On Being on Dark Shadows From The Very Beginning ToThe Very End

[Gothick]

Dom I think you're right.  There was maybe one werewolf shot in one of the card series but I think it was meant to be Chris Jennings.  I never saw those cards at all back in the day.  The one with Nicholas is from that.  So I guess there were three gum card series all told; as far as I remember, I only ever saw the series with images from the 1967 Barnabas and Maggie shows, which I had never seen when I collected them.

G.

[The Doctor and K9]

I don't remember Quentin being marketed as a werewolf, only as a ladies man with big sideburns. I do remember him being touted as a zombie though. I don't think he was even the werewolf in the green card series. Of course, that's just my memory.

Quentin was a werewolf in every Ross novel in which he appeared as well as the Gold Key comics. The Groovy Horror Heads named the werewolf one Quentin. I was shocked when I heard the audio of NODS and discovered it was not a werewolf story. CBS showed it too late for me to watch it, so a friend audiotaped it and talked me through the visuals. At that point WLVI 56 had just finiished showing the first year of syndicated episodes in April, and NODS aired in June. I'd read many of the Ross novels and some of the comics. Although I'd never seen the horror heads commercial, I'd always thought Quentin was as much the werewolf of the show as Barnabas was the vampire.

[Gothick]

I read the Ross books but I barely remember any of them.  Wasn't there one where Quentin was disguised as a groovy, "dirty" hippie? 

I saw a copy of THE FOE OF BARNABAS COLLINS in a sandwich shop in Potsdam, NY several years ago and made a note to purchase a copy online at some point, but have never gotten around to it.  The cover photo was a beautifully accomplished shot of Barnabas.  That might have been the one where someone named Christopher Jennings was a coldly eeee-vil schemer out to work mischief on some wretched pouting, fainting ingenue.

G.

[Uncle Roger]

I believe you're right, Gothick. It's also the only time that Angelique puts in an appearance in the Ross novels,  choosing to torment Barnabas by looking exactly the way she did when they first met.  With raven hair and olive skin.

[Gothick]

LOL!  Given that Lara Parker's complexion commingles the fairest porcelain and the most delicate rose, I always found the description of the "olive-skinned" Angelique very confusing.  But then, so many of those books did not make sense... unless I tried to forget that the stories bore ANY RELATIONSHIP WHATSOEVER to what I had seen on television...

G.

[michael c]

I believe you're right, Gothick. It's also the only time that Angelique puts in an appearance in the Ross novels,  choosing to torment Barnabas by looking exactly the way she did when they first met.  With raven hair and olive skin.

interesting...

I only have a few of the early Victoria-centered Ross novels. I assumed Angelique became a major player in the later ones like she did on the series. she only appeared in one???

[Uncle Roger]

Yes, that's pretty much it for Angelique in the series. This is also the only appearance of Chris Jennings as well. But it's not the likeable sad sack from the series. This Chris had deliberately killed his first wife when in werewolf mode andwasplanning to kill wife #2. The book is set in 1910 (or thereabouts) but Chris is referred to as Amy brother in a couple of the later books.

[michael c]

in one that I read liz and roger have a brother named "professor veno"...

the ross novels really function in some sort of alternate universe.

[Uncle Roger]

Much ado is made about Professor Mark Veno/Collins and his daughter Linda but they never appear again. Or mentioned.

Are you familiar with Ross' proposal for a book that never got written? It married Vicki off to her back from the dead fiancée, Ernest Collins? It was also going to resolve the issue of Vicki's parentage.  But, contrary to most other speculation, she wasn't going to be Elizabeth's daughter. Ross was going to make her the daughter of Barnabas !

[Gothick]

That's fascinating, Uncle Roger.  I never had heard about that.

I remember finding Julia's one appearance in the books very odd.  Was Professor Stokes in that one as well?  Julia was portrayed as this jealous, shrewish harpy.

As far as I am concerned, the Ross books are promotional materials, end of story.  Their relationship to the Universe of canon (the aired episodes of the 1966-71 series) does not extend beyond the recycling of a few names and the cover photos.

I realize that other fans may disagree--and that is every fan's prerogative, of course.

G.

[Uncle Roger]

Gothick, if I remember correctly, Stokes was Julia's partner in the Hoffman Clinic.  Whatever that was. I do recall a very odd conversation in one of the books between Julia & Elizabeth regarding "mod" fashion.

If nothing else, it does prove that you can't judge a book by its cover.  Some of them, both the paintings and photos, are gorgeous.

Dan Ross aka Marilyn appeared at several of the early Newark festivals in the early 1980's. I never met. I had no idea what I could possibly say to him.

And uber DS fan Jeff Thompson earned his PhD by doing a dissertation on the collected works of Marilyn Ross.

[The Doctor and K9]

I won't swear to it,but I believe Julia was in at least two of the Ross novels. I think they were B, Q, and the Body Snatchers and the Sea Ghost. Anyone know for sure?

[Uncle Roger]

Now that you mention it, I think that the fashion discussion between the ladies takes place in Body Snatchers. The Hoffman clinic may well be in Sea Ghost.

[michael c]

the ross novels seem more "inspired by" the series than actually a cohesive part of it...

to be fair coordinating the publishing of these books with the day-to-day plotting of a shot live serial that basically made itself up as it went along would have been almost impossible in terms of continuity.

[Gothick]

Isn't BARNABAS, QUENTIN AND THE BODY SNATCHERS the one that's hard to come by?  I'm not sure I ever read that one.  The one I remember had Barnabas and the latest ingenue visiting Julia at her clinic.

I remember reading somewhere that "Marilyn" was only ever given the script of episode 1, but somebody must have sent him updated notes on later characters--such as Quentin.

G.