Bring on the back ups - Vampire Tales issue 9 - Blood Lunge - by Russ Heath /Doug Moench

Continuing with the Halloween theme this time I focus on Marvel’s "Vampire Tales" magazine which ran for 11 issues and one annual, over the period 1973 to June 1975. The magazine featured various tales of horror based characters including Morbius, the Living Vampire, Blade the Vampire Slayer, Lilith, Dracula's daughter, and Satana, the Devil's Daughter (an amazing 4 page tale of Satana by Roy Thomas and John Romita Sr is shown here ). But it was a short vampire story by Dough Moench and Russ Heath from Vampire Tales issue 9 (December 1974) that has always stuck out in my memory. A nice tale taken to a different level by the genius of artist Russ Heath.

This story was originally printed in the wrong order in Vampire Tales issue 9 with the second page (above) being published as the fourth story Page. This was rectified when the story was reprinted in the first (and only) Vampire Tales annual in 1975.

Vampire Tales held a special place in my teenage nightmares as it featured a story that genuinely freaked me out. The tale “Where is Gallows Bend…?” written by Don McGregor and illustrated by Tom Sutton from issue 7 featured a few pages where a man is hung , the last page (below) of that story really shocked me when I saw it, but 14 years old me loved it !