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DRACULA in Pictures
Surely you know DRACULA, a seemingly everlasting pop culture phenomenon that
began as an 1897 novel by Bram Stoker. That novel has gone through innumerable
editions and been adapted for seemingly just as many movies. It’s also shown up
in various graphic novel formats, some of which I’ll focus on below.
The following is not a comprehensive listing of all the appearances of DRACULA--and its unauthorized offspring NOSFERATU--in the graphic medium, but I feel the four publications outlined below are among the more noteworthy examples.
BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA is a 96-page graphic novel adapted and illustrated by the Spanish artist FERNANDO FERNANDEZ back in 1984 (and reprinted in 2005 by Del Rey). Done up in sumptuous watercolor paintings, it’s a damn good looking saga--I’d even go so far as to call it one of the most impressively visualized graphic novels I’ve seen. The problem is the pictures, divided into traditional rectangular panels, work better as self-contained art pieces than as parts of a larger whole.
Based on what I recall of the Stoker novel, Fernandez follows it fairly closely. BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA begins like the novel, with Jonathan Harker’s trip to the scary Transylvanian castle of Count Dracula, a centuries-old vampire. Harker is left prey to Dracula’s trio of bloodsucking ho’s, but escapes. He’s too late, though, to stop Dracula from traveling back to Harker’s hometown, where he puts his spell on Harker’s fiancée Mina and her friend Lucy. The latter ends up becoming vampirized and meets a hideous fate. Also along for the ride are the nutty Renfield and the heroic vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing.
You get the drift: Fernando Fernandez has crafted a loving tribute to an enduring classic. His DRACULA is impressive, but could have used a bolder, more individual approach.
That’s definitely not a complaint I can make about DRACULA: A SYMPHONY IN MOONLIGHT AND NIGHTMARES, written and illustrated by JON J. MUTH (and published by Marvel), which is disappointing for other reasons. Again we have some sumptuous imagery--Muth’s dreamy watercolors (also on display in comics like MOONSHADOW and M) have a druggy, nightmarish beauty. Narrative-wise, though, this Dracula is a bit of a hodge-podge. Rather than relate his story in comic form Muth provides straightforward text to move it along, but he’s definitely at his best with visual montages.
Muth follows the original DRACULA fairly closely, but in disjointed, perfunctory fashion. The character of Jonathan Harker is all-but jettisoned, and here it’s Mina rather than Lucy who becomes Dracula’s bitch. Muth also ends the story differently, by having Lucy run off with Dracula. The verdict: unsatisfying, though the artwork is fantastic.
Next up is NOSFERATU from 1991, a 2-issue Tome Press comic adaptation of F.W. Murneau’s legendary 1922 film, which was an outright plagiarizing of DRACULA. RAFAEL NIEVES and KEN HOLEWCZYNSKI have replaced Murneau’s painterly imagery with black and white imagery rendered more often than not as (oft-indistinct) lines and shapes amidst a sea of darkness.
The film was an expressionistic image-fest that condensed the events of DRACULA
considerably, and added an overpowering emphasis on disease and decay. That
last point is evident in the film’s presentation of Count Orloc, the Dracula
stand-in played unforgettably by Max Schreck. The latter is made up like, in
essence, a two-legged rat, with pasty skin, pointy ears and two formidable fangs
jutting from the center of his mouth.
That figure is faithfully replicated by Nieves and
Holewczynski, who also do a good job visualizing the film’s set and locations.
They’ve filled out the story by borrowing Bram Stoker’s conceit of relating it
through a supporting character’s journal entries (something that wasn’t part of
the Murneau film) and jimmied with the chronology somewhat, but otherwise the
comic follows the film nearly verbatim--meaning if you’ve seen it you really
have no compelling reason to track down this comic.
Last we have VAMPYRE, THE TERRIFYING LOST JOURNAL OF
DR. CORNELIUS VAN HELSING from Harper Collins (and author
MARY-JANE KNIGHT and illustrators GARY BLYTHE, PHILIP JACOBS
and MIKE PETERKIN). It’s one of those mock scrapbooks that have become
popular in recent years (usually compiled by the likes of Nick Bantock) in which
the heavily illustrated pages are affixed with maps, tickets, envelopes and the
occasional pop-up image. All are in service of a journal by Dr. Van Helsing,
who as the book starts is journeying to Transylvania in search of a cure for his
brother’s mysterious illness. It takes place directly after the events of
DRACULA, with the count staked and out of the picture--or so it seems.
As a stand-alone story this book has little to offer,
but the narrative works in (and only in) conjunction with the overall
layout. The diary entries, you’ll note, are bolstered by the scribblings of Van
Helsing’s cranky assistant Gustav--and by a mysterious third party who goes by
“D” and makes a fateful appearance on the final page. A fun, fast read and,
best of all, it can currently be found on remainder shelves for around three
bucks.
--3/20/09