CSBG Archive
Comic Book Alphabet of Vampires – V
First Second Books’ Vampire Month is over, but we are still going!
Here is one of the big ones (and no, that is not a pun about the size of her chest)!!
Enjoy!
Vampirella
Vampirella is one of the longest lasting independent comic book characters in all of comic-dom, debuting in the late 1960s as Warren Publishing’s third horror title, with a cover by Frank Frazetta and interiors by the late, great Tom Sutton.
Originally, Vampirella was just the person who introduced the stories (like Cain and Abel in the two DC Houses), but eventually, under Archie Goodwin’s guidance, she became the star of the book herself…
Vampirella was an alien from the planet Draculon, where the inhabitants were all, well, vampires (duh!).
She came to Earth and helped fight the evil ACTUAL vampires of Earth.
The magazine lasted until the early 80s, with #112 being its final issue.
Harris Publishing purchased the rights to Vampirella from Warren at bankruptcy proceedings, and eventually published their own Vampirella series in the 90s.
Kurt Busiek wrote the revamped origin, which was one of those “everything you knew is a lie!” deals, with Vampirella now being a standard enough vampire.
Dig those crazy covers!
Harris tried different things, too, like a manga-style Vampirella, Vampi!
Right now, Harris is doing a Quarterly Vampirella series, although apparently there are some issues over who really owns her current rights.
7 Comments
Tom Fitzpatrick
June 10, 2008 at 3:23 am
“Letter, like letter, is a secret of Alphabet.”
- Marcus Aurelius Antonius (121-180)
I dig the Commemorative Edition cover.
Random Stranger
June 10, 2008 at 5:21 am
Oh just because she’s more important to comic culture Vampirella gets the “V” slot over the first pop-culture vampire Varney (who has made a few different appearances in comics ala Dracula). It’s discrimination!
JdRavnos
June 10, 2008 at 6:23 am
What, no mention of her cinematic classic direct-to-video adaptation?
MLViola
June 10, 2008 at 9:09 am
I was actually hoping that the “V” reference would be for the Vigil comics from Duality Press – oh well!
El Dustino
June 10, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Don’t mock the Vampirella movie. It had Roger Daltrey playing Dracula…and some Bond girl, the one that married Benjamin Bratt.
Check out IMDb, it was directed by Jim Wynorski, He directed Return of Swamp Thing, so that’s two comic book movie for him. Of course one of them ruined a franchise (I like Wes Craven’s Swamp Thing movie. You can’t fault it for coming out before “Anatomy Lesson”.)
Vincent Paul Bartilucci
June 10, 2008 at 4:24 pm
But … but … what about Vincent Velcro …?
Lothor
June 12, 2008 at 10:13 pm
Random Stranger, I couldn’t have said it better myself. Without Varney there would be no Dracula, let alone Vampirella, Mobius, etc.