Tomb of Dracula - undead but animated.

Anyone who reads this blog with any regularity at all will have encountered my contention that, along with The Defenders, Tomb of Dracula was the best American comic of the 1970s. Therefore thanks to Pum Spak of the Unemployed Monsters blog who's drawn my attention to the Japanese Toei Studios' 1980 cartoon version of Marvel's Tomb of Dracula. It's an adaptation of the Domini/Janus storyline from the strip's later issues. Dark stuff indeed for a cartoon to be tackling.

It has to be said you'd struggle to call it lively and, for some reason, it changes the names of major characters, including bafflingly renaming Dracula's wife Domini as Dolores(!).

It also suffers from ropey voice-overs and, of course, lacks the moody artwork of Gene (the Dean) Colan but, on the other hand, unlike many comic book based cartoons, it's clearly not afraid to show death. It also takes its subject matter seriously and is therefore spiritually purer than the infantalized Conan cartoon I remember watching in the early 1990s. No comedy relief phoenixes for Dracula.

It may not go down as a classic but, for those of a curious bent, here it is: