Kolchak The Night Stalker 50 Year Anniversary Graphic Novel

Monster Of The
Week Turns 50

Kolchak The Night Stalker
50 Year Anniversary
Graphic Novel
edited by James Aquilone
Moonstone ISBN 9781946346179

Last year was the 50th anniversary of the TV movie of the week The Night Stalker (reviewed here) and there’s a reason why I didn’t put these reviews up then and felt forced to stay my hand until 2023. The reason was that, at the start of 2022 I put some money into Kickstarter towards this hardback edition of a Fifty Years Of Kolchak graphic novel, with brand new stories featuring Kolchak in different decades from the 1930s to somewhere in the 2000s.

Now, I was a little sceptical of this collection because it was put out by Moonstone. I tried to read some Moonstone Kolchak comics a few years ago because I thought they’d make a good blog review but I couldn’t get through more than about six issues. They’d tried to update Kolchak to modern times, with mobile phones and internet and, it just wasn’t working. Also, more importantly, the style of writing didn’t really seem like it quite nailed it and... I dunno... it just didn’t feel like anything more than a cash grab, rather than the labour of love I was hoping for. However, there were two things about this new collection that made me sit up and take note...

One was that one of the comic book stories to be included would be written by one of my favourite authors, Kim Newman (who lists, among his many accomplishments, the Anno Dracula novels, one of which had a kind of bizarre displaced cameo by Kolchak). The other was that one of the covers I could have chosen (and did) was by Jerry Ordway, who was doing great things with Captain Marvel a couple of decades back... and by Captain Marvel I mean The Original Captain Marvel, who is nowadays known as SHAZAM!, of course. So yeah I ordered the book and, as a bonus reward, also signed up for an extra one-shot comic signed by one of the creators. 

Alas, there was a lot of fizzle in store for me on this particular Kickstarter... although, I have to say, not so much disappointment that I quite regret buying the book in the first place. I’m glad I made the purchase because it’s at least something which is a souvenir of the year Kolchak turned fifty... well kinda.

So my first disappointment was after I’d reviewed the four other things which preceeded this review, making up Kolchak Week at NUTS4R2, when I found out that the printed hardbacks and comics wouldn’t be ready by the end of the 50th anniversary year after all. Instead, we could download a PDF of the book but, yeah, if I’d wanted a PDF I would have ordered the cheaper option. I’m a print person, I want the real deal, not a bunch of ones and zeros dressed up as coloured pixels on a screen. So I took the decision to hold the reviews and push back Kolchak Week for a year, for when I had the book in its proper form.

My next disappointment, when the book finally did arrive earlier this year, was the beautiful looking signed comic that came with it. Hmm... should I read this before or after the main book? It was while I was trying to decide when I noticed that the comic did not house an extra story at all but, was itself also included in the hardback. So, yeah, I needn’t have bothered grabbing the comic book at all... which is annoying.

Thirdly... the book is a mixed bag, to be honest. After two separate introductions... one by James Rice, the son of Jeff Rice who wrote the original novel and another by R. C. Matheson, the son of Richard Matheson, who wrote the original teleplay... not to mention a dedication to Jeff Rice, Richard Matheson and Darren McGavin... the book is split into two sections comprising 12 comic book stories in the first section, followed by a smaller, second section containing ten text short stories. It reminded me a little of the old hardback Christmas Annuals we used to get over here in the UK in the 60s, 70s and 80s, with a mix between strip and text stories (and occasional ‘activities’) but, yeah, it’s a mixed bag.

Let me state the positive first... all the artwork in the pages is fantastic. A whole bunch of artists, mostly utlising fully painted artwork, all in different styles (although, I think some of them owe a debt of influence from the kind of hyper-real comic artwork that people like Alex Ross used to... and still does... indulge in) and all looking really great. If you are into cool art then you are going to dig this book.

The downside is... the writing on most of the book - comic strips and text stories alike - is really hit and miss about how well they are feeling like a Kolchak tale. There are a few interesting highlights, though. For instance, Kim Newmans Interview With The Night Stalker, which starts off with a wonderful splash page parodying the old ‘Max Von Sydow under a street lamp’ The Exorcist poster, is a retelling and expanded version of the denouement of the original The Night Stalker movie. You know the stuff where Kolchak entered the vampire’s house but, in this version, the vampire Skorzeny gives a kind of interview into Kolchak’s ever present tape recorder.

Another unusual one, although I didn’t love it so much as found it extremely interesting, is the last comic strip in the book. The book starts out with an elderly Ron Updike being left Carl’s notes which make up the stories in this volume. Kind of like a found footage literature, so to speak. He ominously states that Kolchak has ‘gone missing’ but left this stuff to him. Okay... spoiler territory folks. The last comic in the volume, The Last Byline, written by James Chambers, is set in the 2000s and has the vampiric father of Skorzeny returning to bite Kolchak and turn him into a vampire. After this has happened, Kolchak discovers three vampire armies waiting to emerge to take over the city and so, he kills himself just like the lead character did in the vampire movie 30 Days Of Night (and presumably the comic its based on) , by exposing himself to sunlight... but he also deliberately takes the vampire armies up in flames with him at the same time, sacrificing himself for the city. It’s a nice little story because it remembers two characters neglected from most of the stories here... Miss Emily plus the tragic departure of his girlfriend Gail from the end of The Night Stalker but, to me, it felt like a terrible ending for Kolchak. I really wouldn’t have liked to see him go out this way.

The text section has a better hit rate, as far as I’m concerned and I especially noted a werewolf themed tale which had a passage which said... “That’s Henry Rains. He and Claude Hull make up the other pack members.” I immediately twigged that if you transposed those two names you get Claude Rains and Henry Hull, two actors who have large parts to play in famous werewolf movies. So I went back and checked some of the other character names and, sure enough, there were a couple of guys called Michael Chaney and Lonnie Landon... so, yeah, transpose their names and you get Lon Chaney Jr and Michael Landon, two other actors associated with werewolf roles. So that was kinda fun.

My biggest problem with the book is this, though. There are various stories set at different stages of Kolchak’s life, from the 1930s where he’s depicted as a reporter for his High School classes, through some time served during the Second World War, the 1950s and even the Vietnam War. With all of these supposed tales taking place before the character’s debut in 1972. And, in that 1972 movie, it’s made very clear that, until he sees the vampire Skorzeny, he doesn’t have an interest in such things as the supernatural and certainly doesn’t believe in them until he’s suddenly confronted with the evidence. But all the pre-TV movie stories featured here include Kolchak encountering some supernatural forces... a fire flinging magician, a vampire, ghosts etc. So, really, The Night Stalker more than strongly implies that Kolchak has never had a supernatural encounter before but, here, these stories certainly say the opposite. As far as I’m concerned this is kind of a glaring continuity error and I’m kinda surprised that some of the writers bought into it the way they have here... it’s pretty silly.

So, yeah, sorry to conclude my Kolchak Week on a bit of a downer but, heck, like Kolchak, I always seek to tell the truth... at least as far as I understand it. Kolchak The Night Stalker 50th Anniversary graphic novel is a beautifully illustrated and presented book and certainly a nice souvenir for the Kolchak phenomenon but, it doesn’t really have all that much substance, it seems to me.