Art and story: Shin'ichi Sakamoto
First published: 2024 (UK)
Contains spoilers
The Blurb: Dracula meets manga in this surreally beautiful and chilling retelling of Bram Stoker’s quintessential horror classic.
In this beautiful, evocative, and often surreal retelling of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a fearsome enemy comes from the east, bringing with it horrors the likes of which have never been seen in the British Empire. Standing opposed are Wilhelmina “Mina” Murray and her stalwart companions, united in a cabal that eclipses gender, nationality, and station until the day that they can achieve victory.
With Lucy’s life hanging in the balance, tempers flare and tensions rise as Arthur, Quincey, Joe, and Mina struggle to decide who is best suited to offer aid to their precious friend. However, the sudden appearance of Count Dracula may render all their efforts for naught. Will centuries of humanity’s collected knowledge be enough to hold back the count’s advance, or will wisdom and logic falter in the face of the undead king’s maddening presence?
The review: As regular readers will know, the manga #DRCL (and the reason for the title is given in this volume, by the way) has fast become a favourite. Glorious art with a fantastic queer retelling of the story, it takes its broad brushstrokes from Stoker but has created something different but marvellous. You can read my over reviews for vol 1 and Vol 2.
This volume starts with the report in the press of Dracula at the zoo but rather than a story where he frees one particular wolf, Bersicker, he takes all the wolves held there and this leads to a magnificent image (I found the Japanese rendition of it to post below) of Dracula, flying through the London skyline on a wolf drawn sleigh.
The volume is essentially the fall of Lucy/Luke – Lucy is given a gender fluid identity, Luke during the day and Lucy at night. When Dracula tries to take her, Mina spots the deceit as the heroes believe day has broken but Luke ignores Mina (as she is a girl) whereas Lucy and Mina are friends and so her speaking to Mina makes her realise that Dracula has manipulated their senses.
I enjoyed some of Van Helsing’s supposition being broken – such as garlic, with Dracula actually eating the garlic flowers, and him being nonplussed when the students sing a Protestant hymn and hold Dracula and his wolves off with it (something not contained within his books, with a view implied that Catholicism is needed). There is a shockingly gory death and Lucy, once a vampire, taking on an insect-like form. Notable is the fact that although Luke/Lucy was non-binary, the vampirism has forced a binary existence on Lucy due to her new nocturnal life.
The series remains a firm favourite. 9 out of 10.
In Hardback @ Amazon US
In Hardback @ Amazon UK
No comments:
Post a Comment