Simply the Best: Tomb of Dracula #61

 I've been a bit of a latecomer to the Tomb of Dracula series of the 1970's.  I remember seeing it around, but for whatever reason I'd never bought any new issues from the squeaky comic racks (strange, considering how much of a monster fan I was).

That all changed a few years back when I attended the local FallCon and came across a stash of incredibly cheap Tomb of Dracula issues.  Whether it was because it was Halloween season, or just feeling like I needed to finally see what I was missing out on, I ended up bringing home a couple dozen issues.

Well, the stories were not only as good as I'd always heard they were, but actually better than what I was expecting.  Writer Marv Wolfman was much more subtle and restrained than I'd ever remembered him on superhero comics, and the incredibly moody (often spooky) artwork of Gene Colan remains the absolute best of his distinguished career.  Of course, the inking of Tom Palmer had alot to do with that, grounding and substantiating Colan's often whispy, ethereal pencils...yet never altering them beyond recognition.

In the years since then, I've been buying reasonably priced issues of Tomb wherever I find them.  Yeah, I know there's a bunch of cheaper black and white reprints of the series available, but the back issues are still cheap enough (at least for now) that I prefer having the actual comics.

Within that growing collection of Dracula comics, one
of my favorite covers is Tomb of Dracula #61 (1977):

Here's why:

1.  The most obvious reason would be the incredibly disturbing subject matter. In fact, I'm surprised the Comics Code Authority (the stamp in the upper right corner) let this one slide by.  Despite dozens of compelling, frightening covers before this one, the sight of a ghostly dead baby sends this one to an entirely different level of horror.

2.  A more subtle, yet equally powerful aspect of the cover is the wonderful design and implied motion of the scene.  The eye easily moves in a circular motion from the Tomb of Dracula logo, to the bat, to the bat's transformation into Dracula, to baby Janus, to Domini, then up to the curved cloud bank...which brings the eye back to the logo.  The curved motion of the clouds behind Domini also seem to give her arms a feeling of upward motion, as well as suggesting (quite literally) the dark powers behind her bid to resurrect the child.  The section where the bat is morphing into Dracula's still-incomplete form is also full of implied motion...to the point where it almost seems as if I'm watching it happen in a live-action movie.  A perfect example of Colan's mastery of shadowy, amorphous forms.

3.  Besides an uncharacteristic blast of bright colors (not typical for a Dracula cover), the bright magenta dawn sky also serves to crank the drama up even higher (if that's possible), by making Dracula's desperate plea even more frantic, since he's risking instant destruction from the sun's first rays (which you can see farther back on the horizon line).

4.  As if all of that wasn't enough, throw in Domini's weirdly transfixed face and Dracula's shocking request, and you've got a cover few could resist buying (despite the horrifying presence of a dead baby).

So...what are some of your favorite spooky covers? Let me know!