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

[Gothick]

Hi Michael,

[spoiler]I think it refers to Angelique... look back at the statue scene again, and the enthralled Julia responds to the question "Whom do you serve?" with "I serve my mistress... she approaches."  That to my mind is definitely the start of Angelique making Julia her latest pet slave.  (I don't think this is related at all to the storyline in the 1991 DS where Angelique simply possessed Julia outright. [/spoiler]

I do hope they bring Laura into this... I would love to see her part of the new storyline... and apparently bringing her back was discussed at some point in 1970 or 1971...

cheers, G.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Another Review:

Dark Shadows #1

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Exclusive: DARK SHADOWS #1 Artist Commentary

[ZackGolem]

does anyone know why key characters like carolyn, maggie and david were not included in the 'gold key' series?

I have a theory about that. The Gold Key company did not do continued issue stories. Each book was about 22 pages with a complete tale. They apparently felt the need to distill DS down to what they felt would work for a comic in this format. This included the cast, reduced down to the most essential members. Thus, while there was no Carolyn, Maggie or David, these type characters would show up in the series. Perhaps they thought a regular ingenue or child character would seem a bit crowded with others turning up in the stories. This did have a strange side effect of having four unmarried relatives all living together in a gigantic mansion, and perhaps led to the infamous Liz and Roger are married screw-up.

[ZackGolem]

michael--you should be grateful that most of the personnel of the series were absent from the Gold Key comics... given that Certa's attempts to render Quentin, Julia, Stokes et al. resulted in some really unspeakable caricatures... Quentin always looked like a bad cross between pop star Engelbert Humperdinck (who I believe hailed from Tasmania) and the WB's Tasmanian devil... sigh.

I have just read issue 1 of the Dynamite DS comic--excellent work over all!  Given Liz's terse reference to David's "pyromania," I would guess that a certain former Mrs Roger Collins may be lurking in the shadows, or should I say, the embers...

I thought Liz's "rampant pyromania" line was the one false note in the comic. I was around in '71 and I don't remember anyone using a phrase like that. Maybe they did, but I just can't see Liz saying it.

Also, Joe Certa was a very good artist. I'm a professional comic artist and as Prof. Stokes says in one of the comics "Ahem, I'd stake my reputation on it!" Granted, some of his work was awful, but every version of DS has it's terrible moments and we still love it. Many of the Gold Key books are textbook lessions in excellent storytelling and dynamic, fluid, figure drawing with a great sense of drama and animation. He was also a master aat establishing locales. Collinwood and Collinsport are very vivid in his work. It's a pity no one ever interviewed Certa, because I'd love to know what he thought about what he was doing on DS. It does seem as though he sometimes woke up on the wrong side of the bed, and took it out on the characters. At various times, he seems to dispise all of them, with Julia coming under fire with some particularly brutal renditions.

[Gothick]

Golem, I'd guess that what Certa was thinking of as he slogged out the DS stuff was "yep, that's another paycheck in the mail."  Or, as my long-suffering Dad (who hated his job) used to say upon returning home in the evening, "Another day, another dollar."

I'll take your word for it that he was a good or even exceptional artist--I really don't have the stomach to research the subject by looking at other examples of his work.

But, glad to hear you enjoy what he produced.  It's nice to know that there's a fan out there for every artist.

G.

[ZackGolem]

michael--Angelique (and briefly, Cassandra--I think only in issue 1) was also featured in the Gold Key comics.  Or rather, some garish shrieking thing that was called Angelique because Joe Certa couldn't draw real people to save his soul...

Aaron Campbell's rendition of Angeligue in the dream sequence in the new book is actually worse. Far uglier than anything Certa drew of Angelique. His inking style too, is a bit off putting, sometimes he seems to be using tooth picks or match heads.  Overall I like the art in the new book, my favorite panel being Julia approaching the old house. Usually I don't like comics that rely heavily on photos and trying to capture actors' likenesses. It seems cheesy and a betrayal of the comics medium's strengths. In this case however, I'm going along with it because I'm such a fan of the source material.

[ZackGolem]

But, glad to hear you enjoy what he produced.  It's nice to know that there's a fan out there for every artist.

LOL, well I think he has more than one fan , G. I hear the Hermes Press reprints are quite the hit!

[Gothick]

Really?  I thought only diehard collectors of DS memorabilia would buy the reprints.  Interesting... what can one say except that tastes differ. 

I bought loads of them back in the day, and actually looked forward to them in the early months.  So my 13 year old self enjoyed them.  At some point, however, I had had enough.  Revisiting them as an adult was not a happy experience.

I agree with you about Aaron's attempt to draw Angelique in the new book, and I'm not all that happy with how he draws Julia in general. There's one square or panel or whatever you call it that is decent but it's obviously copied from a well-known hoDS film still.  I'm not convinced that he used photographs for all of it... his renderings of Barnabas are pretty free and easy, I think.

But then I'm not a professional artist, so ... not sure how much my opinion about any of it matters!

cheers, G.

[ZackGolem]

A lot of comic fans know the Gold Key series. People that aren't DS purists or even fans of the show.  I've heard people say they don't like the tv series--consider it boring-- but love the Gold Key series. Since the reprints have been coming out, I've seen a few reviews here and there from people who even consider the writing to be in some ways superior to the tv show.
I'll say one thing about the writing on the new comic, I really appreciate Stuart's economy with words. Most comic writers nowadays are egomaniacs and write, write, write and the books are very cluttered and tedious to actually try and read. Stuart strikes exactly the right balance between words and pictures, which is what it's all about with comics.

I bought all the Gold Key books when I was a kid as well. It got worse as the years went on. For the most part, the stories never really jumped the the shark but the art surely did. I got fed up with it as well, but kept buying them. I hoped they would replace Certa at a certain point but they never did. He was about 50 when he started the series and in the last decade of his career. The two volumes of the Hermes series out now represent the book's "golden age." You should check them out. They look much, MUCH better than the old newsprint pamplets. There is still some more good stuff coming up, but it's more hit and miss.

I know which panel you refer to about Julia. I read in one of Aaron's interviews that he shoots his own photos in some cases. I'm sort of on the fence about his Barnabas so far. It's kind of an idealized Frid but doesn't have the swing and bounce and drama of Certa at his best! Oh well, these things aren't really competing with each other.

[michael c]

claude i know which character you mean. his name is "cheshire collins" and yes, as far as these drawings can possibly resemble an actual human being, he does very much look like roger davis. especially in his eighteenth century garb he's evocative of peter bradford.

i can't determine who's actually living at collinwood in these stories. liz, roger, quentin and julia? and barnabas at the old house? or is there not an old house? interesting thoughts about carolyn and maggie. some other strange "ingenue" always seems to show up for each self-contained story to fill the gap.

i actually prefer the cover paintings to the art inside.

[spoiler]back to the new story. with the return of what appears to be an "evil" angelique aren't we taking a slight step backwards in terms of continuity? by 1970 wasn't angelique, for lack of a better word, sort of almost "nice". during 1897 they sort of reformed her character. so why is she such a terror again? [/spoiler]

[Gothick]

Zack Golem,

I would love to see an in-depth review (even a short one that comments upon specifics, not just the tired old hash of the basics about the original publications and the series, etc.) of one of the Hermes books.  Please do post a link if handy.  I have been curious as to just who on Earth is buying these things, and why.  I enjoy reading well-reasoned statements of opinions that differ from my own, and I really appreciate the civility you demonstrate here (particularly since I'm just a cranky old fan).

michael, that scene with a cacchinating Angelique terrorizing Barnabas in his dreams actually looks and reads a LOT like similar scenes I recall from the Gold Key comics.  This is one element that does seem to make a nod, if that's the right phrase, to the Sam Hall outline for how the series would have continued.  Angelique's evil ghost played a part in that, and I think she even returned to fleshly existence for a time--it's been awhile since I last perused it.  It was because of her persecution that [spoiler]Barnabas and Julia ultimately moved away from the Collinsport area forever after their marriage in Singapore.[/spoiler]

I do suspect that there's more to Angelique's presence in this first bit than meets the eye.  I know I'm going to keep reading.

Lordee, how could I have forgotten Cheshire Collins?  What a hoot!

Cheers, Steve

[ZackGolem]

http://comicattack.net/2011/01/ffgtrjan212011/

Here's one for you, Gothik. I saw a few more around the times the Hermes books came out but I don't know if they're still up. There's some reviews on Amazon. There used to be some very in-depth issue-by issue analysis somewhere on the internet that seems to have dissappeared.

[ZackGolem]

i can't determine who's actually living at collinwood in these stories. liz, roger, quentin and julia? and barnabas at the old house? or is there not an old house?
...
i actually prefer the cover paintings to the art inside.

The cover paintings were by someone named George Wilson who also painted tons of covers for other Gold Key books, Twilight Zone, Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery and others. Yes, he was very good.

Liz, Roger, Quentin and Barnabas lived at Collinwood. There was no Old House. In issue one, Willie Loomis is seen heading toward a house that COULD be the Old House. It's a house mostly obscured by a word balloon and it's a very different depiction from any of the other shots of Collinwood. He knocks on a door which is answered by Barnabas. After briefly helping Barnabas with problem he's never seen again. Perhaps the producers thought the relationship was too complicated for a kids' comic and decided to close that can of worms. Julia lived in a small wood frame house in Collinsport. Barnabas's coffin room was in a cellar at Collinwood which was often shown with an open barred window. You would think someone  outside could be passing by and look down and  see the coffin. In one bizarre scene, Quentin must fly off in a plane on some mission and Barnabas is seen looking out his cellar window and can actually see the jet plane flying through the sky.

[ZackGolem]

Oh yeah Gothick, how could I forget. There's some fairly deep essaying on Gold Key DS in the actual Hermes volumes by somebody named Dr. Jeff Thompson. I think I'd read some of it on the net before it was published in the books. That's probably where some of the other articles I read are now. They pulled 'em off the net so people will have to buy them in the future volumes!