Today is World Dracula Day: the annual celebration launched in 2012 by the Whitby Dracula Society 1897to mark the first publication of Bram Stoker’s seminal novel in 1897. What makes it even better is that it’s also the 125th anniversary of that occasion!
It was Mary Shelley’s ghoulish but tortured Monster and Stoker’s vampire lord that both set the gold standard for horror icons, and not only are their works still in print over a century later, but the names Frankenstein and Dracula are recognized around the world, even by people who aren’t horror fans.
So, Happy 125th Anniversary to Mr. Stoker and his bloodthirsty count! Vampire fiction wouldn’t be the same without the lasting effect you had on the genre—an effect that continues to inspire legions of writers, artists, and Monster Kids young and old!
On a related note, today is also the birthday of legendary movie-vampire hunter Peter Cushing (1913–1994), who would have turned 108. Star Wars fans know him best as the villainous Grand Moff Tarkin, commander of the Death Star in Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope (and, through the wonders of CGI and animation, in the movie Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and the Disney+ series Star Wars: The Bad Bunch), but horror fans fondly remember him as Professor Van Helsing, Dracula’s number one nemesis, in Hammer Films’ series of Dracula movies that starred Christopher Lee.
Speaking of Hammer, in 1975, Mr. Cushing was also meant to be the co-star of their planned movie adaptation of Vampirella, the Warren Publishing comics series about an outer-space vampire from a planet of bloodsuckers who teams up with an alcoholic stage magician to battle an alien invasion of Earth; Cushing was to play the magician, Pendragon, to actress Barbara Leigh’s Vampirella. If the movie had been successful, the sequel would have pitted Vampi and Pen against Dracula himself…only the first movie never got past the planning stages.
Still, Vampirella did clash with the lord of vampires a number of times in her classic Warren series, beginning with “…And Be a Bride of Chaos,” a story by writer Archie Goodwin and artist Jose Gonzales in which Dracula lured Vampi and Pen to his castle and then attempted to offer her as a marital sacrifice to Chaos, the mad, Lovecraftian Elder God whose followers often pursued Vampi in those days.
Eventually, though, the outer-space vampiress did eventually go on to fight a celluloid Dracula, in the made-for-cable-TV movie Vampirella, which starred Talisa Soto (1995’s Mortal Kombat) as Vampi and the Who’s front man, Roger Daltrey, as Dracula. The low-budget, poorly written adaptation was produced by b-movie king Roger Corman and directed by Jim Wynorski, and aired on Showtime in 1996. It is not highly regarded by Vampirella fans.
However, if you’re interested in exploring the Vampi/Dracula relationship—which has served as the basis for the recent Dynamite comic miniseries Vampirella/Dracula: Unholy—you can find the full details of the stories behind their clashes, both in print and on screen, in From the Stars…a Vampiress: An Unauthorized Guide to Vampirella’s Classic Horror Adventures, by Steven A. Roman (that’s me!), 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.
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.
Happy anniversary, Count—here’s to another 125 years!
