Movie Landmarks
If your DC series is getting old…Just Add Monsters! I mean it worked for Universal Pictures, didn’t it? Dracula, The Wolfman and good old Frankie appeared with Abbott & Costello in Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948). The Library of Congress deemed the film “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”. And boy, is it! How many funny monster movies, TV shows, cartoons, magazines and comics can point to that moment for their genesis? It was the beginning of a trope that remains with us today.
DC Comics wasn’t too interested in funny monsters in 1948. This was only the Golden Age of comics and superheroes were trying to find something to do since they had finished off the Nazis. Eventually, as Science Fiction writers like Edmond Hamilton came on board the villains would became super and more monsters from outer space would appear.
TV in the 1960s
It would take a revival of all things Abbott & Costello to bring the funny monsters to DC. The 1960s saw two TV shows appear in the same year, run for three seasons then like monsters lurk off into the night. The Munsters at CBS and The Addams Family at ABC featured classic monsters in domestic scenarios. Both shows have their fans, though The Addams Family later became a series of feature films. Being based on the cartoons of Charles Addams, their pedigree is a little more impressive. Cartoon shows like The Flintstones introduced similar horror families like the Gruesomes.
The Adventures of Bob Hope
Let’s get back to comics. The Adventures of Bob Hope ran for 109 issues from February-March 1950 to February-March 1968. After 94 issues of Bob being everything from a Caveman to a Cowboy, Murray Boltinoff, the editor, along with long-time writer-artist, Bob Oksner, added the characters of Coach Franklin Stein, Professor Von Wolfmann, Dr. Van Pyre and Zombia Ghastly. From October-November 1965 to the last fifteen issues, Bob would share the limelight with these supernatural buddies.
The Adventures of Jerry Lewis
The Adventures of Jerry Lewis didn’t go for a team like The Adventures of Bob Hope. The comic (after forty issues with Dean Martin) ran from November 1957 to May-June 1971. Instead they threw a different monster at Jerry beginning with Issue #83 (July-August 1964) just in time for The Addams Family and The Munsters were premiering on TV. You guessed it. The editor was Murray Boltinoff. The comic also brought in occasional superhero cameos like Superman and Wonder Woman but, like the film career of Jerry Lewis, its days were numbered.
Weird War Tales
But the funny comics weren’t the only ones to use this trick. The Horror comics (another genre that suffers boom and bust swings) would adopt the practice of adding a team of monsters (not really funny now) to bolster sales on anthology comics. Weird War Tales ran for 124 issues from September-October 1971 to June 1983. Unlike other horror titles this one combined Viet Nam War angst to the horror theme.
By Issue #93 (November 1980) the comic was losing readership. To boost sales, the Creature Commandos appeared with Griffith, Taylor and Velcro representing werewolf, Frankenstein’s monster and the vampire. Later Medusa was added. “The War That Time Forgot” and “G. I. Robot” shared the stage until #108 when the Creature Commandos became the comic’s lead feature. Writer J. M. Dematteis recalls how he came up with the idea: “I was doing War Tales[sic] for about six months before the DC implosion put me out of work for almost a year. And the last idea I had… I took a look at the title, Weird War, and I said, “Ya gotta have a lot of monsters.” (Comics Interview #38) The editors Len Wein and Joe Orlando let him run with it.
The House of Mystery
Over at The House of Mystery they were trying something similar. Editor, Karen Berger, made “I, Vampire” the comic’s main lead beginning with issue #302 (March 1982), again written by Dematteis and drawn by Tom Sutton. The series ended in Issue #319 (August 1983). A return to the anthology style saw a few more issues before cancellation. (The House of Secrets, The Witching Hour didn’t use this monster booster and were cancelled in 1978. The Unexpected added psychic investigator Johnny Peril and managed to hang on to 1982.)
Conclusion
So I guess we can agree that when a comic is on its last legs a booster shot of Monsters is just the thing. You’ll get a an extra dozen issues before cancellation. If your DC series is getting old…Just Add Monsters!
