New Ghoul in Town! The delectable Vampirella made her first appearance in this 1969 house ad in Creepy #29. This knee-knocking illo was done by Tony Williamsune. (below) Three great impressarios of horror (left to right): Vincent Price, James Warren, and Forrest J. Ackerman, the latter of whom helped create Vampirella. © 1969 Warren Publishing. Vampirella © 2009 Harris Publications, Inc.
LOVE AT FIRST BITE
In her first appearance, beautifully realized by Tom Sutton and nicely written by Ackerman, the young bloodsucker was a carefree flirt/tease. She lived on the planet Draculon (among other permutations). This was a planet of bloodthirsty vampires, but their thirst was easily sated by the rivers of blood (!!) that were natural to the landscape. If any prospective readers had been casual about picking up and thumbing through that historic premiere issue, Sutton’s opening splash with the gorgeous young bat-woman taking a long shower (in blood, yet!) had to be the answer to their doldrums! Vampi’s partially (but carefully concealed) nude body spoke volumes about thrills to come. Other creature queens to follow drawn by Neal Adams, William Barry, Jack Sparling, Billy Graham, Reed Crandall, Sanho Kim, and Dick Piscopo would follow this standard. Their stories of cave girls, futuristic lady space explorers, warrior women, alluring aliens, sea goddesses, and female werewolves came in various states of undress with come-hither smiles that hadn’t been seen in comics ever. Vampi (as she quickly came to be known) bespoke danger, but she was just out to have fun in her first adventure. An intrusion on her world by some of those pesky, gotta-explore-all-of-space Earthmen got the action going. (Ackerman was always partial to science fiction.) The spacemen fire on the curious bat-woman flying above them, but Vampirella’s attack is better coordinated and a few fang-tipped bites later—and it’s all over. Or is it? The vamp discovers that the lifeblood of Draculon is the lifeblood of these space travelers! With a laugh, she readies herself to return in their spaceship to the planet of their origin. Her first adventure was over, but she stepped into the traditional horror-mag narrator mode right after that, posing provocatively on the opening story pages for maximum appeal. And she had appeal to spare! The artists and writers certainly did their part, but the competition couldn’t match up. DC, Marvel, Gold Key, and Charlton had horror-mystery comics in 1969, of course, but the Comics Code ensured that they couldn’t bring “sex” with a capital “S” with them. Publisher Warren could, and did. Jim Warren told Comic Book Artist’s readers (in the superb fourth issue), “We [Ackerman and Warren] had both seen the movie Barberella together and had loved it. I carefully outlined exactly what I wanted: A modern-day setting but something with a mystique of vampires, Transylvania; something legendary—and Vampirella was born. Think about Bram Stoker and what he did with Dracula: Horror and sex. I didn’t want Wonder Woman. I didn’t want a superhero type. I wanted a modern setting. Sexy, but not naked or bare-breasted.” Mr. Warren knew his audience. Readers sensed a turnaround. The reprints were slowly eased out as veterans like Reed Crandall, Monsters Issue
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