If you’re one of Amazon’s legion of worldwide customers, odds are good you often receive “push” emails from them that recommend things they think will interest you, based on your purchasing history at the site. If you’ve bought drapes for your living room, how about a set of bath mats? If you’ve ordered a dress or a pair of slacks, how about formal wear?
And if you’ve bought books about comicdom’s most famous vampire, the outer-space bloodsucker called Vampirella, then how about an unauthorized history of her days at Warren Publishing, her original home from the late 1960s to the early 1980s? Even if the book they’re offering is the very one you wrote?
That’s right: in a recent email push, Amazon recommended my own book to me. The circle is now complete!
Well, that makes sense, in a way—after all, I did purchase Vampirella books from Amazon, to help with my research. But just what exactly have they recommended, you ask? Allow me to explain…
From the Stars…a Vampiress: An Unauthorized Guide to Vampirella’s Classic Horror Adventures, by Steven A. Roman (that’s me!), is the critically acclaimed nonfiction history of Vampirella that takes an extensive look at her early days, from the debut of her series in 1969 to the death of Warren Publishing in 1983. In it you’ll find an in-depth guide to all her Warren stories; a checklist of all her Warren appearances (plus the publications from Harris Comics and Dynamite Entertainment that reprinted her Warren adventures); an overview of the six novelizations by pulp sci-fi author Ron Goulart that were published in the 1970s by Warner Books; and the behind-the-scenes story of Warren Publishing’s demise, explaining how Vampirella survived the death of her original comic house. There’s also a foreword by Official Vampirella Historian Sean Fernald, a frontispiece by Warren artist Bob Larkin, and photographs from the personal archives of Forrest J Ackerman.
In addition to all that, I tell the tale of the unproduced film adaptation of the 1970s planned by legendary horror studio Hammer Films that was to star Barbara Leigh as Vampi and Peter Cushing (Grand Moff Tarkin of Star Wars) as her constant companion, the stage magician Pendragon. How the production came to be and how it ultimately fell apart is a complicated, somewhat convoluted story, but I did my best to put the events surrounding it into a chronological, logical order—for the first time ever! This overview includes a peek at Mr. Cushing’s personal copy of the ’70s Vampirella screenplay.
I also take a look at the awful 1996 direct-to-cable-TV movie that was made for the Showtime network, produced by Roger Corman, directed by Jim Wynorski (Dinocroc vs. SuperGator), scripted by Gary Gerani (Pumpkinhead), and starring Talisa Soto (the original Mortal Kombat) as Vampi and The Who’s front man, rock god Roger Daltrey as…Dracula! It’s a film so bad and so low budget, and the Vampirella costume that was concocted was such an eyesore, that even Wynorski hates being reminded of his involvement with it.
From the Stars…a Vampiress: An Unauthorized Guide to Vampirella’s Classic Horror Adventures is available in both print and digital formats, so visit its product page for ordering information. Purchase a copy today—it’s Amazon Recommended, y’know!
