Wednesday, October 7, 2015
Black and White Wednesday: "Blood Lunge" by Moench and Heath
HooowwwOOOOOOOOOO's it shakin', Groove-ophiles! Did'ja know that even a vampire can have an off day? Of course, when they do, it's usually their last! From Vampire Tales #9 (December 1974), here are Doug Moench and Russ Heath with..."Blood Lunge"!
The page order is twisted. The one you have is 1st =>3rd =>4th =>2nd =>5th.
ReplyDeleteNotice the page numbers, I shared it the way it was published, lol! You're right, though, they were published out of order, but part of what I'm doing is giving you the Groovy Age experience--warts and all! Imagine owning the actual mag and having to piece this story together by flipping pages back and forth... (besides, I figured if I ordered them, I'd have even more people looking at the numbers and commenting that they were in the wrong order based on that!) Still and all, thanks for catching that!
ReplyDeleteHeath still stands up as an accomplished storyteller. With pacing and comp second to none and always thinking about where and how to move the eye through the page... Brilliant stuff :)
ReplyDeleteNot one of Dracula's brightest minions, this one.
ReplyDeleteWell, why not? Even in the realm of the Undead you can find nerdy (blood)suckers.
I feel sorry for him.
Regardless of the page order I am always blown away from the quality of artwork done for these marvel magazines. The second page which has the vampire in the glow of the moonlight is simply fantastic. It almost stands on its own as a wonderful painting. Also the black and white format went just perfectly with these mags, it was like and old Universal horror movie that one never saw growing up. Perfect reading for us growing up the 70's after the Saturday afternoon matinee on TV.
ReplyDeleteShane G.
Groove is right - they were printed in the wrong order in #9, but the Annual reprinted it with the pages in the right order. They were also in the right order when reprinted in an early 90s one-shot reprint of the Wolfman/Englehart/Colan/Palmer Doctor Strange-Dracula cross-over, but printed in red (blood red, that is).
ReplyDeletePage order notwithstanding, you can still see Russ Heath was a master artist baby! Oh yeah, and Doug Moench really weaved a strange tale here; guess this vampire had more fangs than brains! :)
ReplyDelete- Mike from Trinidad & Tobago.
Looking at this beautiful job it saddens me that, by his own admission, Russ Heath was spending more time in the 70s going to discos than turning out great artwork.
ReplyDeleteI think artists call that "research".
DeleteSo true.
DeleteWasn't he living at the Chicago Playboy Club in the early 70s? Yeah......research! That's it!
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