| Dracula Lives! | |
|---|---|
 Dracula Lives! #1 (June 1973), art byBoris Vallejo | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Magazine Management |
| Schedule | quarterly |
| Format | Ongoing series |
| Genre | |
| Publication date | June 1973 – July 1975 |
| No. of issues | 13, plus oneSuper Annual |
| Main character(s) | Dracula |
| Creative team | |
| Written by | Roy Thomas,Doug Moench,Steve Gerber,Gardner Fox |
| Artist(s) | Dick Giordano,John Buscema,Pablo Marcos,Gene Colan,Rich Buckler,Tony DeZuniga,Alan Weiss,Tony DiPreta |
| Penciller(s) | Jim Starlin,Bob Brown,George Tuska |
| Inker(s) | Syd Shores,Alfredo Alcala,Crusty Bunkers |
| Editor(s) | Roy Thomas (issues #1–7) Marv Wolfman (issues #3, 8–13) |
| Collected editions | |
| Tomb of Dracula | ISBN 0-7851-1709-1 |
| Tomb of Dracula Volume 3 | ISBN 0-7851-3578-2 |
Dracula Lives! was an American black-and-whitehorror comics magazine published byMagazine Management, a corporate sibling ofMarvel Comics. The series ran 13 issues and oneSuper Annual from 1973 to 1975, and starred the Marvel version of the literary vampireDracula.[1]
A magazine rather than a comic book, it did not fall under the purview of the comics industry's self-censorshipComics 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 which also featuredDracula stories.
Running concurrently with the longer-running Marvel comicThe Tomb of Dracula, the continuities of the two titles occasionally overlapped, with storylines weaving between the two. Most of the time, however, the stories inDracula Lives! were standalone Dracula tales by various creative teams. Later issues ofDracula Lives! featured a serialized adaptation of the originalBram Stoker novel, written byRoy Thomas and drawn byDick Giordano.
Copyrighted as simplyDracula 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 includingMonsters Unleashed!,Tales of the Zombie andVampire Tales, it was published byMarvel Comics' parent company,Magazine Management, and related corporations, under the brand emblem Marvel Monster Group.[2][3]
The characterLianda first appeared inDracula Lives! #1. The characterTurac first appeared inDracula Lives! #2 (Sept. 1973). The characterNimrod the First debuted inDracula Lives! #3 (Oct. 1973), created byMarv Wolfman andJohn Buscema.
Painted covers of the series were done by artists includingBoris Vallejo,Neal Adams, andLuis Dominguez. Text and photo articles were mostly of the Count's various film appearances. The title of the magazine'sletter column was "Dracula Reads!"
Anannual publication titledDracula Lives! Super Annual was published in 1975, reprinting stories from the magazine.[4]
Much of the material inDracula Lives! was reprinted in aMarvel UK weekly reprint title of the same name. It eventually merged with the Marvel UKPlanet of the Apes weekly, and with issue #60 the title becameDracula Lives Featuring the Legion of Monsters.
All 13 issues ofDracula Lives! were collected for anEssential Marvel edition in 2005 (Dracula Lives! #1-2 was also collected in 2006 as part ofEssential Tales of the Zombie: Volume 1). In 2010, the complete series (including theletter columns) was reprinted in theMarvel Omnibus titleTomb of Dracula Volume 3 (which includedThe Tomb of Dracula magazine #1-6 andThe Frankenstein Monster #7-9).
Issues #5–8 and 10–11 featured a serialized adaptation of the originalBram Stoker novel, in 10- to 12-page installments written byRoy Thomas and drawn byDick Giordano.[5]
FollowingDracula Lives! cancellation, an additional installment appeared inTheLegion of Monsters #1,[6] for a total of 76 pages comprising roughly one-third of the novel.[7] 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 miniseriesStoker's Dracula (Oct. 2004 – May 2005).[7][8] The entire adaptation was collected byMarvel Illustrated in 2010.
