Read Up On Comics and Marvel UK @ The Thought Balloon

MARVEL UK's
DRACULA LIVES #1
OCTOBER 1974

DRACULA
"Dracula"
(First 13 of 25 pages from Tomb Of Dracula #1, April 1972)
Story - Stan Lee & Roy Thomas (plot), Gerry Conway (script)
Pencils & Inks - Gene Colan
Lettering - John Costanza

WEREWOLF BY NIGHT
"Werewolf By Night"
(8 pages)
(First 8 of 27 pages from Marvel Spotlight #2, February 1972)
Story - Roy & Jeanie Thomas (plot), Gerry Conway (script)
Pencils & Inks - Mike Ploog
Lettering - John Costanza

THE MONSTER OF FRANKENSTEIN
"Mary Shelley's Frankenstein"
(First 9 of 20 pages from Monster Of Frankenstein #1, January 1973)
Story - Mary Shelley (original story), Gary Friedrich (adaptation)
Pencils & Inks - Mike Ploog
Lettering - John Costanza

Dracula Lives Weekly #1 (UK, 26 October 1973)
Cover (pencils & inks) - Pablo Marcos

THE MIGHTY WORLD OF MARVEL (UK)

On the last Saturday of September 1972, a new comic book appeared on British newsagent stands. Cover dated "week ending Oct. 7, 1972", Mighty World of Marvel #1 was published by Marvel under the newly set up corporate name of Magazine Management London Ltd, but the imprint would soon affectionately be labelled "Marvel UK" both by fans and staff. It started out with local editorial staff based at 120 Newgate Street in London, but Marvel UK was, to all intents and purposes, launched and initially directed out of Marvel's NYC offices.

Mighty World of Marvel #1
(7 October 1972)

The first issue of Mighty World of Marvel (which would soon acquire the affectionate acronym of MWOM) started out with the origin stories of the Hulk, the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man, and quickly proved a huge success. It was thus only a little more than four months and 19 issues after the launch of MWOM that Marvel UK made its next move to increase its share of the British market by launching their second weekly on February 10^th 1973 - Spider-Man Comics Weekly (SMCW for short).

Aside from your friendly neighbourhood web slinger now starring in his own title, it introduced Thor as the back-up feature, whilst Daredevil started out in the pages of MWOM (taking the place of Spider-Man), all adding yet more superheroes to the growing ranks of Marvel UK. These were expanded further in August 1973 when the Avengers were introduced in Mighty World of Marvel #46. Both two weeklies were selling extremely well, and it therefore wasn't long until a third weekly title, along with more Marvel characters, hit the news agents.

Spider-Man Comics Weekly #1
(10 February 1973)

Avengers #1
(22 September 1973)

Only a mere month after having made their debut in the pages of MWOM, the Avengers were moved to their own title, with The Avengers (Weekly) #1 hitting the UK's news stands the week ending on 22 September 1973. Earth's Mightiest Heroes were joined in their own title by Doctor Strange, adding yet another character to the growing ranks of Marvel UK.

Comic book readers in Britain were now getting their real share of Merry Marveldom - not only its superhero characters, but also its visual house style along with its friendly and chatty (often tongue-in-cheek, and sometimes waaaay over the top) editorial style as established by the Maestro Supreme Stan Lee. The "Bullpen Bulletins" became a feature of the UK weeklies as much as they were an integral part of Marvel's US comic books, and during the first two years of Marvel UK also contained an anglicised version of Stan Lee's famous "soapbox". It was there that readers of MWOM #107 were told in mid-October 1974 that "we are hurlin' a NEW MAG at ya".

Within a fortnight, that statement turned out to be something of an understatement, since Marvel UK wasn't just launching one, but rather two new weekly titles - and none of them superhero themed, either: On 26 October 1974, the British House of Ideas sent forth the first issues of Dracula Lives and Planet of the Apes to news agents.

DRACULA LIVES!

Throughout the 1960's "Silver Age", Marvel had increasingly cultivated the concept of also catering for the more mature comic book readers, and as the 1970's "Bronze Age" rolled around, this target group increasingly demanded more than the classic superheroes.

Marvel was more than happy to oblige and branched out into other genres, and its range of horror characters played a substantial and important role in this expansion.

Marvel's most successful venture into the realm of horror was Count Dracula, Bram Stoker's classic Lord of Vampires. Given his own title straight away in April 1972, Tomb of Dracula ultimately ran for a total of 70 issues in the US - the longest run of any Bronze Age Marvel horror genre title.

Tomb of Dracula was therefore a a logical choice for Marvel when it came to expanding its range of weeklies in the UK. However, in a slightly confusing move, the reprints of Tomb of Dracula (the extension to the vampire Count's name was necessary for Marvel to be able to copyright the title) were launched in Great Britain under the title of Dracula Lives - which was in fact the title of a black and white magazine format comic book featuring the count which Marvel was publishing since June 1973.

Avengers #58
(26 October 1974)

A letter published in Dracula Lives #9 actually pointed out this very fact, but editorial simply skipped over it, and the same procedure took place on the letters page of Dracula Lives #15.

Ads in Marvel UK's superheroes titles often heralded Dracula Lives! and Planet of the Apes together, and this "twinning" of the two titles (which could often also be seen in the letters from readers, commenting on both titles at the same time) would continue right up until the two weeklies were ultimately merged in June 1976.

As had been customary for all previous first issues of Marvel UK's weeklies, Dracula Lives! contained a page featuring a "personal message" from Stan Lee under the heading of "The Drama of Dracula!". Although the hyperbole was somewhat toned down and replaced by classic spooky talk, it still made for an excellent introduction - and sales pitch for other characters featured in Marvel UK's other weeklies.

The UK comic book market of the early to mid-1970s differed greatly from its counterpart in the US. It was quintessentially keyed at a weekly interval of publication, with predominantly black and white contents, and multiple storylines and different characters in one issue.

Marvel UK adapted accordingly, and Dracula Lives therefore started out with reprints of the very first stories featuring Dracula, the Monster of Frankenstein, and Werewolf by Night.

The starring feature of Dracula Lives #1 was made up of the first 13 of 25 pages from Tomb Of Dracula #1 (April 1972). The weekly publication cycle commonly prevented an entire US issue to be reprinted in one UK mag, and the original material was therefore edited into weekly instalments. This created the lion's share of editorial work, since it required newly crafted splash pages to link the segments and extra covers alongside the more conventional text editing.

In theory, editorial work for Dracula Lives #1 could thus have been very minimal, but Marvel UK sometimes did the unexpected in that department, and so rather than using Neal Adams' cover for Tomb Of Dracula #1, Pablo Marcos pencilled and inked a new one. Whatever the reasons (maybe it was deemed more eye-catching?), the Adams cover was eventually used (albeit-mirror imaged) for Dracula Lives #4.

Somewhat more pedantic was the covering of the original job number on the splash page (found in the original on the foot of the headstone containing the introductory text). Of course it only pertained to the planing of the work that went into the original comic book (Kleefeld, 2022), but editorial for Marvel Comics reprints in different countries had different perspectives and priorities. Germany's Williams Verlag, for example, wiped the whole text from the tombstone and only left the introductory text at the top of the page for their Gruft von Graf Dracula #1 in January 1974 - yet managed to ignore that little "605-Z" marking.

Somewhat major text editing was applied to the last of the thirteen reprinted pages - for good reasons.

Gerry Conway had no less than 25 pages at his disposal to start things moving in Tomb Of Dracula #1 and introduce readers to the last living descendant of Dracula, an American named Frank Drake, who has inherited the ancestral castle. Together with his fiancee Jeanie and long-time friend Clifton Graves he wants to stake out the possibilities of making a fortune by opening the castle as a tourist attraction. However, once at the castle they get separated - and by the time Graves stumbles upon a coffin with a staked skeleton (which surely must be Dracula), the 13 pages of planned reprint material for Dracula Lives #1 were used up.

Albeit a fairly decent end of page cliffhanger in its original form, this needed a little extra punch in order to get readers excited about Dracula Lives #2 - and so the page's original final word balloon text ("... a real megalomaniac. Welllll, Cliff...") was replaced by the far more ominous "So let's see what happens when I remove this stake!" - all suitably adorned with the textbox "Next: Dracula lives again!".

Covers of Dracula Lives #2-6 showcasing a mix of original covers taken from Tomb of Dracula (#2 John Severin, #4 Neal Adams, #6 Gil Kane)
as well as new covers (#3 and #5) provided for the Marvel UK title by Pablo Marcos

Tomb of Dracula had originally been planned as a black & white magazine rather than a colour comic book, so in that respect Dracula Lives was somewhat close to the original's roots; there are however diverging memories of who did what in conjunction with Tomb of Dracula #1.

The October 1971 Bullpen Bulletin credits Stan Lee with plotting the first issue, whereas Roy Thomas (Cooke, 2001) remembers plotting that issue himself based on just a few verbal sentences from Lee, whilst Gerry Conway essentially supplied captions and dialogue.

In any case, the basic idea was to establish a direct link between Bram Stoker's Victorian novel Dracula and the current time frame stories told in Tomb of Dracula.

Gerry Conway inserted a number of traits in that direction, ranging from a direct reference to Stoker's novel by the locals of the village overlooked by Castle Dracula ("Herr Stoker told the truth - in part") to a nice full-page introduction to the major themes and characters of Dracula.

Unfortunately, letterer John Costanza didn't seem to be too aware of the traditional cast of Dracula characters, and misspelt "Van Helsing" as "Van Helfing". This blunder also slipped through Marvel UK's editorial net - and incredibly enough still remained uncorrected in the 2008 Omnibus reprint. At least Panini got it right for their 2004 German language edition.

Youngster Archie Goodwin followed Gerry Conway for issues #3-4 and was then succeeded by veteran Gardner Fox for issues #5-6, before, Marv Wolfman took over with Tomb of Dracula #7 and supplied the title with stable and top notch storytelling for the rest of its run.

The artwork was all done by Gene Colan, who created an intensely atmospheric visual rendition of the vampire Count's saga and established a look and feel that went far beyond the classic horror comic qualities.

"The only strip I really begged for was Dracula. [Stan Lee] promised it to me, but then he changed his mind (...) But I didn't take that for an answer. I worked up a page of Dracula (...) and I sent it in. I got an immediate call back. Stan said 'The strip is yours'." (Gene Colan in Thomas, 2000)

His style provided readers with a truly captivating visual journey into the dark shadows. Colan had been a horror film buff his entire life and deeply felt that comic books and movies share common traits.

As for Dracula Lives (which had acquired the additional title tag-line Featuring The Legion of Monsters as of issue #60 in mid-December 1975), the end came not by way of a stake but in the shape and form of the bleak UK economy of 1976, and a subsequently struggling comics book market.

Gene Colan in 1975

In June 1976 Dracula Lives was cancelled as a weekly title and merged with Planet of the Apes as of issue #88 on 16 June 1976.

Planet of the Apes and Dracula Lives #88, #90, #92
(23 June 1976, 7 July 1976, 21 July 1976)

It was not the end of the Count, who would continue to appear first in POTA (which then officially became Planet of the Apes and Dracula Lives) - although clearly as the backup feature, since he never made it onto the cover of POTA for the rest of that title's run after issue #88, apart from two small cover vignettes (issues #90 and #92).

But not only were the apes running the show, in spite of the official title being Planet of the Apes and Dracula Lives the vampire count actually failed to make the line-up regularly as of POTA #95. When Dracula did feature it was often only to serve as a storyteller frame for old Atlas monster stories (e.g. POTA #102).

Towards the end of its run (which came with issue #123 in late February 1977), POTA unceremoniously (and silently) phased out the Transylvanian Count completely. But in spite of everything, Dracula would still make a few occasional appearances after that, in Marvel UK's flagship title, Mighty World of Marvel.

When Marvel seriously started thinking about expanding into the horror genre in late 1971, their first pick - somewhat surprisingly - wasn't Dracula or Frankenstein's Monster, but the classic Werewolf.

A creature rooted in centuries of traditional folklore in Europe and often portrayed as being innocent at heart and suffering from an unhappy personal fate, Marvel's version owed a lot to Roy Thomas and his wife being bored at a car show:

"I had this idea for something called "I, Werewolf." I wanted it narrated in first person (...) My wife Jeanie and I plotted the first issue one day when we got bored with a car show at Columbus Center in New York City, but I didn't like to write that stuff, so I'd always give assignments like that to Gerry [Conway] (...) Stan [Lee] liked everything but the title "I, Werewolf." He wanted to call it Werewolf by Night, and since all I cared about was the concept, not the name, that was fine by me. It was still narrated in the first person. I told Gerry to do it that way, and it worked out very well. Almost everything else after the first issue (...) was pretty much Gerry's, I think." (Cooke, 2001)

One of Marvel's most successful horror characters, Werewolf by Night made his first appearance in Marvel Spotlight #2, one of the House of Ideas' try-out titles, in February 1972.

The series focussed on Jack Russell, whose family (originally from Eastern Europe) was cursed with lycanthropy. Starting on his 18^th birthday, Russell would find himself transforming into a wolf-like creature every time there was a full moon. Similar to Bruce Banner and the Hulk, Jack Russell would always be seeking ways to either avoid or at least control the transformations. Eventually he would gain the ability to change into the werewolf at will and control the beast, except on three specific nights of the full moon.

Initially scripted by Gerry Conway and pencilled and inked by Mike Ploog (who quickly became a fan favourite), the character was well received and liked by readers, earning the Werewolf by Night his own comic book in September 1972, following three appearances in Marvel Spotlight.

In the end, Werewolf by Night turned out to be Marvel's second most successful venture into the horror genre, again making it a logical choice for Marvel UK's Dracula Lives.

As was the case with the main Dracula feature, Conway had originally had a very generous page count (no less than 27) on his hands to introduce the character and lay the groundwork. Dracula Lives #1 only reprinted the first 8 of these, but since Conway was moving things along rather quickly, UK readers actually got to witness the first werewolf transformation within this limited amount of storytelling space.

Conway's accelerated plot pacing even meant that editorial had to put the brakes on when it came to the last page to be reprinted in Dracula Lives #1. In its original form, the bottom panel takes readers to the second night of the full moon - not an ideal way to end the story. Editorial therefore didn't go past the first night's segment, left out the original final panel of the page, and inserted a "next issue" teaser instead. Readers of Dracula Lives would never get to see that left out panel (the Werewolf by Night feature would simply continue with the next page from Marvel Spotlight #2, following a specially produced and inserted "splash page"), but this was how the reprints in Marvel UK's weeklies worked - sometimes entire pages would get dropped (the various editorial changes applied by Marvel UK are illustrated in detail here).

Although the weekly publication cycle meant that Marvel UK was on average burning through two original US issues per month (and therefore catching up on newer material fast), the Werewolf by Night feature running in Dracula Lives was actually ended before the original material had been exhausted. Cancelled in the US with issue #43 in March 1977, the UK run ended in late April 1976 in Dracula Lives #78, when Werewolf by Night was still almost nine months ahead of Dracula Lives. Originally billed as a "guest star", Ghost Rider was here to stay and replaced the werewolf.

Following the extremely successful launch of the two classic horror characters Dracula and the Werewolf, Marvel introduced the Frankenstein Monster with much ado in the January 1973 Bullpen Bulletin.

"We've just got to clue you in to our own brand new creature-feature, the comic-mag we call THE MONSTER OF FRANKENSTEIN! With the unparalleled success of WEREWOLF BY NIGHT and THE TOMB OF DRACULA, it was impossible that we'd be able to resist the clarion call to add the most famous gargoyle of all to the mighty Marvel roster. And we've done it with a vengeance, people! First off, we got our Werewolf wonder-boy MIKE PLOOG to pencil - and monster-fan first class GARY FRIEDRICH to script. Next, we decided to do things up brown by being more faithful to Mary Shelley's original masterpiece of suspense than virtually any of the media have ever done before! Pick up a copy and see what we mean, okay? THE MONSTER OF FRANKENSTEIN - lumbering toward your friendly neighborhood newsstand right now!"

It was Roy Thomas (editor-in-chief at the time) who came up with the concept of adapting the original novel in the first few issues and then take the plot from there (Cooke, 2001), and assigned writer Gary Friedrich thus started The Monster of Frankenstein with a four-issue adaptation of Mary Shelley's original novel.

What should have become another strong player in Marvel's triumvirate of classic horror (given its own title from the get-go) would, however, turn out to be a less than successful series which would only last for 18 issues.

Nevertheless, it too was a logical choice for the initial line-up of Marvel UK's Dracula Lives.

Friedrich came up with a fairly ingenious framework to present the basic corpus of Shelley's novel in flashback form, and the adaptation was not only faithful to the original literary work but remains one of the best in any media form to this day.

The surprisingly literary approach - which steered clear of almost all of the established routines introduced by Universal's classic movies - is partially explained by the fact that the impression of Shelley's novel on assigned writer Gary Friedrich was fresh.

"I had never read the novel until Marvel decided to do this. I was going to try to do it faithfully, so I had to read the novel (...) It is always tough to cut down a novel. There are always things you would like to leave in but something has to go. It probably took a month or two to do the plot. The hardest part was just figuring out how to break down the plot." (Friedrich in N.N., 2008)

The result was well worth the amount of time and thought invested. But since readers of Dracula Lives #1 only got to read the first nine of twenty pages from Monster Of Frankenstein #1, they only just got a glimpse of the visual rendition of the Monster - in the final panel of the last reprinted page.

Victor Frankenstein's cry of "My God... it's alive!" (echoing Colin Clive in Universal's 1931 Frankenstein movie) was changed to "My Lord!" (along with a a caption box proclaiming "Next: The Monster lives!") in order to avoid repetition, since the next page featured the cover artwork of Monster of Frankenstein #1, giving readers a first full view of the Monster as well as its creator crying out "It's alive! Heaven help me... it's alive!".

However, as far as the visuals of the Monster were concerned, there was a problem: the classic Monster look everybody knew (i.e. Boris Karloff wearing Jack Pierce's make-up featuring a flat-top head, forehead scar, and protruding bolts) was copyrighted (and enforced) by Universal (Bailey, 2011). Stan Lee took no chances and selected a proposal based on a sketch by John Romita and fleshed out by Mike Ploog (Browning, 2009), who was the assigned artist for the first six issues. The result didn't copy the Universal visuals too closely and gave Marvel its very own Monster look without straying too far from the iconic Karloff mould.

The fact that Marvel UK's weekly titles were going through the original material at an accelerated pace was a problem that sooner or later literally caught up with all characters, but it was greatly exacerbated if there wasn't that much material to reprint in the first place.

This was certainly the case with Victor Frankenstein's creation, since Monster Of Frankenstein (retitled Frankenstein Monster after five issues) only lasted for a total of 18 issues in the US, and only spanned a time frame from January 1973 to September 1975 because it was published bi-monthly for most of its run.

According to Roy Thomas, the series ended because sales weren't good enough after it had initially sold well (Browning, 2009). As far as Dracula Lives was concerned, running out of original material coincided with the reprints having caught up.

And so, Marvel's tale of the Frankenstein Monster ended the same way for readers in the US and the UK: with a story dangling in mid-air. Without any further ado, Dracula Lives #42 (9 August 1975) simply introduced The Living Mummy as replacement.

During almost the entire run of Marvel's Frankenstein Monster editorial made a number of glaring blunders and generally seemed to be anything but on top of things, adding a constant whiff of chaos to a title already trying to gain a sense of balance and direction. In an odd way, Marvel UK seemed to want to replicate this by running an in-house advert in Mighty World of Marvel #150 telling readers they could follow the mystery and horror of Frankenstein's Monster in Dracula Lives - but by the time this ad hit the news stands (16 August 1975), the Living Mummy had already taken its place...

Mighty World of Marvel #150
(16 August 1975)

Just as the US originals did, several pages of a Marvel UK weekly were usually featured in-house advertising or editorial (since this was the first issue, there was no letters page as yet, and the UK Bullpen Bulletin was a short stretch down the line too).

Dracula Lives #1 had two pointers towards the second issue (one featuring an actual view of the Frankenstein Monster, given that the pages reprinted had just cut that revelatory moment short, and another telling readers about a competition and the chance to win nothing less than a colour TV set), along with the usual advertising for the established three Marvel UK titles. The other new weekly, Planet of the Apes, was given the privilege of a plug in colour since it appeared on the back cover.

In-house adverts very often were an excellent source of information too, and would occasionally introduce readers to Marvel characters they simply hadn't seen before.

Just as it had done in the US, the horror genre went into a steady and fast decline by the mid- to late 1970s, and all that remains of the one and only Marvel UK 1970s horror-only title is but a ghostly spectre in the form of now 40+ years old copies of Dracula Lives - "Britain's no.1 fear mag".

FURTHER READING ON THE THOUGHT BALLOON

There's more on the 1970s history of Marvel UK here, and some closer looks at specific titles and issues here.

You can read more about Marvel's 1970s Bronze Age horror genre titles and their "superheroes from the crypt" here.

There's an issue-by-issue look at the Tomb Of Dracula series here.

You can read more about Marvel's Frankenstein Monster here.

You can read more about Gene Colan here.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BAILEY Jonathan (2011) "How Universal Re-Copyrighted Frankenstein’s Monster", PT Plagiarism Today, 24 October 2011

BROWNING Michael (2009) "Flashback: The Monster of Frankenstein", Back Issue! #36, Two Morrows Publishing

COOKE Jon B. (2001) "Son of Stan: Roy's Years of Horror", Comic Book Artist # 13, Two Morrows Publishing

KLEEFELD Sean (2022) "Marvel Job Numbers", kleefeldoncomics.com, 16 February 2022

N. N. (2008) "Gary Friedrich talks Frankenstein", www.comicmonsters.com, no longer avilable

THOMAS Roy (2000) "So you want a Job eh? The Gene Colan Interview", Alter Ego (vol. 3 issue 6)