Marvel Horror Magazines

Here are a collection of Marvel horror magazines published under their imprint Curtis Magazines.

Curtis Magazines existed from 1971 to 1980. The imprint published black-and-white magazines that did not carry the Comics Code Authority seal. Curtis's name was derived from Marvel's distributor Curtis Circulation, whose logo appeared on the magazines. The Marvel brand and logo did not appear anywhere on the cover or in the indicia, the only relation to the company being the publisher's name, Magazine Management, a name that the four-color comics stopped using in 1973 but was retained for the black-and-white magazines. Although the Marvel name did not "officially" appear on the magazines until 1981, the Curtis imprint was regularly advertised in Marvel publications, characters created in (or, as in the cases of Dracula and Conan the Barbarian, developed for) one line would make appearances (or even get their own series) in the other, and Curtis was openly acknowledged as a Marvel imprint by the editors in the magazines' editorials and letter columns in both formats.


Dracula Lives!
Edited by Roy Thomas (issues #1-7) and Marv Wolfman (#3, 8-13), Dracula Lives! ran for 13 issues and a reprint annual. Running concurrently with the longer-running Marvel comic Tomb of Dracula, the continuities of the two titles occasionally overlapped, with storylines often weaving between the two. Most of the time, however, the stories in Dracula Lives! were stand-alone tales. The title published Dracula stories by various creative teams from the Marvel bullpen, including a serialized adaptation of the original Bram Stoker novel, written by Thomas and drawn by Dick Giordano, that was never completed due to the magazine's cancellation. Text and photo articles were mostly on the Count's various film appearances.


Haunt of Horror
A short lived horror anthology edited by Roy Thomas (issues #1 & 2), Marv Wolfman (2-4), Tony Isabella (#3 & 4), David Anthony Kraft (#5), and Don McGregor (#5).


Masters of Terror
Edited by Tony Isabella, Masters of Terror published reprints of stories from late 1960s/early 1970s Marvel horror and suspense titles. The title lasted two issues.


Monsters of the Movies
Covering classic and contemporary horror movies, Monsters of the Movies included interviews, articles and photo features. The magazine was an attempt to cash in on the success of Warren's Famous Monsters of Filmland.
The Monsters of the Movies staff was roughly composed of half freelancing West Coast horror fans, and half members of the Marvel bullpen located on the East Coast. The West Coast editor was short story author and popular culture historian Jim Harmon. Over time, tensions developed between the West Coast and East Coast staff cliques, a factor that may have contributed to the series ending after just eight issues and an annual. A postmortem by Curtis assistant editor Ralph Macchio, appeared the following year in the pages of Marvel Preview #8: The Legion of Monsters (1976) (one of Marvel's final stabs at launching a magazine starring horror characters), and seemed to blame the West Coasters for the failure, and left ill feelings among them in its wake, especially as Macchio was not even on Marvel's staff during the events he described.


Monsters Unleashed
The focus of Monsters Unleashed was on Marvel's own monsters: Man-Thing, Werewolf by Night, and Frankenstein's monster. The title was an attempt by Marvel to compete with Warren Publishing's successful monster magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland (FMOF), but with the addition of comics. Simultaneously they were publishing Monsters of the Movies, which also emulated FMOF but did not include comics - only articles and photo features. Typically, each issue of Monsters Unleashed featured a Man-Thing story, a handful of original horror tales, some pre-Comics Code horror reprints, and possibly an article about monster movies and television shows. The comics were dominant, but each issue provided a more-or-less complete monster-fan experience.
Monsters Unleashed was edited by Roy Thomas for the first six issues, succeeded by Tony Isabella, and then Don McGregor for the last two issues. The painted covers were illustrated by the likes of Gray Morrow, Boris Vallejo, Neal Adams, Frank Brunner, Bob Larkin, Richard Hescox, Earl Norem, and Jose Antonio Domingo.


Tales of the Zombie
Edited by Roy Thomas (issues #1–10), Marv Wolfman (3–10), Tony Isabella (7 & 8), David Anthony Kraft (#9 & 10), Don McGregor (#9 & 10), and John Warner (#10), the magazine published ten issues and one annual (which was co-edited by Archie Goodwin). It's main feature was The Zombie (Simon William Garth) in stories mostly by Steve Gerber and Pablo Marcos. The character had originated 20 years earlier in the standalone story "Zombie" by Stan Lee and Bill Everett, published in the horror-anthology comic book Menace #5 (July 1953) from Marvel forerunner Atlas Comics.


Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction
This title was a science fiction and horror anthology that had a more thematic cohesiveness than the company's earlier attempts that decade. It adapted classic short stories of that genre, including works by Frederick Pohl, Harry Bates, and Theodore Sturgeon. Overseen by Roy Thomas, Unknown Worlds of SF published six issues and one special.


Vampire Tales
Vampire Tales featured vampires as both protagonists and antagonists. In addition to publishing anthological stories, the magazine starred Morbius the Living Vampire, the vampire hunter Blade and Lilith stories to issues #10-11. Issue #2 (Oct. 1973) introduced Satana, the Devil's Daughter, in a four-page teaser by writer-editor Roy Thomas and artist John Romita Sr.; and detective Hodiah Twist, created by Don McGregor and penciler Carlos Garzon.
Stories reprinted from Marvel's 1950s predecessor Atlas Comics included pre-Comics Code work by such artists as Bill Everett and Carmine Infantino. Modern reprints included writer-artist Jim Steranko's "At the Stroke of Midnight" from Tower of Shadows #1, and the 11-page Morbius origin sequence from The Amazing Spider-Man #102.
Writer Ron Goulart and Roy Thomas and artist Win Mortimer adapted the seminal vampire short story "The Vampyre", by John Polidori, in issue #1. Other adaptations included writer Don McGregor and artist Vicente Alcazar's "Bat's Belfry" and writer Tony Isabella and artist Esteban Maroto's "The Drifting Snow", both from August Derleth stories.
Edited by Roy Thomas (issues #1-5), Marv Wolfman (#6-10), and Archie Goodwin (#11), Vampire Tales featured vampires as both protagonists and antagonists.



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