Warren Publishing began in the late 50s and found early success with
Famous Monsters of Filmland, edited by Sci-fi legend Forrest J Ackerman (Ackerman also at one time enjoyed the distinction of being Ed Wood's literary agent but that must surely be another story). In 1964 they branched out into horror comics with the launch of
Creepy, followed in 1966 by
Eerie, both of which owed much to the EC horror comics which preceded them. The Warren titles were black and white magazine format publications, thus avoiding the ever-watchful eye of the Comics Code Authority. Despite initial success, by the late 60s
Creepy and
Eerie were struggling and relied increasingly on reprints of early stories. Warren was clearly in need of some new blood.
The idea for
Vampirella was simple yet inspired. One imagines the editorial meeting going something like this;
"OK, so let's think about our target audience, young males and adolescents, what kind of thing interests them?"
"Er... vampires and werewolves and stuff."
"Yeah, but we need something new, something exciting."
"Science fiction."
"Hmm... OK, anything else?"
"Large breasted women in skimpy costumes!"
"Great! I think we may have something here... vampires, space opera and big bosoms... this is just an idea but how about..."
And thus was born
Vampirella!
Vampirella #1Warren Publishing, Sept. 1969
(reprinted as a special commemorative edition by Harris Publications, Oct. 2001).
Cover art by Frank Frazetta.
The character of Vampirella was created by Forrest J Ackerman and drawn initially by Tom Sutton, although it was surely Frazetta's eye-popping cover which really established her iconic image when the magazine hit the newsstands. The opening frames of her introductory story set the 'cheesecake' tone of the magazine early on as we meet her in the shower, her modesty only retained by a few strategically placed soap bubbles (indeed most of the stories open with pictures of busty ladies in various states of undress).
The story clearly shows her Barbarella origins. Running only 7 pages, it's a campy pun-splattered "you won't have died in vein!" sci-fi romp set on the planet Draculon (or Drakulon, the two are used interchangeably, sometimes in the same paragraph), which is your average alien planet - twin suns and all - the twist here being that instead of water, Draculon runs with rivers of blood and its inhabitants are vampires. Blood is in short supply though due to a drought, so when the unsuspecting crew of a spaceship crash-land it's "feast come, feast served!". And that's about it.
Vampi's main function at this stage is to introduce - like Uncle Creepy and Cousin Eeerie before her (and the Crypt-keeper, the Vault-keeper and the Old Witch before them) - a selection of short tales of mystery and terror to her "reader bleeders". Most of these early stories were written by Don Glut, who probably needs no introduction to regular reader bleeders here, but just in case anyone was wondering this is the same Donald F. Glut later responsible for
The New Adventures of Frankenstein series. These are good, solid old-fashioned horror yarns in the main - plotting is straightforward, characters and dialogue are mostly stock, and the surprise endings are rarely a huge surprise... but they are fun.
The accompanying art is variable but Warren did have some great talent working for them in the 60s, many of whom would go on to become big names in comics. This first issue has some particularly nice work by Neal Adams.
Death Boat!Story by Don Glut/Art by Billy Graham
A luxury liner sinks in the middle of the ocean and six lucky survivors find safety in a lifeboat. But are they really the lucky ones?
Nerves and tempers fray as the sharks begin to gather, and things only get worse next morning when one of their number is found dead with some rather peculiar wounds on his throat. Survivor-with-thick-European-accent recognises the signs immediately - he's seen them before back in the Old Country; "The marks of Nosferatu... vampire!"
The finger of suspicion quickly points to survivor-with-"face vhite like death"-and-"volfish eyes". Perhaps not altogether surprisingly when he goes on a cruise dressed like this;
After some hasty discussion it's decided that although the idea that vampires have to stay in their coffins by day may be just a myth, there's no arguing with a stake through the heart, and our survivor with the suspiciously pasty complexion soon has cause to regret that day he went into the barber's and was told; "Do you know what'd really suit you... a widow's peak...". And so, after a brief scuffle, evil is laid to rest... until next morning when the mysterious vampire strikes again and bikini-clad Angela Waller discovers that the undead can take many forms...
Two Silver Bullets!Story by Don Glut/Art by Reed Crandall
Yeah, it's a werewolf story.
Marie is attacked by a large timber wolf in the Canadian backwoods. Luckily, her father is close by with his rifle but although he gets in a couple of good shots at close range, the wolf escapes unharmed. Back in their log cabin, father and daughter can't forget the odd look in the wolf's red eyes which seemed "strangely human". Before long, Maria is having peculiar dreams about slipping out of her diaphanous nightgown and running through the snow to meet her wolfy lover. Maria's father knows a thing or two about the loup garou though, and before the next full moon he's off to see the local priest who sorts him out with some silver bullets...
Goddess From The SeaStory by Don Glut/Art by Neal Adams
A man finds a beautiful but mysterious blue-green woman on the beach and takes her back to his place. Our hero isn't entirely convinced by her story about escaping to the surface world from the undersea kingdom of Atlantis, but after all she is green...
The warlords of Atlantis aren't about to let the lovely Lalora escape so easily though... then again Jim Judson isn't a man who'll give up a scantily-clad mermaid without a fight...
Last Act: October!Story by Don Glut/Art by Mike Royer
Back to the exclamation marks! This is a tale of witchcraft which begins back in the day, when Squire Pilkington undertakes a spot of the Lord's work one October night and burns convicted witch, Meg Clayton, at the stake.
Squire Pilkington: Yea, and well might ye shiver, Meg Clayton! Though methinks ye'll not shiver for long when the ravening flames cleanse the sin from your soul!
Angry mob: Let's get on with the burning! Yeah, burn her!
Mystic Meg has the last laugh though when she curses the Squire and his future generations down to their last member...
The present day. Ageing spinster Hortense Pilkington, one of the few women characters in
Vampirella not to slip into a bikini at some point, is on her way to a babysitting gig one halloween and wonders if the Curse of the Pilkingtons may be more than just a family legend: Grandfather killed by an exploding water heater, Aunt Matilda blinded by her own mascara, her own dear father, the missionary, "killed and consumed by a tribe of cannibal Amazons"... what are the odds?
Now she's the last of the Pilkington line - but what could possibly happen to her while she's looking after angelic little Teddy... alone in a big, old house... with a storm raging outside... that takes out the electricity and telephone cables... no, she'll be fine... after all, it'll soon be midnight...
Spaced-Out Girls!Story by Don Glut/Art by Tony Tallarico
Something for Kev and the science fiction fans.
Kenne Barcroft not only has a ridiculous name, he also has quite a way with the ladies. No sooner are they slapping him across the face and calling him an animal than they're begging him to stay;
"I... I'm sorry, Kenne! I didn't know what I was doing! Please forgive me! You've got to! Kiss me again! PLEASE!"
Oh yes, treat 'em mean and keep 'em keen. Our Kenne's the mack daddy. In a stripey blazer.
So when he encounters a flying saucer one night, filled with amazons from a distant galaxy in revealing spacesuits ("and each one a knockout!"), he's fairly sure that his luck's in. And when they tell him that their race is dying because men are extinct, he wastes no time at all in volunteering to fill in for them. Things couldn't get any better surely, especially when Kenne discovers that he is to become the planet's new king and has a hot date lined up with the queen...
A Room Full of Changes(story itself is not credited but from the contents page I gather that the writer was Nicoli Cuti, with art by Ernie Colon)
Blaine, a novelist, buys an old house which seems like the perfect place to work on his new book. Strange things start occurring when little Wendy appears at his front door and explains it was her daddy who sold him the house and that she'd like to play in the room. Which room? Why, the room where the old man was murdered of course. Previous occupant Old Man Keil was, it transpires, a practitioner of black sorcery - "Dead animals were found on his porch. And two children who were lost in the woods were never heard of again!".
There's something odd about the room where the old warlock died, it keeps changing... one minute it's a playroom, the next it's a rather tastefully decorated study/den. Blaine doesn't seem overly concerned with these strange goings on mind you, Wendy's older sister has also turned up and she's really hot!
Blaine decides to throw a party in his new house but not all his guests are quite so happy to be there - the strange room it seems reflects the soul of whoever enters into it, and one of the partygoers is Old Man Keil's murderer...
This one has the makings of a decent short story and is quite a contrast to Glut's contributions which are much more of the Tales to Astonish variety.
All in all, an entertaining first issue of "the coolest girl-meets-ghoul mag on the market". I've got more of these so I may write up a few more issues if you're interested. In the meantime, for anyone who'd like to see more of this issue, I've put some scans of the magazine up at the link below which you can download (it's a RAR file so you'll need something like WINRAR or WINZIP to extract the folder).
myfreefilehosting.com/f/a40ee567fe_13.95MB
and - and I'm telling you this as a friend - it must never happen again. 
dem kiss kiss vampii better!
