New Universal Monsters Comic Book Series'

[Anton Phibes]

Dave was a true Monster Kid!

He was a nice fella to talk to as well.

[darkmonkeygod]

Action Hobbies did a garage kit based on that cover art.

And Dave was the design illustratior behind Aurora's Monsters of the Movies line! How I wish this had become a styrene kit (as well as a comic book, of course).

[darkmonkeygod]

He was a nice fella to talk to as well.

That's actually one of my HUGE regrets. At the only show I attended that he was a guest of, I was young and had no idea he was a monster fan, much less a Creature fan, nor that he had designed the MotM model kits. As such I didn't even speak with him. X-Men was all the rage and I didn't care a whit about that. Had I but known!

That faux-cover illo is my #3 most wanted piece of art to this day. I would love to even see and examine the original.

[Anton Phibes]

That's actually one of my HUGE regrets. At the only show I attended that he was a guest of, I was young and had no idea he was a monster fan, much less a Creature fan, nor that he had designed the MotM model kits. As such I didn't even speak with him. X-Men was all the rage and I didn't care a whit about that. Had I but known!

That faux-cover illo is my #3 most wanted piece of art to this day. I would love to even see and examine the original.

He was at a show I was at. I wanna say it might have been a Wonderfest in KY, but its been so long ago. I was a huge X-Men fan growing up. Nightcrawler was one of my favorites.  So when I found out he was there, I was excited. Then he told me the tale of how he painted the Monsters of the Movies boxes, and told me about kits that didn't happen (Metaluna Mutant) and my young brain exploded. He was super nice, and not at all like today's ego maniacs.

[Mike Scott]

Looks nice on the wall. 

[Hepcat]

If you haven't given the Dell line a try, you might want to read some of the material that is available like Sea Hunt , Ghosts or their assorted TV and Western titles. They offer a good alternative to the myriad of super hero comics.

The Dell funny animal titles such as these continue to be among my favourite alternatives to superheroes:

[Hepcat]

Just bought Creature #1 (both covers) on eBay.

Don't you have even a local comic store let alone hobby shop? How far out into the sticks do you live?

[Hepcat]

Here's a gallery of the six covers being issued for #1:

Oh groan! So the multiple cover abuse continues to rear its ugly head.



And some people wonder why I'm all about nothing but vintage.

[Hepcat]

Because you mentioned them, and because they're always fun to see, here are some of the Cockrum Creature pitch pages and the cover were talking about.... The cover was published as a pin up in a Marvel Monster mag, Monster Madness #2, perhaps?

Huh?! Including the DC logo?

[Hepcat]

Then he told me the tale of how he painted the Monsters of the Movies boxes, and told me about kits that didn't happen (Metaluna Mutant) and my young brain exploded.

I still wish Aurora had issued a Metaluna Mutant kit as part of the original 1961-65 series of monster model kits with James Bama box art. I would have been all over that one as a kid!

[Mike Scott]

Don't you have even a local comic store let alone hobby shop? How far out into the sticks do you live?

We had one during the boom, but the internet killed it. Nearest one is 40 miles away. I don't need a comic shop. The last comic I bought was the last time one had a Creature on the cover.

[John Pertwee]

Blank covers are always fun, if you plan on having an artist do something with it. There are also a few people that buy them knowing that others will do that, and hope that their blank somehow becomes worth hundreds of dollars due to the fact most blanks get used. They won't ever get anyone rich but these fools don't understand that.

if you google sketch cover you can see the amazing covers that are one off works of art.

[John Pertwee]

Well, I have all four issues now, and I feel like they did old Drac a disservice with such poor artwork. I'm sorry, but I just don't like it. Perhaps my love of the old Tomb of Dracula spoiled it for me, with such beautiful art and wonderful story. I expected more.

[Rex fury]

The nearest shop to me that has new comics is also about 40 miles away. While I read a large section of the new material, I rarely buy them any longer. Issues of quality, storage space and cover prices all contribute to this.

Older material (1940's -early 1960s) has become increasingly hard to find in even the best brick and mortar stores. I travel frequently and try to visit stores whenever I can. However, if I'm buying Golden Age material it is almost always purchased through EBay. There's  other web sources like HipComic, etc. that have things I'm looking for, but they tend to be overpriced and inadequately graded. At least EBay sellers offer the cliche statement " I an not a professional grader", so you have a chance to decide a grade for yourself.

At one point I purchased a Captain America Comics 26 which turned out to be missing pages. The seller returned my money and apologized for the error. On the other end of the spectrum I bought a Patsy and Heidi comic from another auction site and it too was missing a page. That site gave me a too bad so sad run around!

Recent purchase include a nice run of Durango Kid comics, Challengers of the Unknown 3, and several more obscure books. Without the internet there would be no shop within a 100-200 mile radius that would have copies of these comics.

RF

[darkmonkeygod]

Well, I have all four issues now, and I feel like they did old Drac a disservice with such poor artwork.

I have to agree. I was shocked by the sub-par illustration work. The entire book looks as if they printed color roughs, particularly when compared to the rather intricate layouts published as back-matter in at least one of the issues I flipped through. It really is astonishing to me that Skybound would lead off their Universal Monsters line with such an amateurish, indecipherable mess, and that Universal would let them.