Marvel Illustrated: Dracula

Comic Info

Marvel Illustrated: Dracula #1

Reprints Marvel Illustrated:  Dracula #1-4 (August 2010-September 2010).  When Jonathan Harker is sent to Transylvania for a land deal, he finds more than he bargains for.  The owner of Castle Dracula has an unearthliness to him that frightens Jonathan to the core.  Trapped and unable to escape, Jonathan is unaware that Dracula is headed to England and has become intertwined with the people in his life…and danger that Dracula could pose to his beloved Mina Murray.

Written by Roy Thomas, Marvel Illustrated:  Dracula is a limited series adaptation of Bram Stoker’s classic 1897 horror novel.  The collection features art by Dick Giordano.  Marvel previously adapted the story in Marvel Classics Comics #9 (September 1976).

I have a soft spot for Classic Illustrated comic books.  The series was one of my earlier introductions to comic books as something more than superheroes and something that can actually teach and help demystify some novels that are tricky.  Dracula has always been a difficult novel with a unique style to it, and Thomas does a decent job conveying the ideas and story of Dracula.

Marvel Illustrated: Dracula #4

Dracula is a bit of an odd subject for Marvel as it is.  The adaption series was originally conceived around the time Marvel was publishing Tomb of Dracula (about modern day vampire hunters trying to stop Dracula).  You can kind of read this collection as a prequel to that series though the art doesn’t entirely match…so if you are a fan of the series, it is an interesting addendum to it.

The second thing you notice while reading Dracula is how modern it was.  Frankenstein was a revolutionary book in its blending of horror and romanticism, and Dracula is a similar mix in its epistolary style of telling.  The character of Dracula isn’t presented as tortured as the monster of Frankenstein, but there are a few glimmers of it…the ideas of hypnosis, blood transfusions, and science vs. folklore make the changing of the times a rather interesting product in the novel.  Thomas has the trickiness of trying to encapsulate all this into four issues (while also fighting a lot of adaptation of the story that already exist).

Dracula essentially created the modern vampire and introduced a lot of the ideas surrounding vampires.  The influence on horror cannot be avoided and the character of Dracula himself has been explored and dissected within the text and beyond the pages of novel.  Marvel Illustrated:  Dracula is a solid (though be it dense) read of the classic novel…you should still read the novel, but this is a good addition to it.