Swordsmen And Sorcerers!

Sword and Sorcery came to comics in a big way in the Bronze Age with the arrival of Conan the Barbarian to Marvel Comics. Of course there had been precursors, but the genre (a weird offshoot of classic horror and fantasy) to no small extent dominated the comic racks in the early parts of the 1970's when not only Marvel began to imitate their own success with Robert E. Howard's pulp icon but so did DC with a big push into the field along with Gold Key, Warren and the brief but busy Atlas-Seaboard. The burst lasted briefly but Conan and few other similar types forged on into the 80's and slightly beyond as independent publishers like Eclipse, Pacific, and others joined the fray. And then it ended and Marvel let the license go which it ended up at Dark Horse. There has been some success there, but nothing like what preceded it in those halycon days. Take a gander at the covers below and enjoy a time when men were men, and so were the women.

Happy Halloween!

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Vampire Tales #5 - Blood Tides!

Vampire Tales #6 is dated June, 1974 and sports an average Esteban Maroto cover which is lush with hues of green.

A two-page tale drawn by Win Mortimer and written by Doug Moench decorates the inside front and inside back covers, a somewhat ho-hum telling of a possible vintage vampire preying upon children in France.

Morbius the Living Vampire returns again in a story by Don McGregor and this time art by Rich Buckler and finishes by Ernie Chua /Chan. This is an elaborate yarn (and frankly an overwritten one as McGregor was wont to do from time time) that finds Morbius and Amanda Saint still in Malevolence, Maine up against the Demon-Fire cult and its local leader the kelp-headed Blood-Tide. The narrative perspective changes page by page as we also follow up on not only Morbius and Amanda but two folks we met in the last story, two young adults in Maine to assist with a political campaign but who are disillusioned with their candidate. It turns out they had reason to be. All the characters head to a local cinema to watch a movie titled "Trail Dust" but which from the stills used is a Hopalong Cassidy effort. You'll find the complete tale at this groovy link.

Next up is an article by Don Glut on the merits and demerits of the Count Yorga movies. Inspired by reading these reviews I dug out my VHS copy of Count Yorga and gave it a look after many years and I'd forgotten how cheap the movie making was. Sheesh! Count Yorga gets credit for being a new vampire face and leading a vanguard of such in the 70's, but on its own merits the movie is pretty tepid. The movie began as a soft core porn effort and though star Robert Quarry demanded that element be dropped before he became involved the erotic roots of the movie still show through in its construction.

The next story is an adaptation of a tale by Robert Block called "The Living Dead". This one is scripted by Roy Thomas and features artwork by Alan Kupperberg with heavy inks by Dick Giordano. This is a story of a vampire in World War II, a fake one who uses the mythology to scare the locals to make room for the Nazi war machine to maintain an intelligence operation. But as we learn the locals are not as dim as we thought and the end of the war proves problematic for our wannabe vamp. Read the whole story in the original art form here.

The "Devil's Den" by Carla Joseph is a regular feature which details the horror offerings in movies, books, and suchlike in the then modern day. This installment details movies from Hammer and AIP and others. 

The reprint offering in this issue is a black and white retelling of the origin of Morbius by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane. Kane's artwork looks great in black and white.

The final story is "The Vampire Wants Blood!" by Doug Moench and Val Mayerik. This one tells of an old castle in which a vampire's bony remains are staked out and which are undone by the rising water of a flood releasing the vampire to exact revenge on the locals. Read it at this groovy link.

And that's a wrap for another issue. More to come as Morbius is out and Dracula's Daughter moves in.

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Vampire Tales #4 - Blood On The Snow!

Vampire Tales #4 is dated April, 1974. The mag sports one of the absolute best covers Boris Vallejo ever created, before his style became too slick and overly obsessed with the physical form. The atmosphere on this one as the vampire clutches at the man is palpable; you know he's doomed.

In the first story "Lighthouse of the Possessed", the Morbius tale by Don McGregor and full art by Tom Sutton we see the Living Vampire as he heads to Maine and runs afoul of more of the same cult he rescued Amanda Saint from in the last few issues. The hotel the pair decide to stay in proves to be full of dangers and a new villain n named "Blood-Tide" reveals himself and points to more dangers for Morbius ahead. Morbius for his money fends off a deadly witch, her acolytes in the Demon-Fire Cult, and in particular her henchman, a man with a weakened mind and a deadly hoot for a hand. Read this story at this goovy link.

"Everything You Wanted to Know About Vampires -- But Were Afraid to Ask" is the fourth installment of Chris Claremont's look at Montague Summer's The Vampire - His Kith and Kin. This time the focus is on various kinds of vampire myths from across the globe, suggesting the vampire is a nigh universal mystery.

Next is a one-page tongue-in-cheek autobiographical sketch by Gerry Conway in which he reveals amazingly little. 

"Somewhere Waits the Vampire!" is an Atlas-era reprint from 1951's Journey into Unknown Worlds #27 with artwork by Paul Reinman and shows up a particularly nasty vampire who preys upon a man and his naive daughter.

"A Vampire's Home is His Castle" is written Doug Moench and drawn by Lombardia. It tells of a vampire who enslaves an architect and destroys his family but pays the price when his transformed into the very thing he cannot withstand.

"Hell House is Dying"  by Don McGregor is a sprawling and rather rambling review of sorts of The Legend of Hell House, and to be honest after reading it I cannot tell if McGregor likes the movie or not. He certainly likes Richard Matheson and the novel the movie is based on and he has nice things to suggest, but overall this review is rather weird.

"The Vampire's Coffin" from 1953's Mystery Tales #15 features art by John DiPreta from the Atlas days and is about a vile sea captain who abuses his men and even uses them for vampiric sustenance.

"The Drifting Snow" is an adaptation of an August Derleth story by Tony Isabella and this time the finished product is magnificent. It features some the best work Esteban Maroto ever did for Marvel and is absorbingly atmospheric as it tells of an isolated house which is visited periodically by its former occupants who have been turned into ghostly vampires.

Esteban Maroto knocked this one out the park and created artwork which still haunts me after all these years. Great stuff! Get a closer look here.

The issue closes with a one-page offering from Tony Isabella and Ernie Chua (Chan) and relates efficiently the myth of "Lilith - The First Vampire".

And that's a wrap for now. But there are more issues to come.

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