Wednesday 21 September 2022

                                      Short and Sweet Illawarra Week Two 


There are a number of fine plays being staged on the 22nd, 23rd and 24th of September 2022 at the Phoenix Theatre in Coniston, NSW, Australia including Rest in Peace and The Tea Test. Some dramas some comedies. All well worth checking out.

  


The Rose is offered up as a mystery with a lively ghost.

 Short and Sweet plays at the Phoenix Theatre,                  Coniston, NSW, Australia 


In the play The Rose the flowering plant stands for many things. It is a romance of sorts and a haunting. Do come along and see it live. 



Penelope Murphy and Jasmin Sojai give a grand performance as Kat and Joan. They are two women determined to work out the meaning of the rose.


A ghost played by Tom Hadley might stand a chance of getting what he wants before he moves on. 

  





Tuesday 13 September 2022

                                                               The Rose

A play as part of short and Sweet. The Phoenix Theatre from 22nd, 23rd and 24th of September.

It is an unconventional love story with a ghost involved. It is a ghost with a lot of spirit. 

The rose has more than one meaning. Just how much meaning can the rose have for the two women and the dead man? 

There is a mystery here an audience will enjoy.  



Wednesday 7 September 2022

                                                The Tomb of Dracula


     In the early 1970s comics code authority restrictions on horror were eased. The comics code authority, with its unique stamp, came about in the 1950s because most of the major comic book companies in  the USA wanted a censor to restore faith among consumers in the industry. Doctor Wertham and others had stirred up the American public and others against comic book publishing. The answer back then was to create a self-censor. 

     Horror in the comics, when the code came into being, was virtually banned but, after over a decade of harsh censorship, it was allowed back in. Also by the 1970s, the size of the comic code authority on comic book covers had shrunk noticeably in size indicating it was losing its importance. This may have been partly the result of comic books referred to as comix, such as Slow Death, which did not carry the code stamp and were originally sold on campus and in record bars. Then came the comic book specialty shops. Many of the owners sold both code approved and code not approved comics. 

     Marvel's renewed venture into the field of horror also coincided with the company being in a position to publish more titles. It was no doubt reasoned by Stan Lee and others that the craze for costumed superheroes could not last forever and that it would be a good idea to also put out horror that wasn't 1950s or early 1960s reprints. 

     In the 1950s, horror (or mystery) and science fiction put out by Atlas, the name Marvel went by back then, was generally anthological in nature like the television show The Twilight Zone. After the success of The Fantastic Four, however, most if not all Marvel titles, became sequential. They all had that soap opera feel where you got to know the characters on a more personal level as you followed both their adventures and misadventures from issue to issue. When both The Tomb of Dracula and Werewolf by Night started up, it was decided to continue this trend into horror. 

     There are artists and writers that I know that never really gave The Tomb of Dracula much of a go because their idea of horror in the comics was of an anthological nature. Also, they didn't care much for a company that mainly dealt in  superheroes. Even so, The Tomb of Dracula, in its seven year run, won at least one industry award for excellence. The chief artist throughout the run was Gene Colan who began drawing for comics back before he was sent to Hawaii as an M.P. during the Second World War. After leaving the military, he first worked for DC but did his very best work in the 1960s and 1970s for Marvel. 

     It was writer Gerry Conway that wrote the first issue of The Tomb of Dracula but it is Marv Wolfman, who kicked off in issue seven, that is best remembered for his work on this publication. Marv Wolfman had worked for DC as well as Marvel. He had also been involved in comix. 


     In 1972, when The Tomb of Dracula first came out, the British Hammer horror movies were very popular. It was the eerie atmosphere in them that fascinated and inspired Gene Colan, the inkers and the writers he was working with, inkers such as Tom Palmer. The will-o' the-wisp style of Dracula and other vampires either changing into bat form or vapor was much appreciated by fans. Also, the majority of the stories were set in Europe rather than the USA. This could be seen as a bold move since much of the readership lived in the USA. Yet Transylvania and then England suited the story lines very well. Frank Drake, a distant relative of Dracula, is an American caught up in the need by others, such as the beautiful Rachel Van Helsing, to put the most powerful of all vampires to final rest. 

     Dracula, as it turned out, had been slain numerous times and usually, thanks to the stupidity or greed of others, returned to unlife. Various methods of dealing with Dracula were devised. There's Rachel with her crossbow and wooden bolts and, in issue ten we have the first appearance of Blade vampire-slayer with this wooden knives. It should be noted that this The Tomb of Dracula Blade is a black man born in London and not the USA. The movies had Blade as an American. Instead of the wooden knives of The Tomb of Dracula and other horror titles of the 1970s, the movies had him with a great sword. Personally, I prefer the Blade of the 1970s comic books. 

     Another title that had a run in the 1970s was Werewolf by Night. It was enjoyable but I never really understood the difference between the strength of the werewolf and the lad who becomes the werewolf. It seemed to me that many of the men who went up against him when he was the werewolf had natural strength with which to combat the monster. Also, some of these men could defeat the werewolf. The last issue of Werewolf by Night attempted to turn the werewolf into a kind of superhero with fur which I believe wasn't a very good idea. 


     Brother Voodoo came out in 1973 in Strange Tales 169. This was well after The Tomb of Dracula had been established as a winner. The first writer was Len Wein and the art was by Gene Colan. The character drifted from one comic book or comic magazine to another but, as far as I know, was never given its own title.


     Brother Voodoo was about a man who is inhabited by his dead brother's spirit and is thus endowed with special powers. After Gene Colan stopped working on Brother Voodoo the character fell into the hands of less talented artists and has, for the most part, been forgotten by comic book fans. 



     In 1991 The Tomb of Dracula mini-series was launched by Marvel. Marv Wolfman was brought back as writer and Gene Colan as chief artist. It followed Frank Drake and his efforts to once more rid the world of the most infamous of vampires. Blade makes an appearance as an overly committed vampire slayer. Again blade has his 
sharp wooden knives.
 

     I don't know of any present day Marvel comics that has much to do with horror. It was mostly a 1970s thing. Superheroes are still around but, thanks to political correctness and woke, have lost much of their fan base. Perhaps this is not a good time for horror to return to the comic books.        

          

          

      

Bellambi Lagoon, New South Wales