''Dracula Lives!'' was an American black-and-white horror comics magazine published by Magazine Management, a corporate sibling of Marvel Comics. The series ran 13 issues and one '' Super Annual'' from 1973 to 1975, and starred the Marvel version of the literary vampire

Dracula ''Dracula'' is a novel by Bram Stoker, published in 1897. As an epistolary novel, the narrative is related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist, but opens with solicitor Jonathan Harker taking ...

. A magazine rather than a comic book, it did not fall under the purview of the comics industry's self-censorship Comics Code Authority, allowing the title to feature stronger content — such as moderate profanity, partial nudity, and more graphic violence — than the color comics of the time also featuring

stories. Running concurrently with the longer-running Marvel comic '' The Tomb of Dracula'', the continuities of the two titles occasionally overlapped, with storylines weaving between the two. Most of the time, however, the stories in ''Dracula Lives!'' were standalone Dracula tales by various creative teams. Later issues of ''Dracula Lives!'' featured a serialized adaptation of the original Bram Stoker novel, written by

Roy Thomas Roy William Thomas Jr."Roy Thomas Checklist" ''Alter Ego'' vol. 3, #50 (July 2005) p. 16 (born November 22, 1940) is an American comic book writer and editor, who was Stan Lee's first successor as editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. He is possibl ...

and drawn by Dick Giordano.

Publication history

Copyrighted as simply ''Dracula Lives'', without an exclamation point, but commonly known by its trademarked cover title, ''Dracula Lives!'', the magazine ran 13 issues from 1973 to 1975. With sister titles including '' Monsters Unleashed!'', '' Tales of the Zombie'' and '' Vampire Tales'', it was published by Marvel Comics' parent company, Magazine Management, and related corporations, under the brand emblem Marvel Monster Group.''Dracula Lives''
at the Grand Comics Database. The character

Lianda When the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out between China and Japan in 1937, Peking University, Tsinghua University and Nankai University merged to form Changsha Temporary University in Changsha and later National Southwestern Associated Universi ...

first appeared in ''Dracula Lives!'' #1. The character

Turac Vampires are fictional characters appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The concept of the Vampire has been depicted by Marvel to varying degrees of significance. Bearing strong resemblance to their literary counterparts, ...

first appeared in ''Dracula Lives!'' #2 (Sept. 1973). The character Nimrod the First debuted in ''Dracula Lives!'' #3 (Oct. 1973), created by Marv Wolfman and

John Buscema John Buscema (; ; born Giovanni Natale Buscema, December 11, 1927 – January 10, 2002)Social Se ...

. Painted covers of the series were done by artists including

Boris Vallejo Boris Vallejo (born January 8, 1941) is a Peruvian-American painter who works in the science fiction, fantasy, and erotica genres. His hyper-representational paintings have appeared on the covers of numerous science fiction and fantasy fiction ...

, Neal Adams, and Luis Dominguez. Text and photo articles were mostly of the Count's various film appearances. The title of the magazine's letter column was "Dracula Reads!" An

annual publication Annual publications, more often simply called annuals, are periodical publications appearing regularly once per year."Annuals", in ''Encyclopedia of library and information science'' (1968), vol. 1, pp. 434–447. Although exact definitions may var ...

titled ''Dracula Lives! Super Annual'' was published in 1975, reprinting stories from the magazine.

Reprints and collections

Much of the material in ''Dracula Lives!'' was reprinted in a Marvel UK weekly reprint title of the same name. It eventually merged with the Marvel UK '' Planet of the Apes'' weekly, and with issue #60 the title became ''Dracula Lives Featuring the Legion of Monsters''. All 13 issues of ''Dracula Lives!'' were collected for an ''

Essential Marvel ''Essential Marvel'' was a Line (comics), line published by Marvel Comics from 1996 - 2013 that reprints vintage comic book material in paperback format. Each black-and-white volume reprints approximately 20-30 issues of a classic Marvel title (mos ...

'' edition in 2005 (''Dracula Lives!'' #1-2 was also collected in 2006 as part of ''Essential Tales of the Zombie: Volume 1''). In 2010, the complete series (including the letter columns) was reprinted in the '' Marvel Omnibus'' title ''Tomb of Dracula Volume 3'' (which included ''The Tomb of Dracula'' magazine #1-6 and ''The Frankenstein Monster'' #7-9).

Serialized adaptation of Stoker's ''Dracula''

Issues #5–8 and 10–11 featured a serialized adaptation of the original Bram Stoker novel, in 10- to 12-page installments written by

and drawn by Dick Giordano. Following ''Dracula Lives!'' cancellation, an additional installment appeared in ''The Legion of Monsters'' #1, for a total of 76 pages comprising roughly one-third of the novel. After a 30-year hiatus, Marvel commissioned Thomas and Giordano to finish the adaptation, and ran the reprinted and new material as the four-issue miniseries ''Stoker's Dracula'' (Oct. 2004 – May 2005).''Stoker's Dracula'' (Marvel, 2004 series)
at the Grand Comics Database The entire adaptation was collected by Marvel Illustrated in 2010.

References

External links

* {{Dracula Comics magazines published in the United States 1973 comics debuts 1975 comics endings Defunct American comics Horror comics Comics based on Dracula Comics by Gerry Conway Comics by Marv Wolfman Comics by Roy Thomas Vampires in comics Marvel Comics titles Horror fiction magazines Defunct magazines published in the United States Magazines established in 1973 Magazines disestablished in 1975 Comics anthologies