Wednesday, May 31, 2023

I . . . VAMPIRE!


HOUSE OF MYSTERY
Vol. 31 No. 290
March, 1981
DC Comics Inc.
Editor: Len Wein
Managing Editor: Joe Orlando
Cover: Joe Kubert
Pages: 36
Cover price: 50 cents

Marvel didn't have the market cornered on monster comics in the 70's and 80's. Although they produced numerous memorable titles such as TOMB OF DRACULA, MONSTER OF FRANKENSTEIN, WEREWOLF BY NIGHT and GHOST RIDER, DC offered a number of monster books of their own, SWAMP THING being one of the most popular. They also had a solid line of horror/mystery titles that had been running for years in the  hundreds of issues.

One of them was the venerable HOUSE OF MYSTERY, the original series which ran for an amazing 321 issues from 1951-1983. In 1981, editor Len Wein came up with the title I...VAMPIRE! and floated it to scriptwriter John DeMatteis to come up with an idea to develop it for a possible series within the pages of HoM. In a later interview, DeMatteis explained that he really wasn't into the subject of vampires at the time. What he ended up with was a character and story that became so popular into almost turned the anthology comic into its own. Mention should also be given to Tom Sutton who provided the art.

CONTENTS
"I...Vampire!"
Script: J. M. DeMatteis
Pencils: Tom Sutton
Inks: Tom Sutton
Colors: Adrienne Roy
Letters: John Costanza; Todd Klein (logo design)

"An Exercise in Fear"
Script: Murray Boltinoff (credited as Bill Dennehy)
Pencils: Ernie Chan
Inks: Ernie Chan
Colors: ?
Letters: ?

"Special Defects"
Script: George Kashdan; Don Glut (story)
Pencils: Ruben Yandoc
Inks: Ruben Yandoc
Colors: Jerry Serpe
Letters: ?


























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