The cover to the most recent volume in the "Graphic Classics" series, Gothic Classics (Eureka Productions), depicts perhaps the most full-blooded moment in the collection: a scene from J. Sheridan Fanu's "Carmilla," showing the story's title vampiress lying in a leaden coffin filled with blood. Good stuff, indeed, for lovers of the outlandishly gothic, though unfortunately you'll search long through this 144-page collection to find another like it.
Edited by series mastermind Tom Pomplon, Gothic Classics contains adaptations of "Five Great Tales of Ghosts, Vampires, Haunted Castles & Forbidden Love!": "Carmilla," Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho, Edgar Allan Poe's "The Oval Portrait," Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, and M.J. Closser's "At the Gate." Of the five offerings, the most arguably successful are those that focus on shorter works: honing a beefy 18th–century novel like Udolpho or Northanger down to a 40-page comic mainly serves to heighten their haphazardness. In Rod Lott & Lisa K. Weber's retelling of the much-filmed horror tale "Carmilla," however, the focus remains on the story's bloody seductiveness (nicely captured by Weber's stylized penciling, which in places evokes a softer Richard Sala), while Pomplon & Malaysian artist Leong Wan Kok's four-page version of Poe's vignette smoothly catches the tone of this minor grim reflection on the obsessed artist.
Of the three short pieces, only Pomplon & Shary Flenniken's "At the Gate" reads the most out of place as it isn't even a gothic short story. A sentimental tale of dogs in the afterlife, it really belongs in a different collection altogether (Animal Classics, perhaps), though it's an undeniable treat to see the "Trots And Bonnie" artist once more tackling expressive comic canines. Why isn't there a collection of this woman's underground and NatLamp work available?
The two longer adaptations essentially play off each other: Austen's novel, adapted by Trina Robbins & Anne Timmons, was initially written as a parody of Udolpho, in fact – its primary joke (which wears thin long before the adaptation concludes, unfortunately) is to continually hint at impending perils which it never delivers. (David Chase is not the first writer to've pulled that particular trick!) While Robbins & Timmons both work mightily to recreate Austen's story, the source itself is such a filigreed trifle that after about twenty pages, you stop caring.
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