It’s a strange obsession for an eight-year-old growing up in the 90s to have. But when I saw Roger and Barnabas Collins exploring the abandoned halls of Collinwood’s west wing in some random episode of Dark Shadows, I was hooked. I was home sick with bronchitis and the television was left on the Sci-Fi Channel to babysit me (back when it was “Sci-Fi” and not the obnoxiously modernized “SyFy”). Vampires, witches, ghosts, werewolves, and gothic mansions were all my best of friends. They still are today at 35.
Throughout childhood, my summer ritual was watching Dark Shadows from 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM every weekday. And then I saw it—during one of the commercial breaks, Katheryn Lee Scott (the actress who portrayed Maggie Evans) was advertising a book she published called the Dark Shadows Comic Strip Book. I had to have it, but I wasn’t quick enough to catch the phone number on the television screen. Remember those days?
I never saw the commercial again, and all attempts to find any hint of this book at the chain bookstores of the day, like Walden Books and B. Dalton Bookseller, ended in failure.
It wasn’t until years later, when my parents finally cracked under pressure and bought a computer (if you can call an eMachines system a computer), that I found the book I so desperately wanted. After so much futile searching, there it was after only a few keystrokes.
The Dark Shadows Comic Strip Book was the first item I ever searched for and purchased from Amazon. I still remember receiving it in the mail and reading it for the first time. I cherished every single panel. The experience was well worth the wait. I still have the book, and it’s in damn good condition.
Why such a long lead-in? To establish I have a long and close relationship to the source material of the Dark Shadows comic strip. So when Hermes Press announced they were rereleasing the collection in a never-before-seen large format as Dark Shadows: The Complete Newspaper Strips, my excitement ran deep. It felt like the book was specifically being published for me. So excited was I that I immediately preordered the book, and I never preorder anything. But, since Hermes Press is a niche publisher of nostalgic material long since passed, I didn’t want to run the risk of losing out.
It’s no understatement in saying that Dark Shadows: The Complete Newspaper Strips is a magnificent book that pays loving tribute to not only the Dark Shadows strip and show, but as an archival piece for the comics medium. Because there’s a lot of respect and passion in this book, and as a reader and collector I felt it on every page and in every panel.
The original Dark Shadows comic strip was scripted by Elliot Caplin and meticulously illustrated by Ken Bald. Bald’s illustrated likeness to Jonathan Frid is still uncanny—it’s so strong that you can hear Frid’s voice and see his mannerisms animating the Barnabas Collins character in the strip. The entirety of the Dark Shadows comic strip rendering is rich with realistic detail, which only heightens the impact of its supernatural horror motif.
The original Dark Shadows newspaper comic strip ran from 14 March 1971 to 11 March 1972, and was syndicated in in several newspapers seven days a week. And thanks to the detailed and insightful introduction by English professor and Dark Shadows historian Jeff Thompson, the history and content of the strip are given the proper analysis it deserves. Among Thompson’s own books are House of Dan Curtis: The Television Mysteries of the Dark Shadows Auteur and The Television Horrors of Dan Curtis: Dark Shadows, The Night Stalker and Other Productions, 1966-2006. He knows his stuff and is the perfect voice to lead us into this dark adventure.
During its one-year run, The Dark Shadows comic strip told six stories. Some are boilerplate, while others take peculiarly delightful directions the show never even explored, which itself took many peculiarly delightful directions. The first involves a warlock bent on revenge. The second centers on an Egyptian goddess falling in love with Barnabas. The third tells the tale of a deadly werewolf stalking the inhabitants of Collinsport. The fourth marks the return of Barnabas’ love and nemesis, Angelique, as her dark master angles to capture the vampire’s soul. The fourth is probably the oddest, involving a supernal cult of immortal cat worshippers. And the sixth and final involves one of the shows most successful plot devices—time travel.
If I were to estimate the amount of actual plot consumed by rehashing the events of prior story points from preceding strips, I’d say at least a third of all narrative is taken up by this technique. It makes sense when considering the momentum and requirements of a daily newspaper strip telling detailed stories like Dark Shadows. When reading the strips in succession, however, the technique is a bit tedious, but it’s a minor complaint.
This speaks nothing to the flawless production value of the book produced by Hermes Press, though. Dark Shadows: The Complete Newspaper Strips is an example of why collecting books is rewarding and fun. The hardcover is sturdy and richly colored, and the interior paper stock is hearty with a semigloss soft to the touch.
And most importantly, the strips are full and vidid, with only two to a page (the Sunday features are given an entire page). Even the interiors of the front and back covers are decorated with enlarged panels from the strip showcasing the pivotal introduction of Barnabas to Elizabeth Collins Stoddard and and Carolyn Stoddard. The design choice has a ghostly touch worthy of the Dark Shadows spirit.
I’m so enamored with this book that I own three copies of it. One that I freely read and thumb through, and another that I have saved as a collector’s item. I also own the limited edition version, which is printed with a special red cover and signed by Lara Parker, the actress who played the legendary witch, Angelique, on the Dark Shadows soap opera (she, too, has gone on to write several novels expanding the Dark Shadows mythos).
Dark Shadows: The Complete Newspaper Strips is a book that is not for everyone, but I don’t think Hermes Press produced it to be. It’s a loving tribute to the gothic magic of Dark Shadows. It exists for people like me, and Jeff Thompson, and everyone else who wishes to have a place to escape to in our imaginations— a place called Collinwood.
