Vampirella Vol 01: Bloodstalk
Ron Goulart
Warner Books, 1975
ISBN: 0446769280
Could you as a consumer resist a vampire woman, a beautiful vampire woman from another planet in a skimpy one-piece if you saw it on the cover of a slim paperback on a spinner rack? No. Who could? It’s the 70s and horrors gone groovy and there’s a little love behind it. Some of the people creating this stuff grew up with it and are fans. In comics, stuff has loosened, loopholes formed and things can be gorier again. Stuff can harken back to the EC Comics of the 50s or go in new and different directions. Like Vampirella.
Vampirella had her start in the black and white comics published by Warren all the way back in 1969. She had a lot of people helping in her creation, first was artist Trina Robbins, a Will Eisner Hall of Fame member and one of the first women to be involved in the “underground comics” scene of the 70s. She designed the look/costume of our hero and Forrest J. Ackerman came up with the idea. Forrey Ackerman had a long-standing position of sci-fi/horror’s No. 1 fan and proved it with his magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland. In the mid-60s Jim Warren created a line of horror comics, starting with Creepy, then Eerie and then Vampirella. By being bigger, magazine sized black and white comics, they didn’t have to bow down to the Comics Authority. Along the way Vampirella had help from Frank Franzetta, Archie Goodwin, José González and many more. She’s bounced around publishers and in true comic fashion has been retconned and with origins changed and different continuities. A whole multiverse of Vampirella.
Ron Goulart was a comic connoisseur and historian, not to mention a paperback writer and eventually comic book writer himself. He bounced around writing humorous sci-fi, comic strip space operas, mysteries starring Groucho Marx and even ghost-wrote for William Shanter. In the 70s, outside of writing his own stand-alone books, he was writing books based on comic/pulp characters like Flash Gordon, The Phantom, The Avenger, and guess what? Vampirella. Vampirella is from the planet Drakulon (bit on the nose) where being a vampire is the norm. But there’s a drought of blood and things are getting desperate for the vampires of Drakulon. Vampirella heads to Earth to see if she can find a solution. On Earth she runs afoul of all sorts of monsters, ghouls and monster hunters. Vampirella herself, is a strong willed, hero character with a dark past that you often saw in comics in the 70s. That’s the general jist.
Now, Vampirella #1: Bloodstalk, apparently roughly tells the story from the first couple of issues of the comic book. It follows Vampirella on her first days on Earth. A terrible crash, her biting and feeding on an innocent human and her recuperation at the hands of a Doctor with his own secrets. The Doctor makes her a serum that allows her not to drink the blood of humans but he also wants her to be his new lover. Gross. He’s the leader of the Cult of Chaos, an evil-type cult with evil-type things on their minds. They will be a returning villain for Vampirella. Then there’s another wild ride in a monster-filled carnival. It shows its comic roots in the episodic nature of the narrative, but the flow is smooth enough.
Also, we are introduced to the Van Helsing family and particularly Adam and Conrad Van Helsing. Adam being the older, blind and psychic Van Helsing and Conrad being the one who has the hots for Vampirella. Then there’s Pendragon, the stage magician who is basically Vampirella’s buddy. Together they have that nice team dynamic of not always getting along but remaining loyal to each other. This is the setup to all that.
Goulart is a “light” writer. He has a breezy style that tells the reader that this is all a bit of fun and not to worry about the specifics too much. Which is actually pretty good for a novel adapting issues of a comic book. The characterization is not exactly nil. People are heroes or villains, sometimes they might have a squabble internally, but there’s not deep soul searching. Vampirella is the real draw here, she’s such a fun character. Tough, loyal and strong-willed. She’s the perfect comic character. And yes, the costume wouldn’t fly today (it's sometimes more modest in the modern comics) but it's easy to see where some characters like Buffy the Vampire Slayer share DNA with Vampirella.
Seriously, this is just a fun little book. It's not hard-horror more in line with a funky Hammer Film from the 70s. It’s a book for a nice lounge in a hammock or with a beer in a loud bar. It won't take you anytime to read but will take you on a wild ride if you're in the right mindset of ghoul hunting.
Roy Nugen is an award-winning writer, producer, property master, plus actor. He comes from a family of musicians, engineers, wildcatters, cops, lion tamers, and carpet salesmen. Evil Dead II changed his life and he once partied with Lloyd Kaufman.
He has written 15 short films including Bag Full of Trouble, Potboiler, Handle With Care, Death in Lavender, Hole in the Ground, and the feature film Arrive Alive, many of which have played across the country. He has been the property master on 17 short films and 2 feature films.
Roy is also a prolific book reviewer and collector of vintage pulp paperback books. You can read his reviews on his blog Bloody, Spicy Books and multiple magazines including Paperback Fanatic, Hot Lead and Sleazy Reader. He has also written afterwards for novels and for various websites. He lives in the only city that once arrested L. Ron Hubbard with his wife and cats.