'Witching Hour' is a fun collection of horror shorts by great writers and artists

Showcase Presents: The Witching Hour, Vol. 1 (2011, DC Comics)
Writers: Steve Skeates, Mike Friedrich, Sergio Argones, Maury Boltinoff, and more 

Artists: Alex Toth, Nick Cardy, Don, Heck, Tony DeZuniga, Dick Giordano, and more

Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

"The Witching Hour" was one of DC Comics' long-running horror anthology titles. This massive, low-cost volume reprints more than 500 pages of content and covers from the first 21 issues, showcasing artwork from some of the comic book mediums true masters in glorious black-and-white.

As a kid, I loved DC Comics' horror anthologies, what few of them I ever gained access to. I'm not sure what my reaction would have been to "Witching Hour" if I had come across back in those days, but as an adult and a lover of anthology films, I thought the majority of this book was an exceptionally fun read. The early issues of this title should be counted among the best horror anthology comics ever published.

A standard for a comic book horror anthology has always been a host character giving a little introduction and epilogue to the stories, and some titles would take it further and start the issue with a page or two establishing the host with a couple of puns and a gag situation. It's also typical for the host to make some joke or ironic comment at the end of each story.

But with "The Witching Hour," editor Dick Giordano took this convention a little further and brought it in line with produced a title that followed the standard set by horror anthology films, placing the titles' hosts in a wrap-around story that sometimes tied all the stories together thematically, but that always provided a prologue, epilogue, and amusing interludes in each issue.

"The Witching Hour" was hosted by three witches, which appear to be loosely based on the Weird Sisters from "MacBeth" and which also had fun with the notion that the younger generation never has any respect for the older generation and visa-versa. Two of them are the stereotypical slovenly hags with warts and pointed hats while the third one is a sexy, swinging, college educated chick who keeps her wardrobe and rooms as fashionable and clean as her older sisters keep theirs tattered, run-down, and vermin infested. And while her sisters boil their witch's brew in the traditional large iron pot over a live flame with ingredients gathered from the swamp surrounding their home, their younger (adopted, they are quick to point out) sister happily lets hers simmer in a pan on an electric range using frozen ingredients from the grocery store.

The framing stories featuring the sisters often involve amusing arguments over modernity and tradition as it relates to witchcraft, and over what makes better stories... old school fairy tales and twist-ending chillers, or more modern and futuristic stories with sci-fi angles. The generation gap jokes are full of 1960s and 1970s slang and outdated technology, but they're still amusing, especially with the recently passed "Okay Boomer" craze.

Unfortunately, after Dick Giordano was replaced as the title's editor, the framing sequences are reduced and eventually phased out. The stories remain interesting--and a few of the best ones in the entire book can be found in the back half--but I still missed the side stories with the sisters, as well as the subplot involving their hideous servant. (The promise of readers getting to see his face, and the payoff of that promise, is one of the funnier running bits I have come across. It's too bad the editors at DC Comics didn't keep that approach going.)

Artwise, the quality is universally top-notch, with a virtual whos-who of comic book greats providing it. The black-and-white presentation and superior printing and paper quality makes it even easier to admire the line-work. Of particular note is the many pages by Alex Toth, who drew many of the framing sequences, and even the majority of the short tales in some issues as well. The art on those Nick Cardy covers especially benefit from being in black-and-white.

"DC Showcase Presents: The Witching Hour" is an anthology of anthologies, and it's a book I highly recommend if you like well-done comics and horror short stories. With Halloween coming up in a few weeks, it even be the book to get you in the proper mood.

Wonder Woman Wednesday

As we continue to count the days, hours, and minutes until we might have a chance to see Wonder Woman on the big screen again, we continue to offer bi-weekly art shows featuring everyone's favorite Amazon!

By Renee Rienties

This time out, we're focusing on Wonder Woman busts. (Okay... that sounds worse than it is. I think.)

By Neal Adams

By Paul Abrams

By Ivan Reis

By Dick Giordano

By Jose Luis Garcia Lopez

By Frank Cho

Wonder Woman Wednesday

By Dick Giordano

On this Wonder Woman Wednesday, our favorite Amazon is hanging out with her Superfriends... and wondering if her new movie will ever make it to theaters?! (We're wondering, too... and hoping that it will!)

By Sebastien Dardenne

By Tim Levins

By Barry Kitson

Wonder Woman Wednesday

By J. George

As we continue waiting to see if "Wonder Woman '84" will make into theatres in August, we're going to be spending time with everyone's favorite Amazon every other Wednesday. This time, some of her Friends and Frienemies have come to hang out, too, and pose for portraits.

By Sebastien Dardenne

By Richard Sala

By Dick Giordano

By Kevn Maguire

By Frank Cho

'Stoker's Dracula': A faithful adaptation in a classy format

Stoker's Dracua (Marvel Comics, 2005)
Writer: Roy Thomas, based on Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula"
Artist: Dick Giordano
Rating: Ten of Ten Stars

In the early 1970s, Marvel Comics augmented their flagging superhero comics by doing horror "The Marvel Way."

Th Marvel horror boom was kicked off by a series that saw Dracula return to 1970s England in "Tomb of Dracula", and the King of Vampires remained a corner stone of the Marvel horror boom until it it became a bust during the early 1980s. At the height of his popularity with Marvel readers, Dracula headlined three different comic magazines ("Tomb of Dracula", "Giant-Sized Dracula", and "Dracula Lives") serving simultaneously as the hero and villain of some of the darkest tales Marvel Comics ever published, while making guest appearances not only in some of the other horror titles (including an outright cross-over with "Werewolf By Night"), but even facing off with Spider-Man and Dr. Strange.

One of the most interesting and classy initiatives that Marvel Comics undertook with Dracula as an ambitious adaptation of the novel that gave birth to the character their creative staff had so adeptly taken over and made their own, Bram Stoker's "Dracula".

With Roy Thomas adapting the novel and Dick Giordano handling the art, the series was an anchor serial in the "Dracula Lives" magazine, and its perhaps the most faithful comic adaptation of the novel ever published. The creators stay true to both the intent and storyline of Bram Stoker while successfully highlighting those parts of the book that lend themselves to a graphic media. The result are comics that truly were mature more than a decade before the industry decided to market comic books as such.

Unfortunately, Thomas and Giordano were not able to finish their adaption. The height of the popularity of Marvel's horror titles began to wane, and "Dracula Lives" was cancelled. A few more installments appeared in "Vampire Tales", which was then cancelled, and then "Legion of Monsters". But the adaptation remained unfinished.

But Thomas and Giordano, both of whom had great affection for Stoker's original novel, talked together many times of finding a way to finish their work, including buying the original material produced for Marvel and self-publishing. The busy careers of successful writers and artists being what they are, these idle speculations never became anything but that... until Marvel Comics approached the men about finishing what they had started.

Thirty years after it had been begun, Thomas and Giordano reunited and completed the "Dracula" adaptation. In 2004, Marvel Comics reprinted the original chapters and followed them by the roughly 100 pages of new material in a four issue mini-series, keeping all of it glorious black-and-white--or, rather, shades of gray, because Giordano makes skillful use of ink-washes and occasional subtle application of zip-a-tone throughout.

Since Thomas and Giordano had originally envisioned their adaptation as being collected in a single volume once it had been completed, the hardcover collection that Marvel published in 2005 reads far more smoothly than most other volumes made up of stories originally presented in smaller chunks. There's no recapping of what just happened two pages ago, and the pacing from the original novel is retained. In every way, the hardcover of "Stoker's Dracula" is a perfect translation of the novel to comic book form. And the hardcover book, complete with a simple, tasteful dust-jacket and bookmark, gives it the classy packaging it deserves.

It's actually hard to tell that Thomas and Giordano didn't create the material specifically for this book format. It's almost as hard to tell that three decades passed between Giordano's first and last brush strokes. If you look carefully, you can tell--some pages have slightly thicker black borders at the bottom (where there once were "to be continued"-type tags, while the lettering on the last 100 pages is slightly larger and more legible than on the first 100 because it was produced for the comic-book-sized page rather than a magazine-sized one. Another tell-tale sign of the span between start and finish is that Giordano's inking style changed subtly and he is more prone to let his art spill beyond the panels into the margins--knowing that modern printing processes are more forgiving to that than in the old days--so simply looking at the edge of the pages with the book closed will give you an idea of where the modern content starts.

All that amounts to nitpicking, however, and if you're just reading the book instead of looking for things to point to, you will not experience any shifts or disconnects at any time while reading. It's a great way to re-experience Bram Stoker's "Dracula" novel, as opposed to other works that take his name in vain as part of the title instead of honoring it as they do here.

Sadly, the book is officially out of print as of this writing. Copies are still available second-hand from Amazon.com and elsewhere. I recommend getting your hands on one.

Celebrating Dracula, Part Three

Here's a third and final collection of line drawing of the King of Vampires, offered in observation of the month when Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula" was first published.

By Mike Hoffman

By Dick Giordano

By Mike Ploog

By Gene Colan and Dave Gutierrez

Celebrating Dracula, Part Two

Here are a few more illustrations of the world's most famous vampire, in celebration of the month when Bram Stoker's "Dracula" was originally published in 1897.

By David Hoover

By Chris Samnee

By Tony Harris

By Dick Giordano

By Gene Colan

Celebrating Dracula, Part One

In May of 1897, Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula" was first published. It went on to popularize vampires and become one of the most adapted books ever. Counting the numerous spin-offs, Dracula may well be the most written-about figure in all of pop culture.

This is the first in a series of posts presenting artist visions of the King of Vampires. This week's selection are all interpretations of Dracula as viewed through the editorial lens of Marvel Comics.

By Russ Heath

By Dick Giordano

By Gene Colan

By Bob Hall

'The Secrets of Sinister House' revealed!

Showcase Presents: The Secrets of Sinister House
(DC Comics, 2010)
Writers: Michael Fleisher, Joe Albano, E. Nelson Bridwell, Sheldon Mayer, Jack Olek, Robert Kanigher, George Kashdan, et.al.
Artists: Tony DeZuniga, Alfredo Alcala, Dick Giordano, Don Heck, Mike Sekowsky, Rico Rival, Alex Nino, et.al.
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

In the early 1970s, DC Comics made numerous attempts to expand their market beyond the superhero titles that have always been the bread-and-butter of the American comic book industry; they'd already been enjoying tremendous success with war titles, so it was reasonable to take a crack at fantasy, horror, sci-fi... and romance.

First published in September of 1971, "The Sinister House of Secret Love" was one of the less successful experiments, be it on a commercial or artistic level. The series began as a vehicle for "book-length" tales of gothic romance that, despite the fact the covers implied a degree of horror content, were so close-hewn to genre standards that one could use them as teaching aids in a class on the subject.

However, it must have quickly been obvious to the editors and business folks at DC Comics that their foray into the gothic romance market was not setting the publishing world on fire. The first four issues have covers with an unadulterated paperback romance novel cover vibe (complete with the standard "women running from houses" motif), but starting with the fourth issue they started making obvious attempts to play up the horror aspect of the gothic romance genre, first redesigning the cover logo so "The Sinister House" was really large and "of Secret Love" was very tiny and describing the story within the covers as a "graphic tale of gothic horror" even though it actually contained fewer overt horror elements than tale in issue #2; and retitling the series "Secrets of the Sinister House" as of issue #5.

But it wasn't enough, so by issue #6 the book-length gothic romance stories were gone and the title morphed into an anthology book, joining the long-running "House of Mystery" and "House of Secrets" horror/thriller anthology titles in DC's line-up. Several of the stories presented still had more of a romance flavor than most of the tales presented in DC Comics' horror anthologies--possibly because some had been commissioned as back-up stories like the one featured in the first issue of the series. However, "Secrets of the Sinister House" didn't catch on the way the other titles had, and by issue #18, it was cancelled.

Thanks to DC Comics' low-cost black-and-white series of "Showcase Presents" reprint books, all the tales presented in this failed experiment can now be enjoyed by modern audiences. It's a book that might appeal for a number of different reasons, although given the shift in direction halfway through, not everything is going to be of interest to everybody.

Fans of the gothic romance genre in particular might want to give the book a read as "The Curse of the MacIntyres" (from issue #1), "To Wed the Devil" (from issue #2) and "The Bride of the Falcon" (from issue #3) and "Death at Castle Dunbar" (from issue #5) are rather decent efforts, both story and artwise.

The second half of the book is of interest to fans of short-format horror comics, as it contains a couple dozen tales of marauding monsters, vicious villains, and poetic justice. As was the case with all of DC Comics' anthology titles, the entertainment value of these short stories varies greatly but the artwork is universally top-notch.

In fact, the only group this entire book will appeal to are lovers of comic books as an art-form as well as an entertainment medium. For the first half of the book, we get to see great artists like Don Heck, Tony DeZuniga, Dick Giordano, and Alex Toth at their finest, and in the case of Heck working in a rare non-superhero environment. The short horror stories with art by Alfredo Alcala, Rico Rival, and other artists from the Philippines are visually gorgeous--even more so in the black-and-white reprint format than in their original presentation--no matter how wretched some of the stories. In fact, with the exception of the art by Tony DeZuniga, just about every story in this book looks better than it did back when it was first presented 40 years ago... and the only reason DeZuniga's work suffers is because a number of panels and layouts were clearly designed with coloring in mind. As a result some seem a bit vacant and sparse in appearance.

"Secrets of the Sinister House" may be an uneven collection, but it's the sort of offbeat material that I hope to see more of in the "Showcase Presents" series. I'd REALLY love a book collecting the myriad of characters that came and went with barely a ripple, such as Nightmaster, Kong the Untamed, Firehair, and Black Orchid. I hope this volume of obscure non-superhero comics sells well enough to encourage DC Comics to bring us more of the same.

Trivia: In reading this book, I realized that "The Secrets of Sinister House" #8 was one of the first comics I ever read. "Paying with Fire" (the story of a boy, awful parents, and a dragon) and "Moonlight Bay" (the tale of a werewolf astronaut) stayed with me in my imagination to this very day. It was great to be reminded of where they came from originally.

Picture Perfect Wednesday: Examples of Modesty

Here are some pictures of Peter O'Donnell's legendary international woman of mystery, Modesty Blaise (including a publicity shot of Monica Vitti as Modesty in the 1966 film).