Author: Alex De Campi
Illustrator: Erica Henderson
First Published: 2020
Contains spoilers
The Blurb: Vienna, 1889: Dracula's brides nail him to the bottom of his coffin. Los Angeles, 1974: an ageing starlet decides to raise the stakes. Crime scene photographer Quincy Harker is the only man who knows it happened, but will anyone believe him before he gets his own chalk outline? And are Dracula's three brides there to help him... or use him as bait? A pulpy, pulse-pounding graphic novel of California psych-horror from acclaimed creators ALEX DE CAMPI and ERICA HENDERSON.
The review: A pulp styled graphic novel, and not too long, this has much going on under the hood to make it worthwhile. Starting in Vienna in 1889, we start with the brides turning on Dracula and pinning him to his coffin. What is interesting is that Dracula is always portrayed as an inchoate form, a swirling mass of monstrosity and this is done deliberately – De Campi explaining in her notes at the end of the novel that she wanted her monster to be truly monstrous.
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She also explains that she picked LA (in 1974) as the primary story location as a move of the gothic into the modern and to have a location where the transient population could be exploited. Her primary human character is Quincy Harker, shown as African American as De Campi suggests “It’s the most accidentally black name in white literature since Percy Jackson”. However, whilst the newspaper crime photographer might be the focal point of the story, the story is primarily about the brides and how they deal with Dracula being deliberately released by fading starlet Bebe Beauland. It is also, very much, a story of abuse.
The art is marvellous; simple lines accentuated by blocks of colour work so very well with the material.
This isn’t long, as I say, a mere 72 pages. But it is 72 pages of sheer entertainment. 7.5 out of 10.
In Hardback @ Amazon US
In Hardback @ Amazon UK
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