My quest to read all things Gerber led me into an area of Marvel's legacy that is completely esoteric to me - fittingly, perhaps. The Marvel horror magazines of this era never held much draw for me as a kid, when they were in their dotage, and the older stuff was just never available enough to even register on my pre-pubescent brain. If is wasn't superheroes or Transformers, I wasn't interested.
In today's issue, we have the first story of Lilith, the daughter of Dracula, plotted by Marv Wolfman and dialogued by Mr. Gerber. It's an interesting way of writing. If I understand the Marvel method, Wolfman would have plotted it, given it to Bob Brown, who would have drawn it, and then it would have gone to Gerber, who would dialogue the art according to the plot. I guess it makes more sense if the same person plots and scripts, but when it's someone else, that would be strange. Conversely, perhaps that's a more truly representative way of thinking about the collaborative process of comics. The dialogue is provided after the story has been told. Though I imagine Brown would be thinking about speech bubble placement while he was drawing.
It's not a collaboration that I see in contemporary comics that much, except perhaps in cases where a writer has...um...unexpectedly departed a title, where they might be credited with the story, along with a fill-in scripter.
So, as far as a Gerber piece, it was middling. Lilith is a nicely feminist character, despite her typical superheroine garb, but the stories really are pretty run of the mill. The same goes for the other tales in here, all interesting takes on vampires, but nothing that leapt out at me. Maybe that's a good thing in a vampire comic ;D
Onward.
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