Dracula. Book 1: The Impaler.
Matt Wagner (Writer), Kelly Jones (Art), Jose Villarrubia (Colours), Rob Leigh (Letters). Orlock Press 2024.
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Bram Stoker's novel, Dracula, is in the public domain. Anyone can print the book or use the characters' without from approval or payment to the author or their estate. Dracula is in the public domain in a much more literal sense. He is one of the tiny few fictional characters to have truly become public property. Anyone writing a story featuring Dracula is joining an enormous group.
I discovered Dracula through midnight television screenings of the Hammer Film Productions horror films. Christopher Lee has long been my image of Dracula. Suave and sinister in equal parts, genuinely handsome and charming.
Scarlet in Gaslight, Marin Powell (Writer), Seppo Mäkinen (Artist), (Malibu Comics 1988) is a thoroughly satisfying mash up of Sherlock Holmes and Dracula. The story threads Sherlock Holmes, Moriarty, and Dracula together into a clever story that does justice to everyone.
The Batman Vs Dracula, Michael Goguen (Director), Duane Capizzi (Writer), Warner Home Video 2005), is a full-length animated film from The Batman animated series. The film has an unusual way of showing how Dracula sees humans. It finds the line between child friendly and the need for blood. I like how Dracula introduces himself as Dr Alucard, which I did not catch until Batman explained it later in the film.
I have recently read Valda A Dracula Tale. Christopher Denmead. Illustrations Ken Hunt. (Christopher Denmead 2021). This is a fun, pulp story that largely follows the outline of Bram Stoker’s story. It flips the sex of the cast, so Dracula is now Valda and Jonathan Harker and Renfield are female. Mina and Lucy are male parts. It works well.
I am currently reading Dracula of Transylvania. Richardo Delgato (Writer & Illustrations). (Clover Press 2021). The cover calls it “A Modern Retelling of an Ancient Classic”. As far as I have read, this is an excellent description. Richard Delgato expands the story is an unexpected way and gives Dracula a deeper context. He also deals with the same question as Dracula. Book 1: The Impaler, does. Where did Dracula come from? Born or made? The answer in Dracula of Transylvania is satisfyingly different to the one in Dracula. Book 1: The Impaler.
Matt Wagner goes back to the start where Vlad III, Dracula (Son of the Dragon), the Warlord of Wallachia, is fighting off the invading Ottoman Turks. After losing the battle, Vlad and a faithful servant employ a contingency plan to escape. Vlad has a plan. He realises he needs extraordinary resources to defeat his enemies, and he seeks extraordinary help to get them. The story follows how and why the human warlord becomes the vampire Dracula.
Matt Wagner has an interesting dramatic problem to solve in this story. Vlad is a single note character. The story introduces him as an astonishingly cruel man who wants to defend Wallachia against the invading Turks. This shifts the focus slightly to a man who is determined to achieve complete defeat of all his enemies and will do anything to do so. There is no character development. This is who Vlad is up to the moment he becomes a vampire. This is tricky for a writer. Presenting an unchanged character can drag on a reader. Variety is important. Matt Wagner does not want to change the character, so he changes the scenery instead.
During the first half of the story, the reader discovers the true meaning of stopping at nothing for Vlad. There is a nice escalation in the actions that Vlad takes. Each one shows how extraordinary he is. There are no limits to his determination to achieve a goal. The second half of the story places Vlad with a group of others who have had to had taken similar steps to get to the location. The ferocity of his determination to master distinct elements of supernatural power distinguished Vlad in this company. Becoming a vampire is not a reward, it actively prevents him from being able to wreak revenge on the Ottomans. Becoming a vampire does not diminish his ferocity; instead, it channels it into a direction not of his choosing.
This is a brilliant piece of storytelling. Mat Wagner has given Dracula an origin story that clearly marks the transition from man to vampire. The distance from Vlad the Impaler to Dracula the Vampire is small and unbridgeable. Matt Wagner has honoured Bram Stoker’s Dracula and made him completely his own.
Kelly Jone’s art with the colours by Jose Villarrubia is a pleasure to read. In process terms, these are two very distinct steps. Kelly Jones draws the art and then Jose Villarrubia colours it. As a reading experience, they unite. It is possible to consider them separately; I have no interest in doing so. Taken together, they form the art of the comic. It is part of the pleasures of reading comics for me to see how artists combine and interact to create something that becomes more than a sum of its parts.
A little technical talk. This is a panel, a single picture on a page with multiple pictures on it. A page with a single picture filling the page is a splash page. The space around the panel is the gutter. How panels are shaped and placed on a page is used to control the way the reader reads the page. For a film, the watcher has no control over how they view the process of the images. In comics, they have full control. The creative team wants the reader to surrender that control to them to achieve the result they are aiming for.
This panel is the first image on the second page of the comic, it is the start of the story. The first page is an introduction, now we are moving into the action. We have been told that this is the story of the Son of the Dragon, Dracula. Now we see the dragon, the medallion of the Order of the Dragon. There is a clear contrast between the hand of Dracula that is visible on the first page and the hand of Vlad III in the panel, between human and vampire.
The drape of the red robe and the stretch of the arm lead the reader’s eye from shadow to light. The colours bring details of the fur trimming, the chain mail, and out. With dark tones, the tone of the story is being set. The unseen anatomy of the arm is clearly human, the proportions are natural. The creative team is establishing that they are in control of all the elements of the comic. A reader can relax and settle in for the journey.
Vlad III is introduced as a warrior involved in a brutal war against an invader. He has no real expectation of winning the upcoming battle, how does he respond? He wades into the battle, clearly a ferocious fighter. This is a frozen moment; it radiates action and movement. The dominant figure of Vlad wreaking havoc on the Turkish soldiers below him. They all fit together properly, the proportions work, they are all in the same space in the panel. The colours add to the information, the colour of the blood, the fiery sky in the background. The colours give depth to the art. This panel remind me of the astounding painting of Napoleon Crossing the Alps by Jacques-Louis David. The dominant Napoleon riding a rearing horse with a billowing cloak. At the bottom of the picture there are the frozen corpses of soldiers. Both are pieces of propaganda. This is Vlad II the human warrior reaching the limit of what he can achieve against the Turks using human force only. This road is a dead end, another choice must be made.
This is a Dracula story, readers want monsters. Kelly Jones and Jose Villarrubia oblige. The colouring is outstanding here, it pushes the action forward at the reader. The blue trees behind the pink body of the monster. From the extreme close-up at the top of the panel to the fury of the monster. The wholly non-realistic colouring captures the non-natural aspect of the moment.
The art in Dracula. Book 1 The Impaler is very clearly the result of individual artists. It has a texture in the way that unpolished wood has. It feels like it has been produced directly by human hands and imagination. I find it deeply inviting, my eye lingers over it enjoying the details. To my eye a great deal of comic book art has become rather glossy and shiny. My eye slides off it. It lacks the depth and detail that Kelly Jones and Jose Villarrubia bring to every panel.
Lettering is a frequently overlooked part of a comic. If it is done with craft and care it should be. Rob Leigh does this. In the panel the narration boxes are designed to look like pieces of torn parchment with a gothic looking font. We are hearing Dracula’s voice. A nice pick up from the first page where we saw Dracula writing in a book. They are carefully positioned on the panel to give the widest space to the landscape, the words and the image counterpoint each other.
Word balloons are used for conversation. They must be placed so that it is possible to see without stopping who is speaking and the sequence of an exchange. The word balloons cannot obscure the art of make the panel seem crowded. Most of all they must be easy to read. I have a particular dislike for fonts that mimic handwriting, I struggle to read it. I want to be able to read without having to work at it.
A comic does not have a soundtrack, it has sound effects.
A comic does not have a soundtrack, it has sound effects. Written sound effects are strange, the readers hear them. This is an astonishing skill using the size, font and colour to transform a meaningless set of letters into a sound that gives the scene something extra.
Dracula. Book 1: The Impaler is a terrific comic, the work of highly skilled creators working together to create a unified comic. A superbly structured story is expressed through outstanding art and the subtle work of first rate lettering. What a pleasure to read.
Thank you for your time and attention, both are greatly appreciated.