STOKER'S DRACULA

By: Kurt Amacker
Review Date: Wednesday, October 27, 2004

This is something I never thought I'd see. In 1973, Marvel launched DRACULA LIVES! - a black and white, bimonthly magazine-sized comic to complement Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan's TOMB OF DRACULA. The magazine didn't go through the Comics Code and was aimed at a slightly older audience. This is interesting because Wolfman originally intended to publish TOMB OF DRACULA in that very format, rather than the monthly, in-color, all-ages title that it became. DRACULA LIVES! featured a compilation of stories involving the Marvel Universe Dracula, articles about vampire movies and folklore, and reprints of short pieces from earlier horror comics from the fifties, such as Eerie.

Roy Thomas proposed serializing a faithful adaptation of Bram Stoker's original novel in the pages of DRACULA LIVES! The plan was to print about 10-12 pages per issue until the story was finished. Unfortunately, Dracula didn't live quite long enough. DRACULA LIVES! was cancelled after 13 issues and an annual. The adaptation was scheduled to resume in another magazine called LEGION OF MONSTERS, but that one was cancelled after only one issue. Then, nothing happened for 30 years. Now, the entire story is being reprinted and finished in four issues.

Bram Stoker's DRACULA was and remains my single favorite novel ever. I first heard about this project a couple of years ago when I was hunting down back issues featuring the Marvel U.'s Dracula, including the original issues that this series reprints ("hunting down" probably makes it sound more exciting than it was; "on an E-Bay spree" is a better description). I've always sought good retellings of Stoker's novel in other mediums and, thus far, most of the efforts to adapt the book into comic form have been wanting. The now-defunct Malibu Graphics did one years ago that took out a huge chunk of the middle of the book. Before that, there was a one-issue retelling in MARVEL CLASSIC COMICS, but that was just sad. Thomas's vision was to do the most faithful adaptation of the book in any medium. Ever.

Thus far, he's succeeded and the results are simply fantastic.

Most people are probably at least passingly familiar with the story, so I won't rehash it too thoroughly. This issue covers the start of the novel through Jonathan Harker's discovery of Dracula in his coffin and his subsequent decision to escape the castle at the risk of his own life. In between, the creative team includes a lot of details most cinematic treatments of the book eschew the blue fires on the Eve of St. George, the conversation Jonathan has with the count's mysterious coachman, and a few other tidbits I'd even forgotten were in the novel and wrongly assumed were added by Thomas (and believe me, I checked). However, this is not simply a copy of the novel with pictures. Some of the dialogue is rearranged and certain descriptive passages are paraphrased, but it does the book no disservice.

What's most impressive is that the comic (at least this issue) manages to capture the sense of claustrophobic, subtle, ever-increasing sense of dread that Harker experiences while in Dracula's castle. Thomas and Giordano understand the essence of Stoker's vampire. Outwardly, he is barely genteel just polite enough to not make one turn away in revulsion at his feral appearance (fangs, pointy ears, long nails, hairy palms, etc.), but his treatment of Harker betrays a manipulative, sadistic cruelty hiding behind his civilized veneer. In this regard, there is a different dimension to Dracula's violence that is often overlooked the psychological. Throughout most of Stoker's novel, Dracula is usually felt, rather than seen. The Count is more like a manipulative sexual predator, rather than a romantic antihero or even a monster that relies primarily on the threat of physical violence (though, naturally, there's a bit of that, too).

Now I'm going to complain. I compared the reprint to the some of the original pages from DRACULA LIVES! to see if the layout was kept intact (it is; the pages are proportionate and there's no rearrangement). However, the art in the reprint looks faded and almost washed out when compared to the originals and some of the detail has suffered. I'm not sure how the book was reproduced, but Giordano's art deserves better.

But, I'm only being harsh because I love this story so much and I am so excited that this book actually came out. Go buy this right now.

Questions? Comments? Let us know what you think at feedback@cinescape.com.