Vampirella Archives Vol. 2

Vampirella Archives #2

by Archie Goodwin, Dennis O'Neil, Steve Englehart

More classic stories of Vampirella and other femme fatales in complete reprints from issue 8-14 of the original Vampirella Magazine series. A rogue's gallery of creators are on board in these classic tales faithfully collected and brought to you by Dynamite Entertainment. Archie Goodwin begins writing the tales of Vampirella and evolves the heroine to a new, more sophisticated level of depth into is what to become the most treasured Vampirella stories of all time. Contributing to Archie's storylines and the quintessential look of Vampirella was the art of Jose Gonzalez, which kicks off in this very collection with 'Death's Dark Angel.' It hardly ends there with classic short stories from the likes of Neal Adams, Wally Wood, Barry Windsor Smith, Jeff Jones, Denny O'Neil, Steve Englehart, Dave Cockrum, Frank Brunner, Esteban Maroto and more! All encased in a beautiful bound volume with a cover by master artist Sanjulian. Volume 2 collects 7 more terrifying issues of the magazine's original run, issues 8-14, reprinted in its original magazine-sized format.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Horror, Fantasy, Supernatural

405 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 7, 2010

About the author

Archie Goodwin was an American comic book writer, editor, and artist. He worked on a number of comic strips in addition to comic books, and is best known for his Warren and Marvel Comics work. For Warren he was chief writer and editor of landmark horror anthology titles Creepy and Eerie, and for Marvel he set up the creator-owned Epic Comics as well as adapting Star Wars into both comics and newspaper strips. He is regularly cited as the "best-loved comic book editor, ever."

Reviews

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful B&W art and a nice unusual comic story. Try a different type of comic in this Silver age Warren collected edition. Recommended

[Ruz El · Rating 4 out of 5]

After volume one of this series I was really dreading this book. Thankfully things change relatively quick and the series starts firing off on all cylinders. There are still some sub par stories, anthologies are never going to please everyone, but on the whole it's surprisingly solid. Ad in a couple of Wally Wood mind blowers and this volume is well worth the price. I hope the quality continues down the line. I guess that's the problem with these Warren reprints, Warren was never that stable to begin with.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really love this collection. But some of the stories are a bit dull and some of the stories that are not so dull are pretty juvenile. But I guess that's the charm. Some great Spanish artists, like Esteban Maroto and Jose Gonzalez do some outstanding work. Also, some of the classic American artist are also turning in great stuff. My favorites among them are Wally Wood, Tom Sutton, and Mike Ploog. Also, the artist I always look for in these collections, one of the best, was Jerry Grandenetti.

[LordSlaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume really ramps up the quality when compared to the Volume One archive. The stories are stronger and longer, the artwork is superb, we get some gorgeous Wally Wood, Josè Gonzalez, and Esteban Maroto drawings, and some nice long stories about Vampirella herself. Excellent.

[Bread · Rating 3 out of 5]

fairly entertaining once you get over how misogynistic it is (yes I know it's a series that didn't exactly come out yesterday, but still. a few stories are really bad in that regard). vampirella's fun as a character, I would love to meet her and get a drink with her if she were real

[David Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vampirella is awesome! Unfortunately, only about a quarter of the remaining of the stories contained within are worth reading.

[Kris Shaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is a marked improvement in the quality of the stories in these issues over the ones collected in Volume One. Vampirella benefited from being a magazine, free from the conventions of the Comics Code Authority which strangled creativity at the time. These stories are a mixed bag, being either hit or miss.

Some stories, such as To Kill A God by Wally Wood and She'll Never Learn from issue 11, are excellent, while others fall flat on their face. The ones that are good are really good, while the ones that are bad tend to be really, really bad.

Esteban Maroto makes his Warren Magazines debut here. He is an incredible artist whose work I have bumped into now and again, and I always enjoy it when I see it. Ken Barr is another artist whose work really shines here. Archie Goodwin really locks into a groove and establishes a continuity for Vampirella. I can see why this was so popular with the Baby Boomers, especially those in their adolescence during the original publication dates. Lots of double entendre and cheescake poses in her stories, ripe for teenage fantasies. The best stories are the ones that don't feature Vampirella and are likely left over from the other Warren mags, Creepy and Eerie.

I love the paper used in these books. It's a super-duper thick coated stock with a dull matte finish. While this book has sewn binding, the casing is glued square into the spine, which prevents the binding to flex so that the book can lay flat. This book weighs 3.2 pounds (1.4515 kilograms), and the super squared binding and spine make it uncomfortable to hold in your hand to read. It doesn't lay flat within the first or last 100 pages. It's slightly over 400 pages, so it only lays flat for half of the book. This is publishing amateur hour.

There is a page sequencing error in Issue 9. Page 7 is placed before Page 5 on Jack the Ripper Strikes Again. This is unfortunate and amateurish, but at least it's better than what happened with Volume 3, which omitted 3 pages of story from 3 different stories. I'm not looking forward to reading that one. Dynamite never acknowledged the fans' complaints, nor did they offer a solution.

Solutions other publishers who have made similar mistakes have offered: Marvel omitted a story page in one of their old G.I. Joe trade paperbacks, but included it in the back of the next volume. Gemstone repeated a cover and omitted another in Weird Science Archives Vol. 3. They printed out a tip-in sheet, which was sent to all retailers for those who ordered the book. They also went to great expense and cracked open every remaining copy in the warehouse, inserted the tip-in sheet, and resealed them. Fantagraphics/Blake Bell omitted two pages in two separate stories in The Steve Ditko Archives Vol. 3, and offered two solutions. Printable tip-in sheets on the Fantagraphics website and the complete stories will be included in Volume 4.

All are satisfactory solutions to unfortunate editorial errors. Dynamite has done nothing, and have as a result they have lost me.

[Daniel James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is it wrong to like Vampirella in this day and age? Probably. Is her costume ridiculously inappropriate for almost any day-to-day task? Maybe. Do I want her six-foot door poster for my man-cave? Definitely.

As other readers have commented, this collection has more going for it than Volume One, the art is better as is the writing. The stories about Vampirella herself are the best and her character is quite endearing. I found myself chuckling at almost every page, including the readers letters which are by turns naive, bizarre and hilarious.

A magical glimpse back at a more innocent time.

[Ralph Carlson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the original magazine. It is great to have them in hardcover volumes.