaps I am feeling this way because I DID read too many issues at once. It’s hard for me to tell at this point. If you like vampire stories, Gene Colan’s art, or are a Dracula groupie, this is worth a read.