Notes From My Vampirella Expedition

I don’t often go to comic book shops
but now and then I do. I like writing
and I like drawing. Now corporations
seem to define the entire comics scene
even the so-called alternative press
but sometimes I go to comic book shops
just to see what’s new. Sometimes I look for
something old. The last time I visited
a comic book shop someone had told me
there was a Vampirella re-release
with the original Frazetta art.
I couldn’t find it. The owner helped look.
He couldn’t find it either but did find
“Crimson Chronicles—One,” the re-release
of the original Vampirella
stories that has all the inside artwork
but no covers. Not the Frazetta art.
I didn’t really want it but after
the owner was nice enough to help look
I bought it anyway to be polite.
The artwork’s still better than today’s stuff
even though it wasn’t Frazetta’s work.

At one point when I was looking around
the woman who works there was shelving books.
Walking in front of me, she dropped a book.
She kneeled down to pick it up and a space
opened up between her jeans and her back
and presented a sexy, shadowed scene
looking down at her butt and lingerie.

I wondered: Did the woman drop the book
just so she could kneel down in front of me
and show off a bit of her pretty butt?

The very next day—the very next day—
I was buying groceries and in line
I knew the woman in front of me but
she was on her phone, I couldn’t say hi.
The line wasn’t moving. She decided
to try another check-out lane. As she
stepped away, she dropped something and kneeled down
to pick up whatever it was. A space
opened up between her jeans and her back
and presented a sexy, shadowed scene
looking down at her butt and lingerie.

I wondered: What the hell is going on?
In this Jungian synchronicity?
Did she drop whatever it was she dropped
just so she could kneel down in front of me
and show off a bit of her pretty butt?

Anyway, I never got a copy
of Frazetta’s Vampirella cover.
A lot of stuff you see today isn’t
up to the standard set by Frazetta.
But you can’t stop looking around. Sometimes
you see stuff that’s better than Frazetta.

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Snow White And Vampirella


Quasi Una Snow White And Vampirella Fantasia



Frank Frazetta’s Pencils


Egyptian Queen, Grace Slick, Beyond Apollo