I am very sorry to hear about John and Peter's predicament.  I hope they can find a good buyer for their treasure.

NYC is a very tough row to hoe when you're short on cash.  My thoughts are with them.

G.

Dear Fans,

Last night I played a couple of the interview segments on the DVD set, Dark Shadows The Beginning: vol. 5.  One of  the interviews was with Leonard Wolf, who I last caught sight of back in the Seventies on a late night talk show with Peter Cushing and Forry Ackerman.  Anyhow, Leonard Wolf comes in to try to explain why the DS pop cultural phenomenon hit so big in the late Sixties.  He contrasts the Fifties, which he describes as a culturally and psychologically "desiccated" era, with the Sixties which exploded as the decade wore on with ever more violent and jarring arcs of revolutionary ferment on every level.

After playing the interview, I was thinking about the late 1950s as the period when the vogue for "Horror Hosts" became a phenomenon of its own.  I was trying to recall when Vampira's show was running--I think it was quite early, possibly around 1955?  From the little I know, it seems as if Zacherley's show became the first really big instance of this type of show.

Although the horror hosts and their "creature features" were a very different type of show from our beloved DS, it does seem to have paved the way for other types of series such as Boris Karloff's Thriller and the Addams Family.  Having an afternoon supernatural series looks from this point of view like the next logical step, although of course it was a very radical step for the production team to take.

I like the interviews with the ABC publicity guy who keeps remarking how the network suits had no idea what DS was about, how it should be handled, or really just why it was so popular.

Just a few thoughts--those of you who have done more research on horror hosts might have something to add.  Interestingly, I don't recall horror host shows in my childhood in Maryland until the early 1970s.  In the Sixties, the airings of horror movies I used to watch were not hosted, although they had spooky music and imagery to introduce each week's offering.

G.

KLS' PomPress books are always printed on glossy paper with loads of beautifully printed color photos, and the business managed to do this because all the books were produced in, I believe, a printing firm in South Korea. 

I wonder whether an attempt was made to do "The First Year" through PomPress.  I have heard of others who tried to get their books published with that firm, only to be told that Pom isn't doing any more DS (or vintage television, or whatever) titles.  Then a year later KLS announces her NEXT book.  sigh.

I'll order the book but with the expectation that it will be printed on a lower grade paper which means a lot of detail will be lost in the photos.  At least I can hope that there are no distortions in the photos due to the printer messing up scans of old pictures.  This has happened in more than one Shadows themed book I can think of...

G.

Has anyone on here ever purchased the book Dark Shadows: the First Year?  I saw an ad for it on one of the Laura Collins DVDs last night and am intrigued.  Great cover, and the photo selection looks boss.

This one is available only through the DS Festival--and for all I know may now be OP.  I think the book came out around 2007--maybe earlier.

G.

Thanks for that info, Doctor and K9.  How intriguing that it was almost exactly 38 years ago!

G.

Don't forget all of Quentin's "as played by Engelbert Humperdinck" appearances in those dreadful Gold Key comic books.

Quentin looked Tasmanian, Julia resembled a retired drag queen badly in need of chin surgery, Prof. Stokes appeared to be semi-batrachian...  I'm not sure what to say about Barn's portrayal in those comics, except that as I recall it, he was drawn looking more like Tony George than Jonathan Frid.

For some reason, Quentin never appeared in the vastly superior (artistically and story-wise) newspaper comics--I suppose because DC Prod had only licensed the characters of Barnabas, Liz, Carolyn and Angelique, and the setting of Collinwood (which was the movie Collinwood, not the actual estate we all know and love) for appearance in those comics.

G.

Kitty IS the Root of all evil.

Which explains why we love her so much.

G.