Dark Shadows<\/em> spawned books, tee-shirts, comic books, model kits, record albums and two films that were released theatrically.<\/p>\nThe ad appeared on the back of Vampirella<\/em> No. 10 published by Warren Publishing in 1971. The books along with tons of other horror and sci-fi related merchandise were sold by the Captain Company<\/em> which was part of Warren. Most of Warren’s publications were like mail-order catalogs that happened to have comics in them. The ads took up nearly half of these magazines, and they were half of the fun.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Vampirella-No-10-1971.jpg?resize=640%2C842&ssl=1\")
Sadly, Dark Shadows<\/em> was coming to an end as this issue of Vampirella<\/em> sat on the shelves of newsstands. I never understood why particularly back then. Other soap operas ran for decades with pedestrian plot lines about potential romances or failed romances. Why did Dark Shadows<\/em> burn so brightly only to burn out? It was like a lot of things that everybody loved in the ’60s such as Batman, The Monkees, The Munsters<\/em> or many others that were the hottest shows on television only to cool very quickly. One minute the network is all too happy to have Barnabas Collins<\/em> make appearances on The Mike Douglas Show<\/em> or American Bandstand<\/em> and the next they are holding their noses. Although Dark Shadows<\/em> did run for five years, it and the other shows felt more like a carnival that came to town rather than a television program that would hopefully last making the network and advertisers money. Nope. Set up the tent and the attractions and separate the rubes from their money as quickly as possible! It wasn’t meant to last.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This was an ad for a series of paperback novels based on the wildly popular gothic horror soap opera series Dark Shadows. This was like a number of shows in the 1960s that through some quirk of fate caught the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40963,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[335],"tags":[204,5662,312,2508,724,5661,498],"class_list":["post-40964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-what-i-miss-about-comics","tag-204","tag-barnabas","tag-comic","tag-dark-shadows","tag-vampire","tag-vampirella","tag-warren"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Barnabas-paperbacks.jpg?fit=640%2C249&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1ed1x-aEI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":42249,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2024\/01\/04\/you-cant-keep-a-good-vampire-down\/","url_meta":{"origin":40964,"position":0},"title":"You Can’t Keep a Good Vampire Down","author":"Joe","date":"January 4, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Although the TV series ended in 1971, vampire Barnabas Collins continued to haunt the comic book racks of newsstands and convenience stores well into the 1970s. The comic above was published by Gold Key in 1974 -- 50 years ago! If I had seen the cover of werewolf Quentin battling\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "What I Miss About Comics"","block_context":{"text":"What I Miss About Comics","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/what-i-miss-about-comics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Dark Shadows","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53441202637_ab28b4462c_c.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53441202637_ab28b4462c_c.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53441202637_ab28b4462c_c.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":12728,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2013\/04\/22\/glows-in-the-dark\/","url_meta":{"origin":40964,"position":1},"title":"Glows in the Dark!","author":"Joe_Williams","date":"April 22, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"It seems that everything old is new again. I don't necessarily mean the recent big screen movie version of Dark Shadows featuring baby-faced character actor Johnny Depp and arranged by stylist Tim Burton, but I'm thinking of Hemlock Grove which is a new horror series available through Netflix. Similar to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "What I Miss About Comics"","block_context":{"text":"What I Miss About Comics","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/what-i-miss-about-comics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/GLows-in-the-dark.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5065,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2011\/11\/07\/comics-will-rot-your-brain\/","url_meta":{"origin":40964,"position":2},"title":"Comics Will Rot Your Brain!","author":"Joe_Williams","date":"November 7, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Despite my love of comic books, there used to be a breed of comic magazines with lurid covers that Dr. Frederic Wertham was probably right about. They probably would rot your brain. I used to see these magazines in the same section as the detective and the really tawdry celebrity\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "What I Miss About Comics"","block_context":{"text":"What I Miss About Comics","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/what-i-miss-about-comics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/Witches-Tales-detail.jpg?fit=640%2C634&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/Witches-Tales-detail.jpg?fit=640%2C634&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/Witches-Tales-detail.jpg?fit=640%2C634&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":40196,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2023\/03\/07\/before-video-cassettes\/","url_meta":{"origin":40964,"position":3},"title":"Before Video Cassettes","author":"Joe","date":"March 7, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"A lot of members of the generation that begat the baby boomers were sold on movie cameras in order to capture those babies' first steps or opening presents Christmas morning or the vacation to the beach. And if Mom and Dad bought the motion picture camera, they had to have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blast from the Past"","block_context":{"text":"Blast from the Past","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/blast-from-the-past\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Sci-Fi Home Movies","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52730683869_844f700228_c.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52730683869_844f700228_c.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52730683869_844f700228_c.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3819,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2011\/10\/10\/comics-jewelry-full-dirt\/","url_meta":{"origin":40964,"position":4},"title":"Wear the Dirt of Dracula!","author":"Joe_Williams","date":"October 10, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Not just any dirt! No! This tiny coffin shaped charm contains one gram of actual earth from the grounds of Castle Dracula in Transylvania. It comes with a Certificate of Authenticity GUARANTEEING you that the dirt is real and it's really from Romania. I often wondered how they got the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "What I Miss About Comics"","block_context":{"text":"What I Miss About Comics","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/what-i-miss-about-comics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/creepy-cover.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/creepy-cover.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/creepy-cover.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":46437,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2025\/11\/13\/dream-a-little-dream\/","url_meta":{"origin":40964,"position":5},"title":"Dream a Little Dream","author":"Joe","date":"November 13, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"The advertisements in girl comics were always different. Whereas ads in boy's comics appealed to hapless adventurers with home built go-kart kits, antisocial ne'er-do-wells with practical jokes and future glue sniffers who had prurient interests with x-ray spectacles, girl ads were all about self image. They were either about finger\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blast from the Past"","block_context":{"text":"Blast from the Past","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/blast-from-the-past\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/crash-diet-det.jpg?fit=640%2C247&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/crash-diet-det.jpg?fit=640%2C247&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/crash-diet-det.jpg?fit=640%2C247&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Barnabas-paperbacks.jpg?resize=640%2C249&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\n