Reading Room EERIE "Dracula" Part 4

When Last We Left Our Vampire...

Dracula has made Lucy Seward a vampire!
Dr Van Helsing arrives, too late to save the poor girl, but not too late to send her tormented soul to the afterlife by staking her thru the heart.
Now, his attention turns to her master...Count Dracula!

Though there were a number of Frankenstein tales in the Golden Age, including Dick Briefer's long-running series, there were only a couple of appearances by our favorite vampire (usually a cameo) before this story in 1953!
The trend continued until the late 1960s when Dracula became a supporting character in the b/w Vampirella magazine.
In 1972, when the Comics Code was revised to allow vampires and other "traditional" monsters, the Count reappeared not only in short stories, but a long-running series from Marvel highlighted by moody art by Gene Colan.

Reading Room EERIE "Dracula" Part 3

When Last We Left Our Vampire...

Dracula traveled to England, where he made Lucy Seward his newest victim.

Meanwhile, Lucy's best friend, Mina Murray received news that her fiance Jonathan Harker had been hospitalized.

Rushing to Budapest, she discovers he is speedily recovering, and the two are married that day!

To be concluded...TOMORROW!

In case you're wondering why we haven't listed credits for this tale, it's because there aren't any!

We have no idea who the writer and artist(s) are since the art isn't signed and the records for Avon Comics are apparently no longer extant.

However, the art is very well-designed with both clear storytelling and detailed rendering, if slightly-stiff, much in the Reed Crandall / Murphy Anderson school.

Reading Room EERIE "Dracula" Part 2

When Last We Left Our Vampire...

Real estate agent Jonathan Harker travels to Transylvania to arrange the purchase of a London townhouse by a rich, reclusive nobleman...Count Dracula.

When he is molested by the count's wives, Harker discovers that they (and Dracula) are vampires, and that he is helpless to stop them!

Meanwhile, in England, Harker's fiance, Mina, worries...

But, will they have a honeymoon...or a funeral?

Be here TOMORROW to find out!

Reading Room EERIE "Dracula" Part 1

Did you know that Classics Illustrated did Frankenstein, but not Dracula?

However, there was a relatively-faithful adaptation of the original Bram Stoker novel, published several years after the Classic Comics version of Mary Shelley's tale appeared in the mid-1940s!
It was published in Avon Comics' Eerie #12 (1953), and was the only book-length story to appear in the title!
To the best of our knowledge, the story has never been reprinted, probably due to it's length.

What shall Johnathan Harker do?

Join us TOMORROW for the frightening answer!

Reading Room REX HAVOC "Spud from Another World! or Who Grows There?" Part 1

The short-lived Rex Havoc series spoofed a different sci-fi/fantasy sub-genre in each installment...

...with this story taking a classic movie and the short story that inspired it, and turing them on their butts.

See what Rex and company do with the appendage (and the alien it came from) next week!

Rex's second tale from Warren's 1984 #5 (1978) takes the classic 1950s movie Thing from Another World, adds a couple of elements from the extremely-different John Campbell short story "Who Goes There?" it was based upon, adds a healthy dose of snark, shakes well, and produces this entertaining spoof.
Note: the suppporting characters are given the names of the actors' who played their counterparts in the original film.
For example, the base commander, named "Hendry" in the movie, is "Tobey" here.
Kenneth Tobey played Hendry in the movie.

Written by regular Warren contributor Jim Stenstrum, and illustrated by Abel Laxamana, who spent the late 1970s-early 1980s illustrating for Warren, left comics to go into animation, then popped up again in the late 1990s-early 2000s, doing superhero and, oddly enough, Simpsons comics!