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Vampirella Archives #1
Vampirella Archives Vol. 1
In September 1969, Vampirella #1 debuted with a stunning cover by the legendary Frank Frazetta - an quickly made publishing history! The writers and artists that contributed during the magazine's original run included Jose Gonzalez, Archie Goodwin, Doug Moench, Bernie Wrightson, Barry Windsor Smith, Esteban Maroto, Frank Brunner, Mike Ploog, Rudy Nebres, Richard Corben, Pablo Marcos,Wally Wood, and many more! Dynamite now collects this legendary magazine in a hardcover archive collection! Featuring work by Forest J. Ackerman, Don Glut, Tom Sutton, Neal Adams, Ernie Colon, Billy Graham, Alan Weiss, Jeff Jones, and Frank Frazetta, Volume One collects the first seven terrifying issues of the magazine's original run, reprinted in its original magazine-sized format.
390 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 12, 2010
108 people are currently reading
256 people want to read
About the author
Forrest J. Ackerman
257 books33 followersForrest J Ackerman (born Forrest James Ackerman; November 24, 1916 – December 4, 2008) was an American collector of science fiction books and movie memorabilia and a science fiction fan. He was, for over seven decades, one of science fiction's staunchest spokesmen and promoters.
Ackerman was a Los Angeles, California-based magazine editor, science fiction writer and literary agent, a founder of science fiction fandom, a leading expert on science fiction and fantasy films, and possibly the world's most avid collector of genre books and movie memorabilia. He was the editor and principal writer of the American magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland, as well as an actor, from the 1950s into the 1980s, and appears in two documentaries related to this period in popular culture: writer and filmmaker Jason V. Brock's The Ackermonster Chronicles!, (a 2012 documentary about Ackerman) and Charles Beaumont: The Life of Twilight Zone's Magic Man, about the late author Charles Beaumont, a former client of The Ackerman Agency.
Also called "Forry," "The Ackermonster," "4e" and "4SJ," Ackerman was central to the formation, organization, and spread of science fiction fandom, and a key figure in the wider cultural perception of science fiction as a literary, art and film genre. Famous for his word play and neologisms, he coined the genre nickname "sci-fi". In 1953, he was voted "#1 Fan Personality" by the members of the World Science Fiction Society, a unique Hugo Award never granted to anyone else.
He was also among the first and most outspoken advocates of Esperanto in the science fiction community.
Ackerman was born Forrest James Ackerman (though he would refer to himself from the early 1930s on as "Forrest J Ackerman" with no period after the middle initial), on November 24, 1916, in Los Angeles, to Carroll Cridland (née Wyman; 1883–1977) and William Schilling Ackerman (1892–1951). His father was from New York and his mother was from Ohio (the daughter of architect George Wyman); she was nine years older than William.[13] He attended the University of California at Berkeley for a year (1934–1935), worked as a movie projectionist, and spent three years in the U.S. Army after enlisting on August 15, 1942.
He was married to teacher and translator Wendayne (Wendy) Wahrman (1912–1990) until her death. Her original first name was Matilda; Forry created "Wendayne" for her. Wendayne suffered a serious head injury when she was violently mugged while on a trip to Europe in 1990, and the injury soon after led to her death.
Ackerman was fluent in the international language Esperanto, and claimed to have walked down Hollywood Boulevard arm-in-arm with Leo G. Carroll singing La Espero, the hymn of Esperanto.
Ackerman was an atheist.
More: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0009969/
http://fancyclopedia.org/forrest-j-ac...
http://www.amazon.com/Forrest-J.-Acke...
http://content.time.com/time/magazine...
Ackerman was a Los Angeles, California-based magazine editor, science fiction writer and literary agent, a founder of science fiction fandom, a leading expert on science fiction and fantasy films, and possibly the world's most avid collector of genre books and movie memorabilia. He was the editor and principal writer of the American magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland, as well as an actor, from the 1950s into the 1980s, and appears in two documentaries related to this period in popular culture: writer and filmmaker Jason V. Brock's The Ackermonster Chronicles!, (a 2012 documentary about Ackerman) and Charles Beaumont: The Life of Twilight Zone's Magic Man, about the late author Charles Beaumont, a former client of The Ackerman Agency.
Also called "Forry," "The Ackermonster," "4e" and "4SJ," Ackerman was central to the formation, organization, and spread of science fiction fandom, and a key figure in the wider cultural perception of science fiction as a literary, art and film genre. Famous for his word play and neologisms, he coined the genre nickname "sci-fi". In 1953, he was voted "#1 Fan Personality" by the members of the World Science Fiction Society, a unique Hugo Award never granted to anyone else.
He was also among the first and most outspoken advocates of Esperanto in the science fiction community.
Ackerman was born Forrest James Ackerman (though he would refer to himself from the early 1930s on as "Forrest J Ackerman" with no period after the middle initial), on November 24, 1916, in Los Angeles, to Carroll Cridland (née Wyman; 1883–1977) and William Schilling Ackerman (1892–1951). His father was from New York and his mother was from Ohio (the daughter of architect George Wyman); she was nine years older than William.[13] He attended the University of California at Berkeley for a year (1934–1935), worked as a movie projectionist, and spent three years in the U.S. Army after enlisting on August 15, 1942.
He was married to teacher and translator Wendayne (Wendy) Wahrman (1912–1990) until her death. Her original first name was Matilda; Forry created "Wendayne" for her. Wendayne suffered a serious head injury when she was violently mugged while on a trip to Europe in 1990, and the injury soon after led to her death.
Ackerman was fluent in the international language Esperanto, and claimed to have walked down Hollywood Boulevard arm-in-arm with Leo G. Carroll singing La Espero, the hymn of Esperanto.
Ackerman was an atheist.
More: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0009969/
http://fancyclopedia.org/forrest-j-ac...
http://www.amazon.com/Forrest-J.-Acke...
http://content.time.com/time/magazine...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
August 29, 2025
Three stars. This is not "Three stars means it was good", because it was...not good. This book mostly looks and reads like it was cobbled together by horny grade-school nerds. I gave this three stars because of the historical significance, and the honest fact that, while not GOOD, I had a good time reading it. Your mileage may vary. The cheesiness charmed me......
October 29, 2020
Space alien, vampires and a beautiful woman in an interesting bikini, what more can a comic reader ask for! You get all that and some of the best art in the business for the time in Warren's books. great read. Recommended
March 6, 2011
Sad. Really sad.
Okay, I admit it. I have a fondness for 1970s B&W horror magazines. My Dad used to read 'em back when I was a kid in the mid-70s and - like his EC horror comics compilations - I used to sneak peaks at them while he was at work, giving myself nightmare fodder for the next few days before doing it again. When Dad moved out in 1978, he left a huge stack of those magazines in his vacated office closet. The majority of them were issues of Vampirella, which I acquired, read voraciously, and then - in the mid-80s, when my Mom moved to a new house and I didn't have the room in my college apartments for those magazines - traded 'em for credit at my local comics store.
Starting in the early 1960s, James Warren published a handful of B&W magazines inspired by the EC horror and war comics of the '50s. Often employing those same artists, he started out on a VERY high level of quality with the first dozen-or-so issues of Creepy and Eerie magazines, as well as the four outstanding issues of the anti-war mag Blazing Combat, arguably the best of the bunch. By the mid-late '60s, though, Warren's finances and quality had slid way downhill. Although an infusion of cash in the early '70s led to a surge of improvement (the issues I read as a kid dated to that period), there was a fallow stretch in between, followed by a jump in quality, a sharp decline and fall in the late '70s, and the final, messy demise of Warren's company in the early 1980s.
Vampirella Archives Vol. 1 comes from that fallow stretch.
By the time I got my hands on Vampirella in 1978, I'd been raised on horror movies, Edgar Allen Poe, King Crimson and the Rolling Stones. I discovered KISS the same year, and had been an avid reader of Warren's horror-movie magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland for several years before that. In the back-issue sections of those magazines, tiny galleries of thumbnail-sized cover images showed me what I'd been missing. Frank Frazetta had done some of his best work for Warren in the early days, and the bygone spectres of lost treasures tantalized me for ages. Until very recently, those magazines were GONE. Finis. History. They commanded vast sums if you could find them at all, and tangled legal issues kept their contents out of print for decades. Last year, I think it was, Dark Horse Comics took some of those nice fat royalty checks from 300, Sin City and Hellboy, resolved the legal mess, and began bringing certain Warren magazines back in huge hardcover archives. I've been devouring those for the last few months, satisfying the jones I'd picked up in my early teens.
Due to the aforementioned legal mess, Dark Horse could not reprint the material from Vampirella. The new owners of that property - Dynamite Comics - followed their lead a few months back. Having realized this last week, I snatched a copy of Vampirella Archives 1 from our library.
And it was AWFUL.
A product of that "fallow period," Vampirella began as a tongue-in-cheek attempt at campy "mod" cheesecake horror. As such, it's appallingly sexist, painfully cliched, and frequently incoherent. At least one of the writers, Bill Parente, either was not a native English-speaker, was stoned out of his mind, or was a writer of such blinding incompetence that his very sentences are difficult to parse. Many of the stories make no sense even by the low standards of campy '60s horror pulp.
The art is just as bad, and often worse. By the time Vampirella came out, Warren was paying his freelancers late, if at all. The result? Even though the early issues feature notables like Tom Sutton, Billy Graham, Russ Heath, Neal Adams and Gene Colon (all of whom did superior work in Warren's earlier and later issues), they're clearly phoning their art in for those early Vampi issues. Heath outright steals panels from stories he did in other books, and Sutton seems to be channeling a six-year-old on acid. The dazzling art that distinguished the early runs of Creepy and Eerie is nowhere to be seen. I've read tales in Skywald and Eerie Publications magazines that looked better than this, and anyone who knows about '70s horror comics understands what an insult THAT is.
So yeah; aside from those legendary Frazetta covers, the first archive of Vampirella magazine has a near-fatal case of Suck.
Soon (thanks, in part, to Vampirella), Warren's fortunes would improve - and with them, the quality of his magazines. I still look forward to Vampirella Archives from the series' later days. Although it remained cheesy and adolescent in appeal, the magazine soon adopted a more serious approach and a higher standard of quality. THOSE are the issues I recall, and I'm eager to read 'em again. As for Vampirella Archives 1, however, I recommend it only as an historical curiosity and a snapshot of better things to come.
Okay, I admit it. I have a fondness for 1970s B&W horror magazines. My Dad used to read 'em back when I was a kid in the mid-70s and - like his EC horror comics compilations - I used to sneak peaks at them while he was at work, giving myself nightmare fodder for the next few days before doing it again. When Dad moved out in 1978, he left a huge stack of those magazines in his vacated office closet. The majority of them were issues of Vampirella, which I acquired, read voraciously, and then - in the mid-80s, when my Mom moved to a new house and I didn't have the room in my college apartments for those magazines - traded 'em for credit at my local comics store.
Starting in the early 1960s, James Warren published a handful of B&W magazines inspired by the EC horror and war comics of the '50s. Often employing those same artists, he started out on a VERY high level of quality with the first dozen-or-so issues of Creepy and Eerie magazines, as well as the four outstanding issues of the anti-war mag Blazing Combat, arguably the best of the bunch. By the mid-late '60s, though, Warren's finances and quality had slid way downhill. Although an infusion of cash in the early '70s led to a surge of improvement (the issues I read as a kid dated to that period), there was a fallow stretch in between, followed by a jump in quality, a sharp decline and fall in the late '70s, and the final, messy demise of Warren's company in the early 1980s.
Vampirella Archives Vol. 1 comes from that fallow stretch.
By the time I got my hands on Vampirella in 1978, I'd been raised on horror movies, Edgar Allen Poe, King Crimson and the Rolling Stones. I discovered KISS the same year, and had been an avid reader of Warren's horror-movie magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland for several years before that. In the back-issue sections of those magazines, tiny galleries of thumbnail-sized cover images showed me what I'd been missing. Frank Frazetta had done some of his best work for Warren in the early days, and the bygone spectres of lost treasures tantalized me for ages. Until very recently, those magazines were GONE. Finis. History. They commanded vast sums if you could find them at all, and tangled legal issues kept their contents out of print for decades. Last year, I think it was, Dark Horse Comics took some of those nice fat royalty checks from 300, Sin City and Hellboy, resolved the legal mess, and began bringing certain Warren magazines back in huge hardcover archives. I've been devouring those for the last few months, satisfying the jones I'd picked up in my early teens.
Due to the aforementioned legal mess, Dark Horse could not reprint the material from Vampirella. The new owners of that property - Dynamite Comics - followed their lead a few months back. Having realized this last week, I snatched a copy of Vampirella Archives 1 from our library.
And it was AWFUL.
A product of that "fallow period," Vampirella began as a tongue-in-cheek attempt at campy "mod" cheesecake horror. As such, it's appallingly sexist, painfully cliched, and frequently incoherent. At least one of the writers, Bill Parente, either was not a native English-speaker, was stoned out of his mind, or was a writer of such blinding incompetence that his very sentences are difficult to parse. Many of the stories make no sense even by the low standards of campy '60s horror pulp.
The art is just as bad, and often worse. By the time Vampirella came out, Warren was paying his freelancers late, if at all. The result? Even though the early issues feature notables like Tom Sutton, Billy Graham, Russ Heath, Neal Adams and Gene Colon (all of whom did superior work in Warren's earlier and later issues), they're clearly phoning their art in for those early Vampi issues. Heath outright steals panels from stories he did in other books, and Sutton seems to be channeling a six-year-old on acid. The dazzling art that distinguished the early runs of Creepy and Eerie is nowhere to be seen. I've read tales in Skywald and Eerie Publications magazines that looked better than this, and anyone who knows about '70s horror comics understands what an insult THAT is.
So yeah; aside from those legendary Frazetta covers, the first archive of Vampirella magazine has a near-fatal case of Suck.
Soon (thanks, in part, to Vampirella), Warren's fortunes would improve - and with them, the quality of his magazines. I still look forward to Vampirella Archives from the series' later days. Although it remained cheesy and adolescent in appeal, the magazine soon adopted a more serious approach and a higher standard of quality. THOSE are the issues I recall, and I'm eager to read 'em again. As for Vampirella Archives 1, however, I recommend it only as an historical curiosity and a snapshot of better things to come.
April 5, 2012
I'm not sure how I feel about this one. "Vampirella" is a classic title and one I've been curious to check out ever since my mum wouldn't let me buy an issue as a kid. This collection features the first 7 issues, and it is not great.
In the late 60's, Warren publishing was trying to pull itself out of the doldrums. Their flag ship titles "Creepy" and "Eerie" were suffering with reprints and stories that were far from the classics in quality that defined the mags. So it's weird they would debut a new title at this time. What should of been a trendsetter, which at the time it certainly was- you could argue that "Vampirella" saved the company, comes off as suffering the same problems that plagued "Eerie" and "Creepy" during this period. So it ends up being mostly dull with brief bits of greatness. I can't help but wonder what all the fuss was about. Well, I know what the fuss was about, a mostly naked girl introducing horror stories. It's a shame the stories aren't better in both the writing and art. Things start to turn around a bit by the seventh issue, so hopefully Vol 2 improves.
Dynamite is doing their best to match the Dark Horse reprints of the other two titles with this series, but it's not quite there. No introduction to put these stories into context, it's just the complete issues between the covers with advertisements for new books in the back. It just doesn't feel as well put together despite the price. The artwork doesn't look as crisp and clear as the Dark Horse volumes. Not totally distracting or a botched job, just different.
So there it is. It's a must own for the collector/completist like myself who always dreamed of owning a complete line of Warren comics. It's probably not the best choice as an introduction to those same Warren comics for the new reader.
In the late 60's, Warren publishing was trying to pull itself out of the doldrums. Their flag ship titles "Creepy" and "Eerie" were suffering with reprints and stories that were far from the classics in quality that defined the mags. So it's weird they would debut a new title at this time. What should of been a trendsetter, which at the time it certainly was- you could argue that "Vampirella" saved the company, comes off as suffering the same problems that plagued "Eerie" and "Creepy" during this period. So it ends up being mostly dull with brief bits of greatness. I can't help but wonder what all the fuss was about. Well, I know what the fuss was about, a mostly naked girl introducing horror stories. It's a shame the stories aren't better in both the writing and art. Things start to turn around a bit by the seventh issue, so hopefully Vol 2 improves.
Dynamite is doing their best to match the Dark Horse reprints of the other two titles with this series, but it's not quite there. No introduction to put these stories into context, it's just the complete issues between the covers with advertisements for new books in the back. It just doesn't feel as well put together despite the price. The artwork doesn't look as crisp and clear as the Dark Horse volumes. Not totally distracting or a botched job, just different.
So there it is. It's a must own for the collector/completist like myself who always dreamed of owning a complete line of Warren comics. It's probably not the best choice as an introduction to those same Warren comics for the new reader.
December 20, 2019
SUPER FAST REVIEW:
Not at all what I expected!
So most Vampirella comics are about Vampirella, the superhero. This is an anthology series of horror stories presented by comic book host, Vampirella. The stories while not always home runs are usually pretty entertaining and the artists all do a fantastic job! I have mixed thoughts about including prose stories a few times, it was a good way of having fans send stories but it was a COMIC magazine... I dunno, it’s only mildly annoying but still cool so I’m mostly okay with it. I will say my only problem is very few of the stories actually have anything to do with the title character.
Overall, it’s a lot of fun if you want interesting tales of sci-fi and horror (which who the fuck doesn’t?) and great artwork. Just do not expect it to be anything like what you expect from Vampirella (and maybe read some of the more modern Vampi first which if you need ‘em I got recommendations!)
4/5
Not at all what I expected!
So most Vampirella comics are about Vampirella, the superhero. This is an anthology series of horror stories presented by comic book host, Vampirella. The stories while not always home runs are usually pretty entertaining and the artists all do a fantastic job! I have mixed thoughts about including prose stories a few times, it was a good way of having fans send stories but it was a COMIC magazine... I dunno, it’s only mildly annoying but still cool so I’m mostly okay with it. I will say my only problem is very few of the stories actually have anything to do with the title character.
Overall, it’s a lot of fun if you want interesting tales of sci-fi and horror (which who the fuck doesn’t?) and great artwork. Just do not expect it to be anything like what you expect from Vampirella (and maybe read some of the more modern Vampi first which if you need ‘em I got recommendations!)
4/5
March 27, 2015
This one was a "meh" for me. The art was decent but the stories weren't good enough in my opinion to warrant more than two stars. This is a re-issue of an old comic from the late sixties and it just wasn't my thing. I read a kindle version of this and luckily did not pay a lot for it. It was a very fast read so I didn't waste a lot of time reading this either. No big deal, just not that great of a read. I won't bother with the next volumes.
November 20, 2025
Really cool old school pulpy schlock. Love the advertisements and letters
February 3, 2020
Fun Anthology Horror Comics
Going into this, I thought it was going to be Vampirella stories, as it's her name on the cover so why wouldn't it be? What I didn't know is that Vampirella started out as a horror anthology comic host, mainly popping up in the intros and the conclusions of stories. There are a few stories starring Vampirella, but most of them are unconnected horror stories.
And, for the most part, I enjoyed them. The quality varies; there are a couple of the stories I hated, and some art styles I appreciated more than others, but as a whole, they were interesting. The short length made them easy to get through, though I wouldn't have minded if they varied the lengths occasionally. Some are gruesome with dire endings, some the good guys make it through, and nearly all try to pull off a twist.
If there is a theme besides horror, it's scantily clad women. Some go as far as bared breasts, but most stick to skintight clothing that reveals as much as possible. If that bugs you, don't read this. For the most part, I didn't care, but there were a couple of illustrations that were so dumb in terms of the outfits that I couldn't even begin to describe. Like, there's this one dinosaur riding lass who has a couple of lines drawn over her body, but for the life of me I can't understand how it is clothes, how it covers, or how it works in general. Just baffling. It was part of one of the worst stories in the book too, just in terms of logic, the least sensical twist possible.
Anyway, I would definitely pick this up if you're interested in horror comics. Might not want to read it in public or near kiddies though, thanks to all the partially clad ladies.
Going into this, I thought it was going to be Vampirella stories, as it's her name on the cover so why wouldn't it be? What I didn't know is that Vampirella started out as a horror anthology comic host, mainly popping up in the intros and the conclusions of stories. There are a few stories starring Vampirella, but most of them are unconnected horror stories.
And, for the most part, I enjoyed them. The quality varies; there are a couple of the stories I hated, and some art styles I appreciated more than others, but as a whole, they were interesting. The short length made them easy to get through, though I wouldn't have minded if they varied the lengths occasionally. Some are gruesome with dire endings, some the good guys make it through, and nearly all try to pull off a twist.
If there is a theme besides horror, it's scantily clad women. Some go as far as bared breasts, but most stick to skintight clothing that reveals as much as possible. If that bugs you, don't read this. For the most part, I didn't care, but there were a couple of illustrations that were so dumb in terms of the outfits that I couldn't even begin to describe. Like, there's this one dinosaur riding lass who has a couple of lines drawn over her body, but for the life of me I can't understand how it is clothes, how it covers, or how it works in general. Just baffling. It was part of one of the worst stories in the book too, just in terms of logic, the least sensical twist possible.
Anyway, I would definitely pick this up if you're interested in horror comics. Might not want to read it in public or near kiddies though, thanks to all the partially clad ladies.
March 4, 2013
This is such crap it doesn't really merit the effort necessary to write a detailed review. Even the art, usually the strength in Warren productions, is pretty spotty here. Though a few notable names do put in appearances--Frazetta on some covers, Neal Adams and Jeff Jones on a story each, Ernie Colon a couple of times, Tom Sutton a few times--most of the art, even by these hands, is weak. Some barely rises above the level of amateur. One guy I'd never heard of, Billy Graham, shows some promise, but his stuff is all over the place--some beautifully rendered panels, but some downright ugly ones too. However, the real stumbling block here is the truly execrable stories. Several fail even on the level of basic grammatical competence (about which, the less said, the better), and many, if not most, rarely rise above the risible. Heck, I could write better stories. I knew it wasn't a good sign when a lame gimmick from one early issue--a vampire disguising itself as a lifeboat (!)--was reused a mere issue later in a story of Quetzlcoatl disguised as an airplane. Most of the usual horror staples are here, but never at anything like a legitimately scary level. The stuff fails even to provide wry or ironic humour, or, for that matter, the titillation promised by Vampi's scanty costume, as the art is as a rule too poorly rendered to be steamy, even when it tries to be. Throw in the total lack of editorial matter--no introduction, notes, contextualizing material at all--and you have a pretty much unnecessary book. NOT recommended. (And I got it on a bargain table for ten bucks.)
September 24, 2016
I like Vampirella. I enjoy Warren Publishing magazines. I've 6 or 7 volumes each of the Eerie and Creepy Archives, but this Vampirella Archives is Stunningly amateurish. The magazine covers are terrific but the black and white stories are just horrible. The art with only a couple of exceptions looks like random 4th grade art class samples.
This book is really really awful. Try instead the first few volumes of Creepy or even Eerie Archives.
This book is really really awful. Try instead the first few volumes of Creepy or even Eerie Archives.
July 5, 2016
These books are remnants
from a different age
The late sixties were a playground
for weird
kinda sexy horror stories
And the Vampirella stories
were some of the best
Always a contrived premise
that featured at least one
buxom lady in some form of
titillating undress
Written by the amazing
Forrest J Ackerman
(The Ackermonster)
The greatest at campy fun
sexy horror
these are a great example of a lost art form
from a different age
The late sixties were a playground
for weird
kinda sexy horror stories
And the Vampirella stories
were some of the best
Always a contrived premise
that featured at least one
buxom lady in some form of
titillating undress
Written by the amazing
Forrest J Ackerman
(The Ackermonster)
The greatest at campy fun
sexy horror
these are a great example of a lost art form
September 10, 2025
Vamptastic series with great art from all over the world !
I show some of it over here :
https://youtu.be/R3Zaps15qVU
More about Warren Publishing & Vampirella's history :
https://youtu.be/yrWfZo7qzbo
March 11, 2018
So I've been getting into the B&W horror comics of the sixties and seventies and I thought Vampirella would be a sure bet. And at first, these were kind of fun. The stories were cheesy (not even including host Vampirella's terrible puns) but they had a nostalgic charm. However, that started to wear thin the further I read. The storytelling in some entries was so poor that I had no idea what was going on, and the mostly mediocre art didn't help. There are a few notables whose work does appear, including Jeff Jones, Neal Adams, Tom Sutton and Ernie Colón, but they are few and far between. The back cover text lists a host of luminaries who worked on the series, and while it doesn't exactly lie -- it doesn't state that they're all in this collection, but it does seem intended to suggest that some are -- it is misleading. (Only Doug Moench features here, in a single short story.) By the time I was halfway through the content, I was finding it a chore to read, and something of a struggle to finish. I don't know if I'll get any of the further archives, but before I do I'll be sure to check my comics database to see which talents are featured in the collected issues. Based on this volume alone, you're better off exploring Eerie and Creepy.
January 14, 2012
Dad wouldn't let me order issues of Vampirella in the 1990s because he thought it was too racy for a teenage girl. Well, he should've seen the early issues, which are more campy than trampy. Vampirella plays the role of Crypt-Keeper, introducing and commenting upon some outrageous stories that mix science fiction with gothic horror. Art is wonderfully done and you get the sense reading the "Scarlet Letters" column that Vampirella was really breaking new ground compared to its competitors. Definitely going to do a painting of her for Etsy. Hopefully, I'll see the second volume of the archive at the Duderstat soon!
July 22, 2013
The first sub-standard stuff I've read from Warren. the writing is usually just forgettable, but there are some doozies in this collection made me laugh out loud (see "The Octopus" for an example). I love all old horror comics, even the hacks ones, so I dug this more than the average reader would. I agree with others that even when an ace artist appeared in these pages, it looked like what you'd imagine their doodles look like. The discerning fan should seek out early Eerie and Creepy archives, but if you like pulpy horror fun, you're in for some rotten treats!
November 17, 2014
Surprised at how poorly written the earliest Vampirella stories are. Some contain poor grammar and confusing sentence structure; typos and missing words abound. The early art isn't great, but there are still a few stories by Grandenetti and Sutton that make up for this. It isn't until later in the volume that the reader can get a glimpse of some better stuff. The Witch trilogy is a good start. Looking forward to future volumes…
February 8, 2016
Täysin perustelematon ja syyntakeeton viisi tähteä kauhusarjiksen seiskytluvulle, jossa naiset oli kuumia, ruumiit kylmiä, scifi sarjakuvassa hengissä ja ihmissudet kera vampyyrien voimissaan. Ihan mahtavaa saada tämä suomeksi!
January 9, 2018
This is really not good, not even up to the Creepy or Eerie stories standards of the time. There can only be one reason (ok maybe two) that this magazine became popular in it's time.
April 25, 2024
Vampirella is a beloved baby boomer icon. I love Horror comic books, especially EC Comics and their illegitimate children, the Warren Magazines Creepy and Eerie. Vampirella was added to the stable after those two titles took off. I figured that this would be a can't miss, fun filled black and white Horror romp. After all, they didn't make bad comic books until the '90s, right? Wrong.
While there is the occasional decent story or decent artist, most of this book is just plain dull and uninspired. I had no sense of urgency to read this other than to the clear the docket for something that I might actually enjoy.
Don't get me wrong, this didn't suck. I just wasn't feeling it. I read a lot of Horror comics and can appreciate black humor and cheesecake, but this was a big yawn for me. If I were an adolescent during this era and had no Internet or access to pornography, then I can see how this could be titillating for a teenager. I get why it was popular back then and a beloved icon. It just doesn't do anything for me here in 2012.
he paper in this book is a coated stock with a dull matte finish. I enjoy it more than the paper that Dark Horse is using in their Warren hardcovers, Creepy and Eerie. Those books have superior binding to this one, though. Those books lay flat. This book also has sewn binding, but the book block is glued to the squared spine, and is difficult to read for the first and last 80 pages. This is a 392 page monster, so you get 100 or so more pages than those two books at the same price point. There are trade offs for sure, but I'd rather have 2 less issues and better binding. Your mileage may vary.
While there is the occasional decent story or decent artist, most of this book is just plain dull and uninspired. I had no sense of urgency to read this other than to the clear the docket for something that I might actually enjoy.
Don't get me wrong, this didn't suck. I just wasn't feeling it. I read a lot of Horror comics and can appreciate black humor and cheesecake, but this was a big yawn for me. If I were an adolescent during this era and had no Internet or access to pornography, then I can see how this could be titillating for a teenager. I get why it was popular back then and a beloved icon. It just doesn't do anything for me here in 2012.
he paper in this book is a coated stock with a dull matte finish. I enjoy it more than the paper that Dark Horse is using in their Warren hardcovers, Creepy and Eerie. Those books have superior binding to this one, though. Those books lay flat. This book also has sewn binding, but the book block is glued to the squared spine, and is difficult to read for the first and last 80 pages. This is a 392 page monster, so you get 100 or so more pages than those two books at the same price point. There are trade offs for sure, but I'd rather have 2 less issues and better binding. Your mileage may vary.
May 24, 2025
I got a massive wedge of Vampirella graphic novels, as I had a read a couple and they weren't too bad, so this is going to get really boring if you're not on board. This is a review of the whole Archives series - Vampirella was first published in the late 60s, as the host of a "spooky tales of the unexpected" anthology comic, that they clearly thought would benefit from the main character being a vampire from another planet in a one piece bathing costume. The archives are from this early run, the stories are all of the "and then the stationmaster turned out to be the werewolf" type that never really come as a surprise (I used to be scared of this kind of thing as a child, to my shame). Later issues have a Vampirella story which is nearly but not quite interesting, and at least has a decent artist (who I think went on to do early 2000AD) who has clearly used a life model for our heroine while the other characters are vague cartoons of people. Hopefully this gets better
March 28, 2020
There is a lot of beautiful artwork, much inventiveness, loads of excitement and enthusiasm in this volume that collects the first seven issues of Vampirella magazine, from 1969-1970. Brimming with beautiful women, seductive witches, hideous monsters, thirsty vampires, hungry werewolves, and more, these tales are engaging to read and compelling to look at. Sometimes the writing is a bit clunky and misspelled and the endings to some of the stories fall a bit flat. Sometimes the artwork is a bit crude. But that is part of the charm of the tales in this volume: seeing and reading early works by evidently young creators, some of whom would become big deals in the comics medium. Vampirella Archives Vol. 1 even reprints the letters and fan club pages, and the advertisements, all of which are fun to read as well. I enjoyed the time I spent with this excellent archive.
February 23, 2018
Good pulpy horror and SF stories in comic book format. I didn't know before reading this that Vampirella wasn't, at least initially, the subject of her series but the host (like the Crypt Keeper or Elvira, for instance). Doesn't matter much, because the stories are enjoyable any way, and filled with variety. There's fantasy, sci fi, horror, and every possible combination thereof.
This volume contains the first 7 comics or so, meaning this is 391 pages of really great content. Even the poor stories are fun, so there's really not a boring moment.
Definitely worth a read.
This volume contains the first 7 comics or so, meaning this is 391 pages of really great content. Even the poor stories are fun, so there's really not a boring moment.
Definitely worth a read.
January 6, 2021
Vampirella herself is the host of this Vampirella: Archives, Volume One collection. Inside are seven separate magazines (what we would call graphic novels today). Each story within Vampirella: Archives, Volume One reminded me of watching a Hammer Film or an '80s Elvira flick. Miscellaneous authors and illustrators created this collection of scary stories.
March 22, 2021
Well, this wasn't as good as the Creepy Archives I have read so far. The art is good but the stories vary in quality. This volume, I am told, reprints the early issues of the magazine in which Vampirella hadn't really come into her own as a character, and basically served as a host for the stories. The cheesiness of it was kind of fun.
November 9, 2021
Campy and a tad sleazy...
June 30, 2022
Of its time, femme fatale horror so it depends if you like this sort of thing.
March 29, 2023
It's basically Tales from the Crypt, but not as well written.
August 10, 2023
i was hesitant just because... 1969
BUT
WOW
just....
WOW!
BUT
WOW
just....
WOW!
June 1, 2025
My favorite type of horror comics, just a great collection.
August 8, 2012
Initially, the original Vampirella comic was almost exactly like Warren Publishing's earlier horror comics, Creepy and Eerie, themselves both very similar to EC Comics' Tales from the Crypt. Each issue had a half dozen or so self-contained short stories, nearly always ending in some sort of ironic twist. While she apparently grew to have a more prominent role as the series progressed, in the issues collected here Vampirella herself acts in a Cryptkeeper role, setting the scene for the story and then wrapping it up with cheesy puns.
The artwork is hit-and-miss, with the exception of the occasional stunning Frank Frazetta cover. The stories are a bit dated and often corny, but the good ones are a lot of fun and the tedious ones end quickly. At least at this point in the series there's not much to separate Vampirella from Creepy except for the charm of the Vampirella character herself.
Still, this collection is a good bargain and an interesting look at the way horror comics used to be. I'd recommend it to horror fans, as long as they don't pick up this volume expecting to read many adventures of Vampi herself.
The artwork is hit-and-miss, with the exception of the occasional stunning Frank Frazetta cover. The stories are a bit dated and often corny, but the good ones are a lot of fun and the tedious ones end quickly. At least at this point in the series there's not much to separate Vampirella from Creepy except for the charm of the Vampirella character herself.
Still, this collection is a good bargain and an interesting look at the way horror comics used to be. I'd recommend it to horror fans, as long as they don't pick up this volume expecting to read many adventures of Vampi herself.
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