Dracula: The Company of Monsters # 4
Written by Daryl Gregory, Story by Kurt Busiek
Art by Scott Godlewski & Stephen Downer
Published by Boom
Have you seen a lot of Shakespeare? Like movies or plays, or both? I had a time that I was really into reading, seeing, and performing that stuff. If you're new to Shakespeare, I find that one generally wants it straight, as in full classic style, proper pronunciation, period settings, relatively uncut. But after you've seen Midsummer a few times too many, they usually start to crave seeing it done in a new way.
And that's the really cool thing about Shakespearean plays - they're wide open for interpretation. Except for the lines, the "enter" and "exit" instructions, you can go anywhere with the entire play. The most common thing I've seen people do to change it up is to switch time periods. They'll set Midsummer in the 1950's or Hamlet in the modern day. And it can be really clever (some of the film versions) or really boring (a community theatre Midsummer I saw in the early 90's.)
I mention this because I feel like we've got a similar thing happening here with Dracula. It's as if our writer friends got serious and said, "Okay, we want to do vampires. And we want to do THE Vampire of vampires. But we can't just start telling a modern day Dracula story - that doesn't get me going. We have to come up with a reason for the old Dracula to be in this world again, so find a way to "bring him back" and that'll be our new story." I appreciate this. I like it, even. And although I started reading it here in issue #4, I can still pick up on what's going on.
It's a tale of darkness, you know the drill--darkest parts of ourselves and the darkest of creatures of the night--gotcha. I was hooked from the first page. I didn't put the comic book down or look away, I didn't even look at my watch. And although I don't know why the people in this comic have awakened Dracula and brought him to America, I can see that it wasn't for a particularly good reason, and it was exciting to watch a good kind of evil triumph over a bad kind of evil? Dracula was the victim in this case. No one likes to see victims lose. It's irritating.
I enjoyed the art. Not only does it tell the story well, but there's all these pointed lines and hard angled, and for whatever reason, that kind of style really supported the basic wickedness of the story. I don't know why that is, psychologically, but it happened to mere here. The faces are just a tad more sharp or gaunt then they are in other comic books that I've read - the chins are pointier, all the jaws are drawn clenched. Somehow, that gave the overall book an uncomfortable tension that is perfect for this genre. I don't know whether or not that was an intentional choice or simply the way these guys usually draw - but whatever. It's there and it underlined everything, while subtly reminding me of the fangs and sharp nails. Dracula may have fangs, but everybody else has their own sharp edge--it's an even playing field.
I felt neither a sense of elation nor disdain in regards to this comic, but I liked it. And yeah, I'll totally read the next one. Probably.
-Nina Stone, 2010
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