[UPDATE] Monster of the Day #931

Updated on June 19, 2014 By Ken Begg 23 Comments

In the mid-60s Dell decided to jump on the superhero bandwagon. Their gimmick was to base heroes on the classic Universal monsters. There was this and a Frankenstein book, and a Werewolf title (Wolf Man being copyrighted), but the latter had no real monster trappings. He was a spy with a fancy bodysuit and a pet wolf.

These comics were short lived and for good reason; they were awful. The art looked like something a 12 year old put out from his house, and the writing was about the same level. You can find the comics on the web if you’re interested, I think.

UPDATE: Lest anyone thought I was exaggerating. This, remember, was a comic put out by a professional company. They expected kids to buy this, at the same cost as an issue of Spider-Man or the Fantastic four.

Still, at least we’ve finally found the superhero Nicholas Cage was born to play.

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By Ken Begg

http://jabootu.net

Ericb

This is what happens when you put Batman and a kitten into a Brundlefly machine.
Ericb

Ugh, the more I think about this the stupider it gets. When a kid wants a Dracula comic they want to have freaking Dracula in it not a third rate (and ridiculous looking) Batman ripoff.
Flangepart

Or catman. Not the best use of Spandex, Dell!
Gamera977

Looks like the guy Toyman beat out for his spot on the ‘Legion of Doom’.
bgbear_rnh

Yes, “New Dracula”. Considered one of the biggest corporate failures of all time. Fear of losing market share to Batman lead to the reformulation.

A heavy marketing campaign featuring Bill Cosby did little to win over the fans. Eventually “Dracula Classic” was re-introduced to the market and “New Dracula” slowly faded away. Today he is simply “Dracula” again and “New Dracula” is a footnote.
Eric Hinkle

You mean like Marvel did with the amazing TOMB OF DRACULA in the 70’s? I think that may have been one of if not THE best titles Marvel released during the decade.
Eric Hinkle

Yeah, this sure looks dire here. Give me the Colan and Wolfman Dracula any day.
Ericb

But when they went back to the old Dracula they quietly changed his blood type.
bgbear_rnh

High-fructose corn serum?
Eric Hinkle

Oh man, now that’s just sad.
Ken_Begg

And one of the most consistent. A 7 year, 70 issue run with largely the same creative team, writer Marv Wolfman (starting with issue #7), the absolutely perfect artist in Gene Colan, who did the entire run, and inks by Tom Palmer, who did every issue save #1, 2 and 8-11.

That, along with Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s even longer stewardship of The Fantastic Four’s first 102 issues, has to be one of the great runs in mainstream comics history.
Gamera977

Thanks for the update Ken. The way he’s shown in the panels makes me think he could be the lamest Mexican wrestler ever.
bgbear_rnh

Prussian evil overlord with a Zeppelin. What could go wrong?
Rock Baker

Yeah, I was thinking he more resembled Catman too. At least Catman had Kitten, after her sudden age rush, on hand to provide some cheesecake.
Beckoning Chasm

That dialogue makes Ed Wood sound like Shakespeare.
Rock Baker

Ah! Nice twist, Ken! At least the Frankenstein title was a little more creative. I like the idea of the monster donning a handsome human mask as a secret identity when he isn’t fighting crime. Kids in puberty could probably relate on some level.
Cullen Waters

I had forgotten all about this. You know. Back when I knew what happiness was.
Ken_Begg

Dracula acquired a female sidekick / romantic interest codenamed Fleeta, but I think it was in his last issue. Of course, he only had like three issues.
Rock Baker

Does anyone own the rights to these characters today? I imagine a good writer could do, well, something with them.
Eric Hinkle

I also recall the epic Roy Thomas-John Buscema run on ‘Conan the Barbarian’ in the 70’s as being pretty amazing.

That and the way that Wolfman and Colan kept Dracula a fascinating character while also keeping him a monstrous villain was astounding.
Luke Blanchard

Until 1962 Dell outsourced the production of its comics line to Western Publishing. Many of its titles were licensed: in 1960 its top sellers were apparently UNCLE SCROOGE and WALT DISNEY’S COMICS AND STORIES. In 1962 the two companies parted ways. It was Western that held most or all the licenses, so it started publishing the line itself as Gold Key. Dell started producing its own comics, and published a mix of movie adaptations, licensed titles and original titles.

Now, in the first half of the 50s there was an anti-comics crusade that resulted in the establishment of the Comics Code Authority in 1954. This was a publishers’ body, not a government one, but if lines didn’t carry it, they might not get distributed. The original criteria forbade, among other things, the use of “horror” or “terror” in titles, “scenes of horror, excessive bloodshed, gory or gruesome crimes”, “lurid, unsavoury, gruesome illustrations” and “scenes dealing with, or instruments associated with walking dead, torture, vampires and vampirism, ghouls, cannibalism, and werewolfism” (quotes from Wikipedia). This situation forced EC to cancel its horror titles. Horror, and crime stories, were flourishing genres at the time.

Instead of joining the Code Dell published a “Pledge to Parents” in its comics. I would suppose it was partly able to get away with this because so many of its titles, before its break with Western, were well-known, kid-friendly licensed ones. Consequently, the post-split Dell had more freedom to experiment with horror than Marvel or DC in the same period. It published DRACULA and THE MUMMY one-shots in 1962, and FRANKENSTEIN, WOLFMAN and THE CREATURE (=the Gill Man) ones in 1963.(1) The covers of these showed the Universal versions of the monsters, but at least some of them told original stories. It also published some surprisingly disturbing stories in the one-shot giant TALES FROM THE TOMB and the first issue of its ongoing GHOST STORIES. These were written by John Stanley, who is otherwise known for his humorous kids’ comics. These issues can be found at Comic Book Plus, but not the name monster ones.

Dell’s ventures into the superhero genre included BRAIN BOY (1962-63) and NUKLA (1965-66). In 1966-67 it had another go at superheroes with the three monster-themed ones. They all lasted three issues.(2) Dracula was a scientist, a descendant of Count Dracula, who acquired the ability to turn into a bat by drinking a serum derived from bats’ brains.

Marvel didn’t really stop doing horror comics post-Code, but it took the gory and gothic horror content out of them and toned them down. At the turn of the 60s its horror titles were its monster comics. In 1962 its titles in this vein were taken over by superhero features, but horror stories continued to appear for a while in the back pages. DC’s horror titles were its anodyne mystery titles, such as HOUSE OF MYSTERY. Warren started publishing horror comics in the mid-60s and avoided the Code by using a B&W magazine format.
In the late 60s the Code’s administrators began allowing content they wouldn’t have allowed ten years earlier, and Marvel and DC started publishing gothic horror material again. The Code underwent revision in 1971, and that made Marvel’s 70s titles TOMB OF DRACULA and WEREWOLF BY NIGHT possible. Use of zombies still wasn’t permitted, so in its Code titles Marvel called them zuvembies instead.

(1) Also a reprint giant with the main stories from the first two and some other content, UNIVERSAL PICTURES PRESENTS DRACULA, THE MUMMY, AND OTHER STORIES. (And apparently a reprint of THE CREATURE in 1964.)
(2) The DRACULA and FRANKENSTEIN ones continued their numbering from the earlier one-shots, and the DRACULA ones were reprinted in 1972-73 (perhaps in response to TOMB OF DRACULA).
Ken_Begg

It’s official; Luke has now written more original content for this site in the last two years than I have.
Gamera977

But you’re still way ahead on horrific puns Ken!

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