Vincent Price Gets Overdue Comics Presence in Latest Elvira Outing

Horror comics have tradtionally been hosted by a personality: The Crypt Keeper, Cain, Abel, The Midnight Philosopher and Ariadne. Sometimes the host is a licensed character, like Elvira, who is the front-and-center star of this comic from Dynamite, which shows us an Elvira in a somewhat more prosaic life. And by prosaic, I mean it shows her from a real-world perspective: a horror hostess pitching her horror hosting gig to networks so she can keep her career going, while at the same time encountering supernatural phenomenon complicating her life.

In Elvira Meets Vincent Price, our Mistress of the Dark is pitching a new slant on a hosted horror series to DeathFlix. The pitches, however, fall on deaf ears and Elvira's greatest terror -- unemployment -- looms large, especially when her agent betrays her. But before she can dwell on that particular mess, she's dragged into another supernatural adventure by none other than the ghost of one of the greatest horror actors of all time -- Vincent Price!

Vincent comes in many forms to Elvira to recruit her assistance in thwarting an evil scheme that could spell the end for all mankind; a scheme that involves a horror film thought to be the stuff of Hollywood urban legends -- the lost film called Rise of the Ram, starring Vincent Price.

This being an Elvira comic, there's plenty of fourth-wall-breaking quips as we make our way to the climax of the issue, while Vincent presents himself in different forms throughout, replicating is appearances from the many films in which he starred.

As he has done with his incomparable work on the various Bettie Page arcs, writer David Avallone has expertly captured the cadence and intonation of the real life characters he inserts into his stories, to the degree that one cannot help but hear the inimitible inflections of Vincent Price with every word balloon the character utters. Juan Samu's artwork captures facial expressions adeptly, although the characters frequently look a bit "Mad Magazine" cartoonish, particularly in contrast to the images of Vincent, but not enough to distract from the story. And while this first chapter is by-and-large an amusing and engaging (but nonetheless) setup for the action to come, this reader can't help but wonder why nobody has taken the initiative to license Vincent Price's image to be the host of his own comic book anthology of the macabre. It would seem to be, as they say, a 'no-brainer.'