Dracula Lives #1

26 Oct 1974; Cover price 8p.
36 pages. B&W.
Marvel Comics International Ltd.

Cover by UNKNOWN.

Free full-colour Dracula poster.

Contents:

.2 Free Karate Jiu-Jitsu Course advertisement.

.3 The Drama of Dracula! Stan Lee photo introduction.

.4 Dracula UNTITLED, part one, w: Gerry Conway; a: Gene Colan, lettering by John Costanza.

r: The Tomb of Dracula (Marvel Comics) #01 (Apr 1972)

17 Werewolf by Night UNTITLED, part one, w: Gerry Conway, from a plot by Roy Thomas & Jeanie Thomas; a: Michael Ploog, lettered by John Costanza.

r: Marvel Spotlight (Marvel Comics) #02 (Feb 1972).

28 Mighty Marvel Triple Action in-house advertisement.

29 Mary Shelley's Frankenstein!, part one, w: Gary Friedrich; a: Mike Ploog, lettered by John Costanza.

r: The Monster of Frankenstein (Marvel Comics) #01 (Jan 1973).

35 Next Week in-house advertisement.

36 Another Mighty Marvel First Issue Out Now! in-house advertisement for Planet of the Apes #01.

The cover makes the comic look cheap, with a lack of detail and rough colouring entirely unrepresentative of what a Dracula title should be. There's no sense that the coffin, for example, has ever been used for the intended purpose - and seems rather small, given where the top of the casket is in relation to the sitting form of Dracula. With a cover blurb which appears to have fallen off a Spider-Man reprint, any sense that terrors await inside the pages of the first issue are effectively dispelled.

If it is a fright you are after, there is a photograph to kick off proceedings. That grinning figure of terror, that unspeakable horror, that... Oh wait, that's Stan Lee. Jeez, a warning would have been nice. It's not made clear whether this was meant as our first scare or not, but I'd like to think the intention was there. Part of the fun of seeing photographs of comic-book creators is scrutinizing the backgrounds - seeing what books, records and equipment are visible. Here, Stan Lee is surrounded by impenetrable darkness - somehow both symbolic and appropriate.

The Dracula strip is, when compared against the best examples, a complete let-down. The loose brush-work, large panels (crammed with dialogue), and cheesy text combine to reduce this down to the level of the superhero comics Marvel were more interested in publishing. When a character's dialogue consists of "--BATS!" it is time to start skipping pages.

Werewolf By Night is an effective four-page story told over the course of eight pages. The artwork is much improved over that in Dracula, but there are still too many shortcuts taken for the story to be truly effective. It is a shame that the strip is so rushed as there is enough mystery in the story to warrant attention. A main character who turns into a werewolf is automatically interesting, though the telling doesn't do the concept justice.

Throwing a Frankenstein adaptation in the title is a bit obvious, but it fits. Ploog's artwork is, unsurprisingly, the best on offer here, but the reproduction suffers from being so rough - in fact, there is no reason for continued interest in a title which is presented in such a slipshod manner. If a little more time had been spent making this value for money, and in presenting the stories with some context, then it wouldn't feel like such a rip-off.

Sadly, this is entirely representative of seventies Marvel titles.