Spotlight on The Tomb of Dracula #9 @ The Thought Balloon

SPOTLIGHT ON

TOMB OF DRACULA #9

(JUNE 1973)

"Death From The Sea!"
(20 pages)

Story - Marv Wolfman
Art - Gene Colan
Inks - Vince Coletta
Colours - Glynis Wein
Lettering - Artie Simek
Editor - Roy Thomas

Cover - Gil Kane (pencils), Tom Palmer (inks)

On sale 20 March 1973

was Marvel's most popular and successful ongoing horror title of the 1970s, weaving an ongoing saga that plotted the vampire count against a group of vampire hunters. It was vividly brought to life by Marv Wolfman's gripping multi-layer storytelling and Gene Colan's moody cinematographic artwork.

The overall result harked back to the classic vampire stories but also added new momentum to the theme. Marvel's Tomb of Dracula was an outstanding contribution to the genre, a classic in its own right, and the jewel in the crown of Marvel's Bronze Age horror. It remains a fan favourite to this day.

SYNOPSIS
! SPOILER ALERT !

When a fisherman pulls out a body from the sea, the locals decide to take him to the local church at Littlepool - unaware that the body they believe to be dead is actually Dracula. Once inside the church, the Lord of Vampires regains consciousness and is horrified only to find himself inside a church, instantly feeling intense physical pain induced by the many crucifixes present. As he bolts out of the church, Father Williams and the locals are both stunned and shocked to find that the man they pulled from the water clearly was not dead.

Dracula himself ponders on the events that caused him ending up in the water, and remembers how after leaving the dead body of Heinrich Motte, a doctor-turned-vampire who gave him a complete blood transfusion (in Tomb Of Dracula #8) to counteract the effect of one of Quincey Harker's poisoned arrows from a previous encounter, the weakened Lord of Vampires was then beaten up by a group of bikers who just dumped his body in the sea.

Relating a version of this story that doesn't betray his true nature, Dracula introduces himself to Father William as "Mr. Drake". With no trains running for a few days, Dracula decides to rest up and get well, and accepts an offer to stay with a young man named David and his mother. But rather than catching a good night's sleep, as soon as night falls Dracula is on the prowl for fresh blood.

The curse of the vampire hits Littlepool quickly and with a vengeance, as Dracula's victim of the night, the local pub lady named Gladys, herself turns into a vampire and takes a first victim, a pub regular named Corker - who, now also a vampire, attempts to feed on David's girlfriend Andrea.

Meanwhile, in London, with no leads on Dracula's location Quincy Harker and his vampire hunters spend their time training when Quincy suddenly gets a phone call which has him leaving immediately.

Back in Littlepool, Dracula orders Gladys and Corker to cease their attacks and leave. But now Father William, who has witnessed this scene, sees Dracula for what he really is, and gathers the town folk to destroy Dracula. As the crowd gathers outside David's home, they successfully track down Gladys and Corker and stake them, but the Lord of Vampires is ultimately able to escape by flying off into the misty night air.

REVIEW & ANALYSIS

According to Roy Thomas, Tomb of Dracula was a solid seller for most of its run (Cooke, 2001), and Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan steadily progressed on the title, from being two enthusiastic individuals working together, to becoming an actual team where mutual understanding and a shared perception created results not otherwise possible. The series just kept getting better and better, until it arguably reached its prime for a period running from April 1974 to August 1975 over a sequence of 17 issues, in Tomb of Dracula #19-35.

Marv Wolfman in 1975

Marvin "Marv" Wolfman (*1946) had started working for the comic book industry in 1968 with DC, yet he was still only 26 when he took over the scripting of Tomb Of Dracula #7 for the March 1973 publication schedule. With Wolfman at the reins, Marvel's take on Dracula became a cleverly conceived and superbly balanced piece of fiction.

"I'd never seen a Dracula movie at that point, but I'd read the novel, and I loved the novel (...) Dracula himself was really a force more than a presence because he's only in 80 or something pages of a 500 pages novel, so the attitude of the original book was more on the people who are hunting him and the effects of evil on them (...) Using that as the template for the entire series it seemed to me that this was an ideal concept to try and do more realistic comics, to try and break out of the comics for 11 year olds (...) I really wanted to try to write something that was starting to appeal to my age." (Marv Wolfman in Siuntres, 2006)

Tomb of Dracula #9 is only Wolfman's third issue, and the most interesting aspect of this issue, which concentrates almost entirely on Dracula, is Wolfman's portrayal of the vampire count. He obviously wanted to add complexity to the leading character of the series, and hindsight has proven the worth of this approach. Dracula is seen to show respect in his interaction with David, even offering the young local protection after what he has done to help him escape from the villagers.

In his portrayal of Dracula, Wolfman was actually more concerned with the possibly remaining human traits in the vampire count's personality than Bram Stoker's novel had been - not the least, of course, because Wolfman was not writing a single publication, but a serialized narrative.

"[Dracula] was the protagonist, but he was never the hero (...) that was the trick. If you just saw this guy as a (...) one-dimensional villain - as was the standard at the time [in comic books] - there would be no way to keep the series going. This book was called "Tomb of Dracula", it wasn't called "Tomb of Rachel van Helsing" or "The Vampire Hunters" or something like that, so Dracula had to become a real character (...) [there had to be] some features about him, some things that still reached back to when he was human." (Comic Geek Speak, 2005)

Throughout the course of Tomb of Dracula, these remnants of Dracula's past as a human being - not a vampire - would float (or sometimes even erupt) to the surface of his twisted personality. He would at times prove to be far from completely free and devoid of human feelings such as pity, love or even nostalgia - quite unlike what one would come to expect from the overlord of the undead.

And when the series finally came to an end, Quincy Harker admonishes the readers in the last phrase of issue #70 - after having destroyed Dracula - not to be forgetful of the fact that, after all and foremost, Dracula was - a man.

Having built up a steady increase in sales, Tomb of Dracula changed from bi-monthly to monthly publication with issue #9. Readers really liked how everything was embedded in an arc of overall continuity and plot suspense, and Wolfman's introduction of aspects of moral philosophy, along with portraying all characters involved (including Dracula) as self-conflicting and sometimes even outright self-contradicting personalities, gave Tomb Of Dracula a maturity other comic book titles never even got close to.

The entire group of vampire hunters features on the Gil Kane cover for Tomb of Dracula #28 (January 1975)

Fighting the Lord of Vampires in Tomb of Dracula was a team effort, just as it had been in Stoker's novel. Having a group of "vampire hunters" as antipodes to Dracula's actions and schemes of world domination was presented so well that it became an important element of the ongoing saga and contributed in a very essential way to the success of Tomb of Dracula.

Just as quintessential was another direct connection to the literary source that Wolfman established by way of the introduction of the persona of Quincy Harker, in Tomb of Dracula #7.

Harker - who was only introduced on the final page of Stoker's original novel as a newly born baby - is now an elderly man bound to a wheelchair; however, he has used scientific means and sophisticated machinery to hunt down vampires for the past sixty years after having been trained by Abraham van Helsing himself. He is the driving force behind the group of vampire hunters, which includes Dracula's descendant Frank Drake, Rachel van Helsing, Indian mute Taj Nital, and "daywalker vampire" Blade.

Within this framework, Wolfman's conceptual ideas for breaking out of established comic book routines proved to be simply perfect, and very soon the title found itself outside of the commonly defined and charted corners not just of the Marvel Universe, but the entire comic publishing business.

"This was the first time anything like this had been done. I was fighting the Comics Code every single month. We were just stretching - for the first time - out of standard comics." (Marv Wolfman in Comic Geek Speak, 2005)

Unlike Wolfman, Gene Colan (1926-2011), nicknamed both "Gentleman" and "the Dean" by Stan Lee, worked on Tomb of Dracula right from the start, and he would stay on the book throughout its entire run - after having literally fought for this assignment from Stan Lee

At this point in time of the series, Gene Colan was really in top gear and provided gripping visuals for Wolfman's stories. It all seemingly just flowed from his pencils with ease as he embedded his characters in atmospheric settings which embodied everything - and more - the genre had to offer. Issue after issue Colan's cinematographic style and his enthusiasm for this kind of work left a quality mark on each and every page.

"The more you work on something, the better you get at it. I felt that the character became my own" (Gene Colan in Dlugos, 2002)

Tomb of Dracula would quickly turn into the prototype mould for Marvel's 1970s run of horror comics, which infused the genre with the underlying principles of the traditional superhero comic book, resulting in the "superhero from the crypt". But ultimately, Tomb of Dracula owes its uniqueness and success to an important shift in focus which Marv Wolfman brought to the title:

"A lot of us back then were trying to break out of comics just for kids, and it was very possible for us to do those things on the non-superhero books, because no one was paying attention. So Roy Thomas could do that on Conan, Steve [Englehart] could do that on Doc Strange and Master of Kung-Fu, [Steve] Gerber could do it on Man-Thing or Howard the Duck, and I could do it on Dracula [...] to try and push comics into other things, other areas, that they had not explored." (Marv Wolfman in Siuntres, 2006)

THE VINCE COLETTA CONTROVERSY

Tomb of Dracula #9 was only the second issue of the title (after issue #2) that Vince "Vinnie" Colletta inked, but it would turn out to be his last.

Vince Colletta (1923-1991)

Colletta is possibly the most prolific and at the same time most controversial inker the comic book industry has ever seen. He could be extremely fast with his work and was almost any editor's go-to-inker when a title was running late, and he always delivered (Bryant Jr., 2010). The downside to this was the fact that Colletta would at times cut corners by erasing details in the pencil artwork and simplifying panels. It helped to meet deadlines and avoid having to pay hefty printer's fines, but not all artists were too happy with it.

"Vince wrecked what I did (...) He would eliminate people from the strip and use silhouettes, everything to cut corners and make the work easier for himself." (Joe Sinnott in Ro, 2004)

Editors and writers often weren't too impressed either, and Len Wein famously stated (when asked in an interview what he enjoyed most about working on Luke Cage):

"Getting to work with the wonderful George Tuska, before Vinnie Colletta got his hands on the pencils and ruined them." (Contino, 2005)

Numerous photostats of Jack Kirby's pencils (mostly on Thor) have survived, and more than just a few of these illustrate how significant the reductions imposed by Colletta's inking were.

Other artists weren't as cautious, and without photostats made prior to inking, their pencils were forever reduced to artistic simplicity.

"I hate to say it: when he wanted to he could do very good work, but he didn't take his time with my stuff." (Gene Colan in Field, 2005)

Colan understood that editors in a deadline bind turned to Colletta's speed-inking since "they could give him a job, and he could probably turn it out overnight" (Colan in Field, 2005), but he himself was dismayed by the results.

"I didn't like his interpretation of my work. He messed it up. I worked real hard on my work; why should somebody... wreck it?" (Gene Colan in Field, 2005)

When it came to Tomb of Dracula #9, Marv Wolfman had a few photostats of Gene Colan's pencils, and comparing them to the inked pages, was horrified to see how Vince Colletta had erased virtually all the lush background illustrations.

Page 15 from Tomb of Dracula #9 - this row of houses is a full-blown Vince Colletta simplification and looks nothing like the intricate backgrounds Gene Colan would draw.

When Wolfman confronted Colletta about it, the inker denied any wrongdoing - and complained to Stan Lee about Wolfman. Given that Colletta and Lee were somewhat good friends, "the Man" summoned the nervous young writer to his office - but when Wolfman pulled out the photostats, Lee agreed that Colletta had taken inacceptable shortcuts (Field, 2005).

In an extraordinary move, the inked pages were turned over to the Bullpen for background restoration, and Colletta was removed from the Tomb of Dracula assignment, never to ink another copy of the series (Field, 2005). Improving already inked pages must have been an almost impossible challenge for whoever was tasked to do it - and unfortunately, many panels and even complete pages of Tomb of Dracula #9 still clearly show the reductive vandalism inflicted by Colletta on Colan's pencil artwork.

Some pages did ultimately come out somewhat better, such as page 26, which Colan obviously felt acceptable enough to sign.

Original artwork by Gene Colan (inked by Vince Coletta) for page 26 of Tomb Of Dracula #9 (scanned from the original)
and the same page as it appeared in print

TRIVIA

Like any other Marvel comic book of the era, Tomb Of Dracula #9 featured a Bullpen Bulletin page - but on this occasion things were slightly different. Whilst it did feature the typically over the top alliterative title ("Bite-Sized Bits and Beatific Bromides!"), it also came with the tagline of "Half A Bullpen Page is Better than None!".

In essence this not only meant half of the usual space for announcements (which in this case focussed almost entirely on Marvel's range of black & white magazine-format publications) and Marvel gossip (of which there was none this time around), but also no words to the readers from the Stan "the Man" himself.

"Whew! We've got so many goodies to be tossin' at you over the coming weeks (...) that Our Leader has had to forego writing his scinitillatin' STAN LEE'S SOAPBOX for the next month or twain."

Tomb Of Dracula had featured a letters page entitled "Tomes to the Tomb" since issue #3, and readers kept their missives coming at a steadily increasing pace. Ultimately there would often be two pages of letters, with most if not all of them positive and full of enthusiastic praise.

Letters printed in "Tomes to the Tomb" were also fairly reliable in bringing up interesting points; usually linked to classic vampire lore, Tomb Of Dracula #9 brought up a more general observation on Marvel's in-house advertising :

"I'm afraid I have a bone to pick with you. Here's an example of what I'm talking about: In TOMB OF DRACULA #6, page 26, Frank Drake and Rachel are battling for their lives against Dracula. Just when you get caught up in the suspense, you get to the bottom of the page, and... "Only Maniacal Marvel Would Have The Nerve To Bring You FOOM!" A COMMERCIAL! You have no idea how traumatic it is for me to get involved in a story, only to be interrupted by... "It's A Fright! Buy WEREWOLF BY NIGHT!" (...) This just isn't necessary. If you keep producing the fine magazines you do, people will buy them. There's no need to oversell."

Apart from illustrating how difficult the task of handling letters from readers could be (this one seemed to start out tongue-in-cheek but then morphed into remarks quite possibly meant seriously), it also shows how editorial would often try to come up with answers that explained a few things to readers:

"Whew! If you think you get traumatized reading those marginal messages, you should see how batty we get trying to write them every month! But, hey, here's the reason for them: Marvel is into so many new projects these days, we just don't have room to publicize them all on the Bullpen page anymore. And, while we agree that as long as we continue producing top-notch mags our readers will keep reading - it sorta helps if you out there in Marvel-land know what new goodies are coming your way."

Those "marginal notes" at the bottom of the story pages were indeed a clever way of plugging other titles; possibly not subtle enough for some, but certainly highly intriguing. Not surprisingly, this way of turning otherwise empty space into small advertising billboards was Stan Lee's brainchild, who first made use of them way back in 1962 but then dropped the idea again until he asked Roy Thomas to do something along those lines in the early 1970s (Cronin, 2019).

Bottom of the page promotional line from Strange Tales #98 (July 1962) page 7

Thomas obliged for a while and then handed the task on to others (Tony Isabella amongst them) before it ended up being Scott Edelman's job as of around 1974

"I don’t remember exactly how or when the task was handed over to me - I assume it had to have been Len [Wein] who gave me the assignment - but I would interview the writers about what they had planned and create catchy write-ups, the same way I wrote the Bullpen Bulletins pages (save for Stan’s Soapbox), the copy which appeared on top of the splash page of comics, and other promotional materials." (Scott Edelman in Cronin, 2019)

These promo lines were a small but intriguing part of the fun of reading Marvel comic books at the time, since they would quite often mention characters or titles you had never heard of before, not unlike the Bullpen Bulletins and the Mighty Marvel Checklist.

Scott Edelman

Bottom of the page promotional line from Tomb of Dracula #9 page 3

There are plenty of these promo lines to be found in Tomb of Dracula #9 - in fact every single story page with the exception of the first and last one carried one, and quite a few were spread out over two facing pages:

Bottom of page 2		FROM STONEHENGE TO THE PERIL-FRAUGHT PLANET CALLED KATHULOS -
Bottom of page 3		- DR. STRANGE BATTLES WITCH AND WIZARD IN MARVEL PREMIERE!

Bottom of page 5		YOU HAVE NEVER MET ANYONE - OR ANYTHING - QUITE LIKE THE ZOMBIE! WATCH FOR HIM!

Bottom of page 6		MIGHTY AS THE HULK! THAT'S THE MACABRE MAN-THING -
Bottom of page 7		- IN EVERY FRIGHT-FILLED ISSUE OF FEAR!

Bottom of page 10		THE MASTER PLOT OF THE MAN CALLED GIDEON! -
Bottom of page 11		- IT'S ALL REVEALED UNTO YOU IN FANTASTIC FOUR #135!

Bottom of page 12		MONSTER MADNESS! IT'S A GAS - FOR LAD OR LASS!

Bottom of page 14		SPIDEY AND THE TORCH - VS. KANG AND THE TOMORROW MAN -
Bottom of page 15		- THE TAG-MATCH OF THE CENTURY! ANY CENTURY!

Bottom of page 17		EVEN DOC SAVAGE HAS NEVER TACKLED ANYTHING LIKE - "THE MONSTERS!"

Bottom of page 18		"THE BLOOD OF DEL-NISSAR!" ONE OF CONAN'S GREATEST - NOW ON SALE!

Bottom of page 19		THE SINISTER SECRET OF SSSTINGAR! LEARN IT IN THOR #212!

Bottom of page 21		AT LAST! ROBERT E. HOWARD'S GREAT HERO SOLOMON KANE - IN MONSTER'S UNLEASHED #1!

Bottom of page 22		GET READY FOR TALES OF THE ZOMBIE! COMING SOON FROM MYSTERIOUS MARVEL!

Bottom of page 23		LUKE CAGE TAKES ON MR. DEATH! DON'T MISS HERO FOR HIRE #10!

Bottom of page 26		IT'S SHE-DEVIL VS. MANDRILL! SHANNA #4 - NOW ON SALE!

Bottom of page 27		THE GREEN GOBLIN'S BACK - AND SPIDEY'S GOT HIM! OR IS IT VICE VERSA?

FURTHER READING ON THE THOUGHT BALLOON

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

There's more on the roots of Marvel's Tomb Of Dracula series here.

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

There's more on "Gentleman" Gene "the Dean" Colan, acclaimed penciller of the Tomb Of Dracula series, here.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BRYANT JR. Robert L. (2010) The Thin Black Line: Perspectives on Vince Colletta, TwoMorrows Publishing

COMIC GEEK SPEAK (2005) Podcast: Book of the month club - episode 5 - Tomb of Dracula, Interview with Marv Wolfman (31 October 2005, quoted from personal transcript)

CONTINO Jennifer M. (2005) "Englehart, Isabella, Wein & Luke Cage: An Essential Interview", The Pulse, online at comicon.com (5 July 2005) [retrieved from web.archive.org

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

CRONIN Brian (2019) "Who Wrote The 'Bottom Line' Promos in Marvel Comics in the 70s?", published online 8 February 2019 at CBR.com

DLUGOS Jenn (2002) "Gene Colan Interview", ClassicHorror.com, published online 15 December 2022

FIELD Tom (2005) Secrets in the Shadows: The Art & Life of Gene Colan, TwoMorrows Publishing

MATA Shiai (2007) "Gene Colan Interview", SlayerLit (stored on Internet Archive)

SIUNTRES John (2006) "Marv Wolfman by Night", Word Balloon: The Comic Creator's Interview Show (quoted from personal transcript)

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