The original Warren costume

The early Harris costume

Skimpier and skimpier

Battle armor

A wild, raunchy-looking woman in an impossibly brief swimsuit leapt onto the news stands in September 1969 (see left).  The woman's name was Vampirella. The magazine's name was also Vampirella. And the thing that caught everyone's attention was that eye-popping costume.

Let your eye dwell for a moment on that costume. Remember this was 1969, when comics and magazines were a tad more conservative than today. There is no doubt that Vampirella really caught the eye, and for the women it was the costume more than anything else.

The artist was none other than the celebrated Frank Frazetta, well-known for his book covers and paintings of heroic fantasy, savage lands, jungles and women. The story of how the costume was first developed is one of the legends of comic history, often quoted and usually told with enough similarity to other versions that I think we can assume each version is fairly close to the truth.

The way that Jim Warren tells it is fairly straightforward. Warren wanted a fairly wild cover for his first issue, and he knew that Vampi's costume had to have major impact. He had a cover ready by a French painter named Aslan but felt that if he could get the Frazetta mystique it would add to the effect he wanted for that first cover.  Frank had obviously sent a first draft in, and Warren was in his office trying to explain to Frazetta how to draw the costume on the telephone when Trina Robbins (an underground artist just visiting to try and get some work) was in his office, overhearing it. She began to sketch a design based on what she was hearing, and Warren saw it and told Frank to talk to her. Trina took the telephone and described what she had sketched. The result became that famous costume. Later Frank added the armband and the bat logo on the front of Vampi's outfit

Frank's version of the event differs slightly.  Interestingly, in Vampirella #11 the editor's reply to a reader's letter only mentions Frazetta as the designer, but this was quickly corrected two issues later. There have been many criticisms of how quickly Frazetta's original design (which covered much more of her body than later) was adapted by other artists to reveal more and more of Vampi herself, which obviously worked commercially as Vampirella's sales increased.

However, in the Mystery Walk in Vengeance of Vampirella things are changed radically by the discovery that Vampi is not an inhabitant of an alien planet, but the daughter of Lilith.

Similarly Drakulon is not an alien planet but a part of Hell, and Vampirella's task is to atone for Lilith's misdeeds by killing all the vampires on Earth.

As part of her development she is rewarded with a special costume that Satyr and Circe (spiders in the Garden of Eden - not twin suns) have spun for her (see above left and right) that will become her trademark. That costume will become her trademark, distinguishing her from virtually all other female comic characters before and since.

  All images on this site are copyright © 1999, Harris Publications, Inc.  VAMPIRELLA ® and other characters are trademarks of Harris Publications, Inc. Text and concepts ©1999 Mike Grace. All rights reserved.