Vampirella #1 (September 1969)
"Vampirella of Draculon"
Forrest J. Ackerman-Tom Sutton
First-time Vampirella reader here, kids! Talk about "forbidden fruit"... I've mentioned before that I never had a single black & white magazine as a kid growing up in the 1970s, and I guarantee you if I had it would not have been an issue of Vampirella. You think Mom was going to let a mag like this get into the grocery cart? Think again. I recently purchased the Vampirella: The Essential Warren Years trade, just so I could begin to bring some reviews of this well-known (by everyone but me, apparently) material. It's titillating, to say the least. And the art - fabulous from cover to cover. But we'll perhaps get to some more of that later. Let's check out Vampi's 1st appearance now.
That dialogue box... To say it is rife with double entendres would be overstating the obvious. Are you struck with a sense that facially Vampirella looks like she's about 13 years old? That may not be unintentional...
100-Word Review:
Drakulon is a planet where blood flows as water does on Earth. And as Earthlings need water to survive, so do the inhabitants of Drakulon require blood. A world of vampires, we’d call them, Drakulon’s people have fangs, wings, the power to turn invisible – the whole vampiric nine yards! One day a spaceship crash lands, and Vampirella goes to investigate. Attacked by the astronauts, Vampirella bites back. Discovering that the men are basically founts of blood, she kills her assailants. But upon entering the ship she spies several men in a hibernation tank… and a feeding frenzy commences!
The Good: Wow. Not sure where to begin with this review. Usually I'm overflowing with praise when I write these things, but I can't say that here. I'll give a nod to Tom Sutton's art, which is pretty nice (for many reasons), but I'm afraid most of my time is going to be spent in the two categories that follow. I thought it was interesting, from an evolutionary standpoint, how Sutton drew Vampirella as some sort of dark, insatiable sprite. My guess is that for most readers, our mind's eye images of the character run more akin to the Frazetta painting on the magazine's cover. The images here seem more suitable for Playboy. Speaking of Sutton's art - I usually don't provide scans of complete stories, but as this one is so short it is presented here in its entirety. And no inker was listed, so I have to assume that we're seeing the whole Sutton enchilada.
The Bad: Now I have some room to move. I'm unsure of what I just read (I'm writing this on 12/20/18 while home from school caring for my wife after some foot surgery she had). Was it an origin story? Was it just a teaser to hook the reader, designed to make said reader bloodthirsty for more? Was it softcore porn? Or... am I choosing D) All of the above? Yes! - x4. Forrie Ackerman would have been about my age when he wrote this story; if I didn't have access online to his biographical information to make that determination, I'd have assumed the writer of this comic was a flowering adolescent, not a 53-year old man. This story, as you can see, is an odd mixture of T&A and vampires, with the fantasy of a beautiful dhampir attacking a man. From the opening partially-nude scene to the low-rise leggings and back dimples, this tale just oozes sex and sexual gratification. I'm not sure I'd have been in the market for this even when I was a flowering adolescent (oh, who am I kidding? I would have been). But to read it now with 52-year old eyes, I see it for what it was. That aside, the script is very crude - and I don't mean in content. The quality is low - some of that dialogue is of the quality you probably wrote in your notebook in study hall when you were in the 9th grade. Which makes me think all the more that plot and payoff were secondary to presentation - presentation of all that T&A. I'm writing most of this tongue-in-cheek, but overall it's just not a good story and was written very sophomorically.
I also found the pairing of vampires and sci-fi astronauts a bit odd in this case. Call me out for categorizing the suspensions of my disbelief, but I felt it was a strange series of circumstances. This coming from a guy who's read his fair share of Steve Gerber yarns. However, given that there was no pretense that this was a superhero mag, the genres represented (horror and scifi) seem a fair enough mashup.
The Ugly: There's not really anything to add here - "Vampirella of Draculon" most likely isn't the worst thing I've ever read. So I'll just leave one more quibble, simply for the sake of filling this space. As you see in the title, Draculon is spelled with a "C". However, once you get to the actual story it is spelled with a "K". Just seems sloppy to me. Sloppy like a vampire's kiss on your neck...
In fairness to that one bad day we've all had, that first impression that went awry, I'll be back to this collection. My curiosity is now piqued concerning the duration of popularity of Vampirella. This beginning could not be as bad as I've perceived. A future reading seems a must - especially given the quality of the art, as stated above. I'll be sure to report back with further thoughts, once that happens.
Doug, I fully agree with your take on this book. Like you, I've never read an issue of Vampirella. And aside from the attractive Sutton artwork, I don't seem to have missed much. As you mentioned, the dialogue is, shall we say, a bit stilted. Rather sophomoric ("Od's Bloodkins"?). And, the juvenile script seems appropriate given the adolescent sensibility evident throughout.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I'd also agree with you that a look at a later issue would be 'Warren'ted (sorry, coudn't resist)...
Yeah, I've never read any Vampi stuff either; I suspect it's the equivalent of those movies you watch with the sound turned off ... you could just look at the art and ignore the dialogue. But I guess making her an alien vampire is a bit of a twist on the usual monster story.
ReplyDeleteHi fellas, it's definitely true to say this was an inauspicious start, but don't give up just yet!
ReplyDeleteFor the first six issues, they really do flail about, not having a clue what to do with Vampi ( sometimes she's an EC style host, sometimes she's as presented here ). So many people had a hand in her creation, I guess that was inevitable.
But then in issue #8, Archie Goodwin comes on board, with the first real Vampi story, then in issue #12 Jose Gonzalez comes in on art , and THEN it's the Vampirella people rave about.
It is still cheesecake, but it's involving cheesecake, and the strip Gonzalez was absolutely born to draw.
Honestly, don't be put off by the shaky start, Vampi rules! And if you want a taster, a while back, I posted on my blog Jose's redo of the origin. Trust me, it really does get better.
Thanks for the comments, gents. And Pete - your assessment of the latter issues in the compendium I purchased line up with what I perceived as I leafed through the book. So as I said, I'll look forward to delving deeper into the Vampirella collection. The next time I review some of that material, I'll definitely look to a story a few years after today's initial offering.
ReplyDeleteDoug
Hiya,
ReplyDeleteYeah, I bought that particular issue. It was a lot easier to purchase than Playboy for a youth of my tender years.
And no, my mother never saw it.
Sutton did a pretty good job catching the cheesecake vibe, willing to bet money that there were more than a few photos of Bettie Page to be found in his studio.
Note to Doug, I'll explain to you later who Miss Page was since I'm sure the pure soul of an educator would have no idea whom I'm talking about ((sarcasm meter has just pegged)) !
Heard a rumor that Frazetta rendered Vampirella in the nude for that cover since the final design of her costume had yet to be decided. I can't say that that particular story is true, but it would explain the difference between the cover and the story.
As for the rest of the issue, it was nothing spectacular as the stories that made it up could have easily been presented in either Creepy or Eerie.
Seeya
pfgavigan
Oh, sir - I am quite aware of the lovely (and provocative) Miss Betty Page. No worries there. But I appreciate your thoughts on my purity ;) .
DeleteDoug
Totally agree on the cheesecake vibe - Vampirella was definitely the comic for teenage boys(; - but the funny thing is, that costume design came from Trina Robbins of all people.
Delete-sean
Please do not judge Vampirella by her first few appearances. It's obvious she was really only meant to be a horror host like there was in Creepy and Eerie. Luckily her look was so mesmerizing that people demanded she appeared in actual stories and that's when things got much better. The first few are rough but once Goodwin gets his hands on her it becomes a great series of short stories that range from gothic horror to sci-fi. All that and amazing art by Pepe Gonzalez and many others great Spanish artists.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the encouraging comments. I'll definitely dig further into the massive trade I purchased. This also makes me want to seek out Archie Goodwin's work (in general) due to the praise sent his way today.
DeleteDoug
Except for some short bits I've seen posted online, I've actually never read any Vampirella stories, either. Like Doug and few others here probably, it would not have passed muster when I was a little kid, and by the time I would have been interested in it in my teens, there were no more Warren magazines.
ReplyDeleteWhat I know about the character comes from general osmosis, and in that regard I think Pete is right about the slightly later Goodwin/Gonzalez material being the reason the character got popular in the first place.
As for Ackerman, I'm not at all surprised to learn that even as a middle-aged man his writing seemed juvenile. I know that in some circles Ackerman is considered some kind of ur-geek and/or founding father of SF and horror fandom, but as I understand it, he was also *seriously* creepy - I stumbled onto some fan forum discussions a few years ago where, among other things, several people who knew him or came into contact with him at conventions claimed that he was, among other things, a serial sexual harrasser and may even have been involved in some legally dubious activities involving minors in his home.
Great Vampi introduction Doug!
ReplyDeleteMy Vampirella collection includes some of the later ongoing issues with the great Hispanic artists like Gonzalez and Gonzalo Mayo. It's great seeing Sutton's version of Vampirella compared to these later issues because I've never seen the first issue.
Vampirella to me was conceived to appeal to adolescent boys, which most comicbook creators at the time believed was their core audience. I think it's different nowadays with the success of superhero movies and TV series though.
- Mike 'adolescent at heart' from Trinidad & Tobago.
Me again. Re: Archie Goodwin - he really was one of comics' greatest writers, almost incapable of telling a bad story, and you could certainly do worse than look into his Warren work, Doug. Natch, there's loads of Archie on my blog if you want to read some.
ReplyDeleteInteresting also, that he's still seen as one of our greatest editors, and was so well regarded, that when he left Warren, most of the artists went with him, claiming he was the only reason they'd put up with the low page rates. Not a bad rep to have.
And post-Warren Goodwin was so well regarded he managed to get Dave Sim to do stuff for Epic, and even Alan Moore speaks highly of him.
Delete-sean
Thanks, Sean. I did not know the Robbins genesis of the outfit until this post ran. I'd actually had a Twitter acquaintance remark about that same thing a couple of days ago.
DeleteDoug