Wednesday, May 05, 2010

Reprint This! Dell's Universal Monsters

At some point in the early 60s, Dell acquired the license to publish comic books based on the Universal monsters. Some of these were adaptations of the films, while others were original stories. Most were reprinted at least once in the 60s (some in the Movie Classic series), but I don't believe that any of these have seen the light of day since then. Of course, these are now trapped in licensing purgatory, but wouldn't it be great if someone could convince Universal to allow them one more press run? All five books: Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy, the Wolfman and the Creature would result in one amazing TPB.

According to the GCD, the Frankenstein book is only loosely based on the first James Whale movie. With the Vic Prezio cover, and the promise of Bob Jenney art, I'd be happy if it adapted Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell. More Jenney art can be found in the Wolfman book, which is an original story. As far as I know, the Dracula book is not based on the Stoker book, nor the Tod Browning film. I'm not sure about the Mummy book (is this the rarest of them all?), but it features Jack Sparling artwork, and I bet he tackled this material quite nicely. I have read the Creature book, and it is an awesome adaptation of the film, with superb Jenney art. I'd like a volume in colour with nice reproductions of the covers, as they are fantastic. A couple are by Prezio, are the others by LB Cole? Dark Horse, this seems to be right up your alley. I'm on my virtual knees.

3 comments:

benday-dot/craig said...

Scott, I have the Mummy issue somewhere. I will have to check what material it is based on. It's been so long since I've looked at it. For those interested an incredibly cool looking Dell Giant (alas I don't have it!) collects a lot of this material I believe. http://www.comics.org/issue/17990/cover/4/?style=default. Great post Scott! Craig

Scott M said...

I notiched that book as well - quite a unique one.

You're lucky to have that Mummy book. It may not be the rarest of them, but I don't think I've seen one of them for sale. That being said, I ignore this kind of book for the first 20+ years of my life. How stupid of me.

M W Gallaher said...

In case you weren't aware, the Dell Mummy comic is being featured today at http://thehorrorsofitall.blogspot.com
Like all of the Dell Universal Monster comics, it can't really be considered an adaptation of the film. They must not have had the rights to adapt the scripts at all.