Vampirella was a natural by-product of the seventies, a decade inundated with the occult and sexploitation. It was meant to be. First, Hammer films kept hitting us with vampire cleavage (Twins of Evil, Lust for a Vampire, Countess Dracula) and then black and white horror magazines which pushed the envelope of good taste became extremely popular - it was a match made in heaven..... I mean, hell.
It was like the Reeses commercials: "You got your sexploitation in my horror!.... No, you got your horror in my sexploitation!..... Mmmmmm. it's two great tastes that go great together!"
The magazine's popularity was no doubt due in part to the cover art. It was hard not to shell out thirty-five cents for a magazine with this blood-sucking sex bomb on the cover. And buyers weren't disappointed - Vampirella mags always delivered the goods with plenty of racy content and horrific imagery. They didn't play around back then. Indeed, comics today may be more glossy, but B&W horror comics were solid gold blood, guts and sex. Giddyup.
The first few issues featured her as a sort of Cryptkeeper (a la Tales from the Crypt), narrating an anthology of horror tales. Then, she got stories of her own, and the rest is history.... that is, until Warren Publishing went belly up. Hollywood got their hands on the Vampirella rights a couple times; alas, it was better they had never tried. The two Vampirella movies are worse than you could ever imagine. The formula would seem simple - put a hot mama in a Vampirella costume, and roll film! You would think it would be impossible to screw up..... never say "impossible to screw up" when you're talking about Hollywood.
Anyway, here's about 120 Vampirella covers for you to download. You can thank me later. Until then, enjoy a selection of covers below. I'd also recommend you read a short article on the chick from Draculon here; an interesting, humorous article which I used when writing this post.
Download all 120+ Vampirella covers
