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Comic Reviews, Dracula

BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA #4: THE CHANGiNG FACE OF EViL

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While it’s not the easiest to read (and so wouldn’t have stood out from the cover on newsagent shelves), look closely at Mika Mignola’s cover to this latest edition of Dark Horse International’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula and you’ll spot a new addition to this fourth issue. Vampirella has joined the comic as a back up strip, just as Xenozoic Tales would join the fourth issue of the publisher’s Jurassic Park later in the year.

For both series, sales figures had proved themselves enough that the three-weekly movie adaptations were turned into monthly ongoings, the final chapter split in order to get ahead of the new schedule and introduce readers to new content. Inside this comic, both strips run to 14 pages, Dracula himself getting exactly half the amount as normal. However, Vampirella gets no introduction anywhere and the editorial is still in the hands of Van Helsing.

I’m going to assume once the main strip concludes we’ll no longer have these characterful introductions so I’m enjoying them while they last. The final chapter begins with a scene that simply can’t be conveyed properly through still images, that of Anthony Hopkins devouring his food in the English pub like a savage. The result is a much more restrained version of the character, which is unfortunate.

In fact, I realise this has been the main problem for writer Roy Thomas all this time. It’s just impossible to convey in a comic the wonderful acting choices the talented cast made throughout the movie. However, when we turn the page and Mina questions him on how her best friend Lucy died, we do get one of the film’s rare comedic moments still intact. Darkly comedic of course. Very darkly comedic. 

This chapter includes the burning of the boxes containing Transylvanian soil Dracula had moved to his newly purchased, abandoned Abbey. It includes all of the ancient text, the Latin words spoken by Van Helsing to cleanse the place of evil. But more interestingly for me is the beginning of this scene with the rules of the vampire set out. They were a world apart from the clichéd rules we’d become used to from decades of other movies and TV shows.

Alongside the death of Renfield the main bulk here is dedicated to Mina deciding to join her beloved Count in eternal life. While it’d be impossible to convey how surprisingly touching this scene was (especially given what it was about!) thanks to the excellent performances of Gary Oldman and Winona Ryder, penciller Mike, inker John Nyberg and colourist Mark Chiarello (alongside letterer John Costanza) do an excellent job of portraying their intimacy in what’s actually a shocking moment. For an adaptation of this movie it’s perfect.

The iconic moment of Dracula using one of his nails to slice across his chest, drawing blood for Mina to drink, is presented in a similar fashion. Then the colours are shifted for one panel to highlight the key moment. After two pages of blue this really stands out. Then, interrupted by Jonathan and Van Helsing, Dracula changes into his man bat form and reiterates his anger from the beginning of the film. I always found this the most fascinating and surprising part of the character; a devoted Christian who had sacrificed so much in the name of their God, the religion’s archaic beliefs and the selfish nature of its men betraying him.

I never knew this side of the character from the Dracula films we saw growing up; he and Christianity are essentially two sides of the same coin. While the cross and Van Helsing’s devotion to the faith fight evil, Coppola’s film never let us forget whose fault this was in the first place, why Vlad became what he did. On the flip side, he’s obviously a monster and a mass murderer but we never forget why this happened to him. The film perfectly balances this to such a degree that we’re both horrified and emotionally moved by him.

In the middle of the issue is Bloodlines by Dave Hughes, the usual two-page news section about all things vampiric in the world of 90s entertainment. Dracula’s Oscar nominations are mentioned and, while I could easily look up who did and did not win, I’m going to wait and let the comic tell me, just as readers at the time had to. I’m looking forward to finding out, though.

The competition informs us of the insane lead time needed when working on the comic, the Sound Bites are actually interesting this month with their comparison between 1977 (the year I was born, funnily enough) and 1993 in respect to thoughts about vampire films, and there’s mention of all-night events at the cinema. Personally, I found watching Terminator 1, 2 and Genisys back-to-back in a cinema long enough, never mind a whole night! (Especially given how that place smelled by the end.)

I have to say the choice of image for the award nominations as presented by Columbia Pictures is a strange one. To anyone not familiar with the film they could easy assume Tom Waits was playing the lead character. Then opposite this always-fun news feature is the first page of our black-and-white back up and I breathed a sigh when I saw it. Not of relief, but of disappointment and pessimism.

Over the years I’ve seen Vampirella comics advertised here and there and even as an impressionable teenage boy I always felt her clothing (or lack of) was shamelessly gratuitous. Not that I would’ve used those words as a teenager! As an adult I think she always looked like she was there to appeal to a certain type of male reader, of which I am not. So while researching for this review it was a shock to find out she was co-created by a woman.

Trina Robbins did so much fantastic work to raise the profile of women in comics that I’m rethinking my assumptions about this character

Vampirella was created by Forrest J. Ackerman (literary agent, actor, editor) and Trina Robbins (Wonder Woman, Strip AIDS, GoGirl!) in 1969. Trina did so much fantastic work to raise the profile of women in comics throughout her life I’m rethinking my assumptions about this character. In fact, it was Trina who designed her look. Editor Archie Goodwin then continued to write and develop her.

While the issue gives no official introduction other than the cover headline, there’s a brief history of the character in the strip. So, Earth’s vampires originate from Dracula, a forgotten member of the Vampiri race who left his homeworld (Drakulon) centuries ago only to be corrupted by the demonic entity known as Chaos. Vampirella is the last of her race who came to our planet after her own died out. With no other choice, she has to feed on human blood. However, underneath she’s good so I’m assuming she attacks and drinks but does not kill. Even Dracula was originally peaceful in his story. I also assume the ridiculously revealing costume is how her race dress.

It’d be polite to say this story is “of its time”. While Trina co-created her, this particular story (of which she was not involved in) feels very much like a strip written by men for men. Rescued from the cold by a doctor running a remote retreat for the rich, he’s amputated her apparently rotting wings and is clearly lusting after her, despite an angry nurse claiming he must keep his distance from Vampirella while dangling a satanic-looking necklace.

The best part is a graveyard scene depicting a descendent of Van Helsing‘s digging up bodies to ram stakes through their hearts. This might explain why this story has been chosen as a back up and it’s an interesting segue, but in the main I’m disappointed with our main character. She’s scared of the doctor, terrified even, and for most of the strip is portrayed as having a strong will to resist whatever drugs she’s on. She’s piecing together the mystery of what’s going on but then suddenly she’s snogging the man after a simple slug of his blood.

The strip is from 1970 so it’s very much from a time when a strong female lead character was rare. In fact, that was still a rare thing when Barrie Tomlinson created Kitten Magee in Wildcat comic in the late 1980s! But this was the 70s, so apparently a strong female character still had to be dressed to appeal to men’s baser instincts and fall for the man full of red flags at the drop of a hat. This doesn’t read well today.

Back to the comic’s title character and the Inside Dracula making-of series by Gary Gerani and Dave Hughes is only one page this month, possibly to spread the final part over two issues just like the strip. A piece about Salem’s Lot by Seamus Ryan is the random substitute for one page, in which he discusses its vastly different cuts. Disappointingly, there’s still no sign of the promised Sadie Frost interview and by this point I’m just going to assume it’s not going to appear.

The mention of deleted scenes reminded me I still hadn’t checked them out so I got my Apple TV on and watched them today. I like making-of features but usually skip deleted scenes (they’ve been deleted for a reason). After watching them for Dracula I can still say the only exception are the ones from The Lost World: Jurassic Park, which I’d love to see added back in to that movie. Oh, and Dracula’s final box office? On a budget of $40,000,000 it raked in a superb $215,862,692 according to Box Office Mojo. Superb! And well deserved!

The final paragraph of director Francis Ford Coppola’s view on why he makes movies reminds me of why I write. So it feels like a fitting note to end the review on. I’m intrigued to find out what direction the comic is headed in and look forward to the art depicting the movie’s climax in just three weeks, on Sunday 13th April 2025.

iSSUE THREE < > iSSUE FiVE

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Comic Reviews, Dracula

BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA #1: DARK ARTS

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The first new real time read through for 2025 adds a third title to the Dark Horse International menu on the blog with Bram Stoker’s Dracula from 1993. This was released in the same year as their Jurassic Park comic and follows a similar formula, the movie adaptation taking up all of the comic strip space inside and followed by some extra features. This is similar to the Alien³ Movie Special mini-series from the previous year and has the same description down the left-hand border.

However, much like Jurassic Park, this comic would continue beyond the end of the movie and become an ongoing monthly, albeit with a rather big caveat (which we’ll get to when the time comes). The atmospheric cover by Mike Mignola (Hellboy, Rocket Raccoon, Baltimore) cements the dark, gothic feel of the strip  and upon opening we’re met with a suitably black interior design.

I defy anyone who has seen the film not to read the introduction in Anthony Hopkins’ voice. I note that subscriptions are offered so clearly DHI were hoping the adaptation issues would be enough of a success for them to carry on. However, while it was advertised as a fortnightly in other comics it’s actually triweekly like the aforementioned adaptations.

Edited by Dick Hansom (Jurassic Park, Aliens, Speakeasy), the 36-page comic has a lovely glossy cover with matte interior pages, a 28-page first chapter and two two-page features at the rear. So far, so DHI. The real stand out here is the strip’s art. Regular readers will know how I feel about movie adaptations but to see an original art style filled me with confidence for this one.

The art goes the opposite way of the elaborate, ornate movie. It may have quite simply drawn scenes and characters, but it’s the use of shadow that ties it in so neatly to the film. There’s simply no way of capturing the intricacy of the design and the style of Francis Ford Coppola’s direction so instead it feels like penciller Mike, inker John Nyberg (Action Comics, Doom Patrol, Nexus) and colourist Mark Chiarello (Batman/Houdini, Hellboy, Hush) have gone for atmosphere over detail.

It works. It looks old-fashioned but I don’t mean in an ‘out-of-date comic’ kind of way. I mean the individual panels feel like they could’ve been drawn around the time the story is set and cleaned up for the 90s. Simple, sometimes scratchy line work with a mixture of bold colours for the more horrific scenes and subdued, almost washed out colours for the spookier moments, with the swathes of black in all the panels capturing that claustrophobic, haunted feel of the film, it’s just perfect.

John Costanza (Jurassic Park, The Tomb of Dracula, Red) does an incredible job on lettering Roy Thomas‘ (Conan, Secret Origins, Stoker’s Dracula) script too. Whether it’s historical prose, different handwriting (or typed text) for each character’s diary or his regular style, it’s all very clever and captures the narrative aspects of the film, as you can see above. The original US comic edited by story by Jim Salicrup (writer on Transformers, Sledge Hammer and The A-Team), credited here as story editor.

Sometimes, however, the use of shadow can make it difficult to work out sequences of events and once or twice I found myself perusing panels a few times to work out what was happening, and that’s with me having seen the film recently. Like most comics adaptations the main audience would’ve been those who’d seen the movie already rather than new readers. Even more so with this one, I feel.

I’ve criticised previous movie adaptations for rushing through their screenplays or for being poor copies of their big screen originals, but I’ve also praised those that took the time to properly adapt the story to a different medium. Bram Stoker’s Dracula falls into the latter category. While what’s written on the page is basically verbatim from the script, the art does a perfect job of taking the movie fan back into that world to enjoy it in a different way.

A perfect example of this is the moment when the carriage comes to pick up Jonathan Harker. In the film a massive set was built for this scene and it was full of highly detailed, creepy imagery. Here, all of that is stripped back. Instead, the sparse nature of the art and the use of shadow captures how that moment felt for the viewer. This brings the chill of the scene to the reader much better than any attempt to just copy it ever could have.

The shadow work brings another benefit too. Previous attempts at adapting a movie have had mixed results in portraying the actors. Most times there’s no attempt at all (and that may have been due to rights), other times they’ve tried so hard to capture their likeness they become stilted and expressionless. This team does something different. Through clever use of dark shadows the characters look enough like the actors without having too much detail, meaning they retain their expressiveness and, most importantly (and something Alien³ failed to do) their faces remain distinct from each other’s.

Not all of the film’s iconic visuals translate well to the page though, the best/worst example being Jonathan’s train journey. While that marvellous model shot couldn’t hope to be replicated on the page, the zooming in on the peacock’s feathers makes no sense here and Dracula’s eyes in the sky just look weird. These moments were great examples of the film’s iconic style but I can’t help thinking they’d have been best left out here, or at least have the Count’s eyes elaborated on to make more sense in this medium than the seemingly random panel below.

The first chapter of the story ends on that horrible/terrifying scene with the baby. Anyone who has seen the film will know exactly which moment I’m talking about! Then it’s quite jarring to come to white pages. I kind of wish they’d kept them black, but that may have made them hard on the eyes. As with the first five issues of Jurassic Park, Gary Gerani’s behind-the-scenes feature is in parts and begins with the original source material. I remember at the time some people complaining about what they thought were “changes” to the character (e.g. Dracula walking about outside), so thankfully that’s all put to rest here, confirming this film is the one that follows the book and portrays the character most accurately.

I’m usually one who likes to read opening credits and link the names listed to other films I’ve watched, but I was surprised to find out which family-friendly Steven Spielberg movie James V. Hart had written! Although, I do disagree with him on the best way to read Bram Stoker’s novel. If it’s your first time reading any novel it shouldn’t be the annotated version, or at the very least ignore the annotations until your second reading. They can be fascinating on second reads, but they interrupt the flow of the work and can also contain spoilers for later in the book.

Dave Hughes’ Bloodlines is the news feature of the comic, similar to his Motion Tracker pages in Aliens. With Bram Stoker’s Dracula still in the cinemas at the time of publication the comic was keeping us up to date with its takings so far. It would go on to rake in over four times that amount. Also truly placing the comic in the past is the description of Anthony LaPaglia (Without a Trace) as a new actor on the scene! But it’s surely another film release that will catch blog readers’ attentions.

Who knew that silly film would go on to be reincarnated as a hit TV show? A show I really enjoyed until (coincidentally) Dracula turned up. Treating him like an easily-slayed villain-of-the-week was annoying and I remember that season becoming too sombre and lacked the humour of previous years, so I stopped watching. But anyway, it’s another example of placing this comic in our own timelines.

The news pages also mention Malcolm X, another film of the same era that I must revisit sometime, and Anno Dracula, an alternate history novel by Kim Newman which sounds fascinating, although I admit even all these years later I’ve never heard of it. Upon doing a bit of research I found out that in Anno Dracula, the Count’s first wife is called ‘Elisabeta’, a name taken from this film. Also above, you’ll see the usual fun competition and address our comics and magazines like to do at the time.

Rounding off the issue on the inside back cover is this advert for a very 90s jacket tie-in The Master from Doctor Who would’ve liked, and on the back page is an advert for #9 of Aliens. Even though #8 was still to be released two days later, the next one had some exciting new additions and this was also used as a Next Issue page in the Aliens comic itself.

It’s never going to tell the story as well as the film for newbies but this comic was clearly aimed at those who had just enjoyed Bram Stoker’s Dracula at the cinema. In that regard this is the best movie adaptation I’ve come across so far on the blog. That art, that brave decision to create its own unusual style that somehow feels just right, is wonderful. There’ll hopefully be for wonderfulness in just three weeks with #2 on Sunday 9th February 2025.

GO TO iSSUE TWO

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