Jeez, I hope I got the color scheme right this time.
And, here's the smartass description that accompanied the auction:
Once upon a time in the 1960s there was a "Vampire Girl" magazine. All the kids thought she was great, though the stories weren't too good it didn't matter. After a time people forgot about her and her cousin an' uncle and the mags died. Later, some guys bought her and started the mags again. Trouble was, they didn't understand her and didn't care to either. The vampire gal all the kids loved became a dumb piece of meat in dumb comic books with too much blood in 'em. But people thought she still looked good in spite of her being just a costume anymore, and bought the new mags. Everybody else got sick in their stomachs. One day some hotshot artist decided to make a new Horror gal and he called her OCTAVIA. She don't care to show all that skin--TO YOU, PAL. Because that's not the point, because it ain't nice, and because of ya just met. So Octavia comic books got made and people were much much happier wit her the end.
3 comments:
Mike, I missed this one on eBay somehow, but it's a beaut. Agree with everything you wrote about the misuse/abuse of Vampirella. Updating her for a slasher audience and then for the manga crowd did her no favors.
I first came across vampirella in a collection of short stories by Angela Carter produced for the radio in 1979.
Didn't know about the comic character till quite recently. One of the other short stories became a well known movie 'The Company of wolves'
To this day I haven't looked at one of the comic books though I have seen quite a illustrations thanks to Frazetta and Mike.
This isn't the same Vampirella Adrian. Carter's BBC radio plays were based on classic fairy tales. The comic character was created by Forrest J. Ackerman for James Warren's magazine.
The comic creation was always a sexual stereotype. What kind of woman goes around in skimpy clothing that barely holds their breasts in place. She was a sexual fantasy created to sell comic books. Harris just emphasized that even more. Sex sells.
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