(*PAGE EXAMPLES - reply #31*) "Dark Shadows" Returns in October (in new comic form)

interesting thoughts about carolyn and maggie. some other strange "ingenue" always seems to show up for each self-contained story to fill the gap.

That Cheshire Collins story was actually a very good one. I never thought of the Roger Davis connection. Carolyn had a clone in Constance Collins. She was a dead ringer for Carolyn but Liz's cousin instead of daughter. She showed up at a dinner party Liz was throwing ( But wait!!Liz never threw dinner parties on tv! Wrong!). Trouble is, The Gold Key Collins had hardly any friends (or family) so usually nobody showed up at these parties (who didn't already live in the house) but Julia and Stokes. Barnabas tried to kill Connie, then save her when she acccidently got thrown into hell. Don't tell me that's not a great comic! Some beautiful drawings of Hell in that book.

They brought back Connie in probably the worst drawn book of the series. I don't know what the problem was, but poor old Certa did not bring his A-game!

Zack Golem,

Thanks for that review.  I guess it gives me a good sense of the audience that is buying the reprints.  Since the books sell for fifty bucks a pop, they're clearly a very dedicated audience.

I do know of Jeff Thompson's work--think I'll skip it.

Interesting about Constance Collins.  There was a character with that name on the series, but she lived in the seventeenth century and was only seen in one flashback episode, portrayed by Grayson Hall.

Oddly, I can sort of half remember that weird drawing of Barnabas looking at Quentin's jet streaking across the sky through the window of his basement cell.

I do like your comment that the "relationship" between Barnabas and Willie was deemed "too complicated" for kids to comprehend.  Of course, the kids who watched the series regularly knew all about Barnabas and Willie... and we were all very innocent back then...

G.

G-

Comic fans in general are a pretty dedicated bunch. Like I was saying a lot of people who likes the comics aren't really into the tv series. Gold Key, the company who did DS, actually has it's own fandom. There's been various reprint volumes of their stuff coming out for years that have a fairly dedicated following.
 
What's wrong with Jeff Thompson's work? His articles in the Hermes volumes aren't bad.

I don't know for a fact that was the reason Gold Key axed the Willie character after 5 panels. Just a guess. Gold Key had a sterling reputation as a kid friendly publisher. They didn't have to display the comics code authority seal like the rest of the industry. It's kind of odd they took on DS--it was a fairly subversive book. Like the early episodes of the tv show,
Barnabas in the first couple of Gold Key books was a rather ruthless character, willing to murder innocent people to protect his secret. Julia too, was willing to ingage in morally questional behavior. Strange stuff to be presenting to kid comic book readers!

zack your knowledge of and enthusiasm for the 'gold key' books is quite impressive...

that said i know and care very little for comic books so i guess i'm not really qualified to comment on them except to say that for me they don't do it. they're too silly and juvenile and i'm interested in them only as a piece of kitsch memorabilia. they're written from a completely adolescent sensibility. for me they don't remotely capture the mood and atmosphere of the series and it's the series i'm fond of. a few of the names are the same and the town is called collinsport but otherwise they could be another random comic series. nothing about them says DS to me. if you take the romance out of DS, which this series does, then it's just goofy. and IMHO the drawings are too wierd.

but like i said i'm not a comic enthusiast so other people's enjoyment of these is great. they're fun if nothing else and like the ross novels they're kind of a kick in their own right.

Michael--I'd be hard pressed to really disagree with anything you say. I'd just add it's a perception thing. You could say the same about the tv series, and people do, it's silly and juvenile, the acting is bad, the writing is worse, ect, ect. Well sure, sometimes, but if you stop there you miss a lot.

I have little interest in the romantic aspects of DS. I don't care if I ever hear Josette's name again.  My favorite plots would probably be 1897 and the first half of Leviathans.  Different strokes!

No offense to anyone posting in this topic, but, if the author of that article about the Gold Key comics thinks they're sometimes written better than the actual series, remind me if I should ever decide to become an addict to try to track down whatever he was smoking or whatever drug(s) he was on at the time he wrote that. 

MB- The writing in those books wasn't as shabby as one might assume. Most of the writers were anonymous but a couple of them were very big names, and wrote comics for other publishers that are now considered classics. People have pointed out that that some of the stories in the DS books are like blueprints for what could have been very interesting tv plots or DS movies. The early stories were very sincere and straightlaced but later in the series an element of parody creeped in and some of it reads almost like SNL skits. There was one book where Barnabas was being pursued by enemies and he riggged his coffin to spew deadly gas in case anyone opened it. Big larfs!

A side note about romance in the DS comics, quite a few of them feature romantic elements. There's one book in the not yet released Hermes volume three that I'm looking forward to seeing digitally remastered. It concerns Barnabas trapped in an other worldly dimension where he falls in love with a dead ringer for Josette/ Victoria.

Granted, I haven't read the Gold Key comics in years and years. Probably not since I first bought the issues back when they were originally released. But I remember being quite disappointed in them - in both the artwork and the storytelling.

I think I actually tried to write Gold Key a letter when I was 8 or 9, pleading with them to make the series better. I used to look at the books about once every 4 or 5 years and mainly got disgusted with the bad ones. When the reprints starting coming out I was surprised at how many of them really hold up as little gems of great comic book storytelling. I just read that Hermes is also planning a 'Best Of' edition with 12 books included. I think their 12 best will differ from mine because my list would be comprised mainly of issues in the first 3 or 4 years and theirs will span the entire series. (You gotta encourage folks to buy 'em all!)

I also tried to read a couple of the Marilyn Ross  books a few years ago and didn't think they were too bad. I liked them more as a kid but the Gothic romance novel is not really my area. But I do regard these things as more than kitsch memorabilia, Dark Shadows Ice Cream or bubblegum stickers.  I look at Dark Shadows and specifically Barnabas as a literary figure along the lines of Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, or Dracula. Their stories have been told in lots of different formats and each one can have validity. I think the movie is going to be a very deviant version. I wish I knew Tim Burton so I could campaign to draw the graphic novelization!

back to the new comic series has anyone picked up volume two yet?

i'm actually quite invested in this story.

Have you seen Volume 2? I didn't think it came out until the 23rd.

no i haven't seen it yet.

i just can't wait to see what happens next...

Another review: Dark Shadows #1

This is a minor gripe, but I thought I'd mention it.

In one panel of issue 1, Julia tells Barnabas, "I cured you once.  I can do it again." 

Um... no she didn't  She never TRULY cured Barnabas.  The closest her injections came to success was in 1897 when Angelique was administering them.  The treatments HELPED, but I wouldn't say they ever fully cured Barnabas.  Heck, when Barnabas reverts to vampire mode courtesy of Jeb in 1970, the injections don't really even work anymore.

I would have slightly rephrased Julia's line - "I nearly cured you once."

Just a nitpick.