Happy World Dracula Day 2022!
What is World Dracula Day, you ask? Established in 2012 by the Whitby Dracula Society 1897, it’s the annual celebration of the first publication of Bram Stoker’s seminal novel, Dracula, on May 26, 1897—which would make today its 125th anniversary!
To celebrate, you could, of course, read the novel, or perhaps watch the 1931 film adaptation starring Bela Lugosi (or its Spanish-language version, starring Carlos Villarias) or the Frank Langella adaptation from 1979; maybe have a marathon of the Hammer Films’ Dracula series starring Christopher Lee as the count and Peter Cushing (who would have turned 108 today!) as his nemesis, Van Helsing; or perhaps even watch the unauthorized 1922 movie adaptation Nosferatu—which celebrated its 100th anniversary back in March—starring the unforgettable Max Schreck as the rat-faced Count Graf Orlok.
Right now, though, let’s take a trip through the Horror Comics Archives for an appropriate spooky story! Here we have “True Vampires of History!,” a one-page terror tale that first appeared in Adventures into the Unknown! #54, published in April 1954 by ACG (American Comics Group).
Although the writer is unknown—1950s comics rarely carried creative team credit—the art is by Bob Forgione (1929–1994), who started out as an assistant to Jerry Robinson, the legendary co-creator (with writer Bill Finger) of Robin the Boy Wonder and Batman’s archnemesis, the Joker. On his own, in addition to his work for ACG, Forgione provided art for such titles as Atlas/Marvel’s Strange Tales and Tales to Astonish, DC’s Our Army at War and G.I. Combat, and Charlton Comics’ The Thing, and as an uncredited artist on the pulp-hero newspaper comic strip The Phantom.
So, Happy World Dracula Day to one and all! However you celebrate the occasion, make it a fangtastic one!
There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call…the Twilight Zone.
“One for the Angels” (written by Rod Serling; Season 1): The second episode of the series stars Ed Wynn as Lou Bookman and Murray Hamilton (who’s probably best known as the mayor of Amity in the original Jaws) as Mr. Death. Bookman is a third-rate salesman who peddles tchotchkes and items of little use on the streets of New York—a failure in life who’s nevertheless shocked to find Death waiting to take him to the great beyond. Bookman doesn’t want to go, though, not until he’s achieved his ultimate dream as a peddler: to make a sales pitch so amazingly enticing that no one can resist it—“one for the angels,” he calls it. Death, surprisingly, agrees to back off until Bookman succeeds. Of course, what both he and Bookman know is that the peddler has no intention of ever trying to succeed, not if it ends with a trip to the afterlife. And so Death takes steps that will ensure Bookman makes his angelic sales pitch…
“A Game of Pool” (written by George Clayton Johnson; Season 3): Jack Klugman might best be remembered for his role as the slobby sports writer Oscar Madison in the TV comedy series The Odd Couple (alongside Tony Randall as Oscar’s obsessive-compulsive “neat freak” roommate, Felix Unger), but before that he’d established himself as one of Hollywood’s top-level character actors. In “A Game of Pool,” he plays Jesse Cardiff, who dreams of being the all-time-greatest pool player, but knows he can’t because the man he’d have to beat for that title—the legendary “Fats” Brown (played by comedic actor Jonathan Winters)—died years ago. But then Fats pays a visit from the afterlife to challenge him…
“The 7th is Made Up of Phantoms” (written by Rod Serling; Season 5): Three National Guardsmen (Warren Oates, Ron Foster, and Randy Boone) on weekend maneuvers near the site of General George Custer’s defeat by Native American tribes at the Little Bighorn in Montana slowly find themselves drawn into that historical battle. It’s no surprise as to what the payoff will be, but watching the Guardsmen as they journey on toward their fate is worth the watch.
“The Obsolete Man” (written by Rod Serling; Season 2): A totalitarian society decides which citizens have value and which have become worthless—such as Romney Wordsworth (played by Burgess Meredith), whose job as a librarian is considered “obsolete.” The punishment for obsolescence is death, which he’s willing to face with one exception: the man who judged him, the Chancellor (Fritz Weaver), must sit with him right up to the appointed time of his execution. What Wordsworth doesn’t say is just why he wants the Chancellor in attendance… Overall it’s a good episode with great performances by Meredith and Weaver, but its final act gets a bit ham-fisted when Serling injects clichés into the story by having Wordsworth read passages from the Bible so the Chancellor can get some religion.
“The Howling Man” (written by Charles Beaumont, based on his short story; Season 2): Lost in a storm somewhere in Europe, David Ellington (H.M. Wynant) stumbles across a castle run by a religious order that’s led by Brother Jerome (horror legend John Carradine). At first Jerome refuses to allow Ellington in, but when the man collapses on the doorstep Jerome and the other monks have no choice but to give him aid. Ellington is grateful for their help, but his gratitude comes to a quick end when he discovers that the monks are holding someone prisoner—a man whose unearthly howling convinces Ellington that the prisoner must be freed. That’s when Brother Jerome explains just who the howling man really is—and what his release could do to the world…