''Dracula Lives!'' was an American black-and-white
horror comics
Horror comics are comic books, graphic novels, black-and-white comics magazines, and manga focusing on horror fiction. In the US market, horror comic books reached a peak in the late 1940s through the mid-1950s, when concern over content and the ...
magazine published by
Magazine Management
Magazine Management Co., Inc. was an American publishing company lasting from at least 1947 to the early 1970s, known for men's-adventure magazines, risque men's magazines, humor, romance, puzzle, celebrity/film and other types of magazines, and ...
, a corporate sibling of
Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics is an American comic book publishing, publisher and the flagship property of Marvel Entertainment, a divsion of The Walt Disney Company since September 1, 2009. Evolving from Timely Comics in 1939, ''Magazine Management/Atlas Co ...
. The series ran 13 issues and one ''
Super Annual'' from 1973 to 1975, and starred the Marvel version of the literary vampire
Dracula.
A magazine rather than a comic book, it did not fall under the purview of the comics industry's self-censorship
Comics Code Authority
The Comics Code Authority (CCA) was formed in 1954 by the Comics Magazine Association of America as an alternative to government regulation. The CCA allowed the comic publishers to self-regulate the content of comic books in the United States. ...
, allowing the title to feature stronger content — such as moderate profanity, partial nudity, and more graphic violence — than the color comics of the time also featuring
Dracula stories.
Running concurrently with the longer-running Marvel comic ''
The Tomb of Dracula
''The Tomb of Dracula'' is an American horror comic book series published by Marvel Comics from April 1972 to August 1979. The 70-issue series featured a group of vampire hunters who fought Count Dracula and other supernatural menaces. On rare ...
'', the continuities of the two titles occasionally overlapped, with storylines weaving between the two. Most of the time, however, the stories in ''Dracula Lives!'' were standalone Dracula tales by various creative teams. Later issues of ''Dracula Lives!'' featured a serialized adaptation of the original
Bram Stoker novel, written by
Roy Thomas and drawn by
Dick Giordano
Richard Joseph Giordano (; July 20, 1932 – March 27, 2010) was an American comics artist and editor whose career included introducing Charlton Comics' "Action Heroes" stable of superheroes and serving as executive editor of DC Comics.
Early ...
.
Publication history
Copyrighted as simply ''Dracula Lives'', without an exclamation point, but commonly known by its trademarked cover title, ''Dracula Lives!'', the magazine ran 13 issues from 1973 to 1975. With sister titles including ''
Monsters Unleashed!'', ''
Tales of the Zombie
''Tales of the Zombie'' was an American black-and-white horror comics magazine published by Magazine Management, a corporate sibling of Marvel Comics. The series ran 10 issues and one '' Super Annual'' from 1973 to 1975, many featuring stories of t ...
'' and ''
Vampire Tales
''Vampire Tales'' was an American black-and-white horror comics magazine published by Magazine Management, a corporate sibling of Marvel Comics. The series ran 11 issues and one annual publication from 1973 to 1975, and featuring vampires as both ...
'', it was published by
Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics is an American comic book publishing, publisher and the flagship property of Marvel Entertainment, a divsion of The Walt Disney Company since September 1, 2009. Evolving from Timely Comics in 1939, ''Magazine Management/Atlas Co ...
' parent company,
Magazine Management
Magazine Management Co., Inc. was an American publishing company lasting from at least 1947 to the early 1970s, known for men's-adventure magazines, risque men's magazines, humor, romance, puzzle, celebrity/film and other types of magazines, and ...
, and related corporations, under the brand emblem Marvel Monster Group.
[''Dracula Lives'']
at the Grand Comics Database
The Grand Comics Database (GCD) is an Internet-based project to build a database of comic book information through user contributions. The GCD project catalogues information on creator credits, story details, reprints, and other information useful ...
.
The character
Lianda first appeared in ''Dracula Lives!'' #1. The character
Turac first appeared in ''Dracula Lives!'' #2 (Sept. 1973). The character
Nimrod the First debuted in ''Dracula Lives!'' #3 (Oct. 1973), created by
Marv Wolfman
Marvin Arthur Wolfman (born May 13, 1946) is an American comic book and novelization writer. He worked on Marvel Comics's '' The Tomb of Dracula'', for which he and artist Gene Colan created the vampire-slayer Blade, and DC Comics's ''The New Te ...
and
John Buscema.
Painted covers of the series were done by artists including
Boris Vallejo,
Neal Adams
Neal Adams (June 15, 1941 – April 28, 2022) was an American comic book artist. He was the co-founder of the graphic design studio Continuity Associates, and was a creators-rights advocate who helped secure a pension and recognition for Sup ...
, and
Luis Dominguez
Luis is a given name. It is the Spanish form of the originally Germanic name or . Other Iberian Romance languages have comparable forms: (with an accent mark on the i) in Portuguese and Galician, in Aragonese and Catalan, while is archai ...
. Text and photo articles were mostly of the Count's various film appearances. The title of the magazine's
letter column
A comic book letter column is a section of an American comic book where readers' letters to the publisher appear. Comic book letter columns are also commonly referred to as letter columns (or lettercols), letter pages, letters of comment (LOCs), o ...
was "Dracula Reads!"
An
annual publication titled ''Dracula Lives! Super Annual'' was published in 1975, reprinting stories from the magazine.
Reprints and collections
Much of the material in ''Dracula Lives!'' was reprinted in a
Marvel UK
Marvel UK was an imprint of Marvel Comics formed in 1972 to reprint US-produced stories for the British weekly comic market. Marvel UK later produced original material by British creators such as Alan Moore, John Wagner, Dave Gibbons, Steve Di ...
weekly reprint title of the same name. It eventually merged with the Marvel UK ''
Planet of the Apes
''Planet of the Apes'' is an American science fiction media franchise consisting of films, books, television series, comics, and other media about a world in which humans and intelligent apes clash for control. The franchise is based on Frenc ...
'' weekly, and with issue #60 the title became ''Dracula Lives Featuring the Legion of Monsters''.
All 13 issues of ''Dracula Lives!'' were collected for an ''
Essential Marvel'' edition in 2005 (''Dracula Lives!'' #1-2 was also collected in 2006 as part of ''Essential Tales of the Zombie: Volume 1''). In 2010, the complete series (including the
letter column
A comic book letter column is a section of an American comic book where readers' letters to the publisher appear. Comic book letter columns are also commonly referred to as letter columns (or lettercols), letter pages, letters of comment (LOCs), o ...
s) was reprinted in the ''
Marvel Omnibus'' title ''Tomb of Dracula Volume 3'' (which included ''The Tomb of Dracula'' magazine #1-6 and ''The Frankenstein Monster'' #7-9).
Serialized adaptation of Stoker's ''Dracula''
Issues #5–8 and 10–11 featured a serialized adaptation of the original
Bram Stoker novel, in 10- to 12-page installments written by
Roy Thomas and drawn by
Dick Giordano
Richard Joseph Giordano (; July 20, 1932 – March 27, 2010) was an American comics artist and editor whose career included introducing Charlton Comics' "Action Heroes" stable of superheroes and serving as executive editor of DC Comics.
Early ...
.
Following ''Dracula Lives!'' cancellation, an additional installment appeared in ''The
Legion of Monsters
Legion of Monsters is the name of different fictional superhero teams appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics.
Publication history
The Legion of Monsters first appeared in Marvel Comics chronology in ''Marvel Premiere'' #28 ( ...
'' #1, for a total of 76 pages comprising roughly one-third of the novel.
After a 30-year hiatus, Marvel commissioned Thomas and Giordano to finish the adaptation, and ran the reprinted and new material as the four-issue miniseries ''Stoker's Dracula'' (Oct. 2004 – May 2005).
''Stoker's Dracula'' (Marvel, 2004 series)
at the Grand Comics Database The entire adaptation was collected by Marvel Illustrated in 2010.
References
External links
*
{{Dracula
Comics magazines published in the United States
1973 comics debuts
1975 comics endings
Defunct American comics
Horror comics
Comics based on Dracula
Comics by Gerry Conway
Comics by Marv Wolfman
Comics by Roy Thomas
Vampires in comics
Marvel Comics titles
Horror fiction magazines
Defunct magazines published in the United States
Magazines established in 1973
Magazines disestablished in 1975
Comics anthologies