Graphic Novel Review: Graphic Classics: Bram Stoker

Not too long ago, while examining the fourteenth Eureka Productions Graphic Classics anthology, Gothic Classics, I noted that the collection only occasionally touched on its genre's more sensationalistic tendencies, focusing instead on the milder thrills of the "lady's gothics." With the recent reissuing of an earlier Classics collection devoted to graphic adaptations of Irish writer Bram Stoker, however, this caveat happily doesn't hold; with a few short exceptions, this is a collection of full-bodied gothic material.

This second edition of Eureka Productions' Graphic Classics: Bram Stoker (the original was published in 2003) comes with 48 new pages of material, most of it devoted to a graphic novel adaptation of Dracula. Why the first edition didn't contain a version of Stoker's most famous work is a riddle for the ages, but the current edition is definitely enhanced by it. Adapted by Rich Rainey and illustrated by Joe Ollmann in a style which brings to mind a more big-eyed, less erotically evocative Richard Sala, it opens the collection by asserting that – new painterly cover by Mark A. Nelson aside – each of the artists will be bringing their own eccentric eyes to the material.

Two of Stoker's lesser-known novels, Lair of the White Worm and Jewel of the Seven Stars, also receive adaptations, though the latter proves only an excerpt from Stoker's mummy novel. I found Lair (also the source for a spiffy Ken Russell movie) to be the more successful retelling. J.B. Bonivert's art in the Jewel adaptation "Bridal of Death" struck me as a textbook example of the way that excess stylization can put a wall between readers and the story, whereas artist Rico Schacherl's penwork steadfastly remained connected to the events in Lair. While the ending to Lair is a bit flat, there are still some good moody panels: most particularly a scene where the story's villainess, Arabella March, hungrily waits on a sofa for an unsuspecting victim/sacrifice.

If most horror fans first became acquainted with Stoker's Dracula through one of the myriad movie adaptations of that story, many budding readers in the sixties were introduced to Stoker's short stories through the black-and-white horror comics produced by Warren magazines. Under the editorship of Archie Goodwin and presided over by the EC-influenced horror host, Uncle Creepy, Warren’s Creepy regularly featured comic book versions of classic horror fiction, two of which included Stoker's "The Judge's House" and "The Squaw." As illustrated by comics great Reed Crandall, both comics served to alert young readers to the genuinely creepy fiction Stoker had written beyond his oft-told vampire tale.

Article Author: Bill Sherman

Bill Sherman is a Books editor for Blogcritics. With his lovely wife Rebecca Fox, he has recently co-authored a sudsy comic fat acceptance novel entitled Measure By Measure.

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