A
comic book series published by
Marvel Comics. Created by writer
Gerry Conway and artist
Gene Colan, the series made its debut in 1972, after a change in the
Comics Code Authority made
horror comics okay again.
So what was the basic storyline? The
infamous Count Dracula has been brought back to life (or unlife or
undeath or whatever) in modern times... and he
hungers for
BLOOD! What, you think he's gonna mope around and bitch about how awful it is being
immortal? Well, maybe a little. But for the most part, he's a busy man--places to go, people to suck.
Marv Wolfman took over the writing chores with the seventh issue, then stuck around for years afterwards. The Wolfman-Colan run on "Tomb of Dracula" is considered some of the best work on a
horror comic ever, introducing
Blade in the tenth issue and making Dracula one of the most
popular characters in horror comics ever (which is not really surprising, since Drac is also one of the most popular horror characters in any medium).
"Tomb of Dracula" ran for seven years, making it the longest-running comic book ever to feature a
villain as its
main character. Even after the book was cancelled, Dracula continued to guest-star in Marvel's books, battling
Spider-Man and
Doctor Strange and even briefly vampirizing the
X-Men's
Storm. In the mid-1980s, Doctor Strange cast a
spell that supposedly destroyed all the
vampires on Earth, but Dracula reappeared in Marvel's books fairly recently (just before the first "Blade" movie was released. Huh! What a
coincidence).
Research from http://www.toonopedia.com/dracula.htm