Posted in: Comics, Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: auction, heritage, vampirella
When Vampirella Went Full Colour For The First Time In 1992
Vampirella was created by Forrest J Ackerman and Trina Robbins as a female vampire host of Warren Publishing's black-and-white horror comics anthology Vampirella #1 in 1969, sitting alongside other horror comic book magazines Creepy and Eerie. Writer-editor Archie Goodwin then developed into a dramatic character in her own stories from 1970 on. Publishing up until 1983, Harris Publications actually published the final issue of that original series. In the nineties, Harris then revived the property and brought on high profile modern creators such as Kurt Busiek, Adam Hughes, Alan Moore, Warren Ellis, Mark Millar and more to add their talents, elevating a character that was seen as sexploitation and shock horror to something more intelligent, more classy and more self-aware of its own pulp nature.
After a collection of some of the magazine material, then the Vampirella: Morning in America four issue mini-series, and Vampirella's Summer Nights published in conjunction with Dark Horse, Harris published Vampirella in 1992 by Kurt Busiek, Tom Sniegoski, and Louis Small Jr in colour for the first time with an Adam Hughes cover. And it is the first issue of that series that is up for auction from Heritage Auctions, currently with combined bids of $56. And it goes under the hammer today. Vampirella is currently owned and published by Dynamite Entertainment, in a series of titles which also includes one of the more on the ball examinations of racial politics in America today, right under the noses of the kind of people who would be offended by such things. But that modernisation of Vampirella began here, thirty years ago. With an Adam Hughes cover to boot.
Vampirella #1 (Harris, 1992) CGC NM/MT 9.8 White pages. Kurt Busiek story. Adam Hughes cover. Overstreet 2021 NM- 9.2 value = $25. CGC census 5/22: 106 in 9.8, none higher.