Art and story: Shin'ichi Sakamoto
First published: 2023 (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 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 they can achieve victory.
The work of the devil dashes Russian cargo ship the Demeter upon the cliffs of Whitby Harbour, unleashing a demonic plague onto the unsuspecting students of Whitby School. Meanwhile, Mina struggles to find her place as the only girl at the male-dominated academy. She will have to prove herself when this unspeakable evil lays claim to her beloved companion Lucy Westerna.
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| vampiric vines |
The review: I spotted this hardback volume, the first of a series, and was struck by the artwork. This is a retelling, a reimagination even, of Dracula and begins with the Demeter. It starts with the mate going to the captain having seen a shadowy figure on deck. The captain notices a growth covering the mate’s back, pulls on it and rips away moss, growing on him, the roots penetrating into his flesh, his blood… and I was hooked. This, for me, is a rewilding of the tale. Back to taking on the cargo and the ship has both several crates with the adornment D as well as plants bound for England. A Romanian sailor tastes the earth in one of the 'D' crates (it is rotten and he is now tainted), a cut hand drips blood, which causes sprouts to suddenly grow from the tainted soil. Eventually, with the voyage having taken a dark turn, the captain realises that indentations in the crates can be positioned to show a figure – as though Dracula is disaggregated across the crates. Those who are tainted attack the rest of the crew, as do vines that come from the crates, the captain is saved by his cross.
It is a stunning, wild opening with imagination playing with the contagion of vampirism in a wonderful way. The Crew of Light in this are all at a school in Whitby but are constructed differently from the novel; Arthur is still son of Lord Godalming though school age, Quincy is African American and Joe Sewa is Japanese. They all look down on Mina – a working class Lancashire lass, whose humble beginnings and gender draws derision (she is the first female student at the school, on a scholarship). Jonathan only appears in flashback, where he is a child in a wheelchair with Mina and may be her brother, and is mentioned as being in Transylvania, There is also Luke, drawn with a feminine form but coded male. At night Luke's spirit, Lucy, takes over and is coded female and friends with Mina (something not remembered when Luke) this adds a gender fluidity to the character and a queering to the attraction that Arthur feels. Joe looks after a student, Renfield, who is chained in his room and not only drawn female but also drawn wearing a nun’s habit. As you can tell this is a very different and surreal look at the story. Dracula, when we eventually see him, is almost a chthonic figure, a chaos taking form.
The art is magnificent all the way through, the story surreal and yet recognisably Dracula, the use of gender, class and race is interesting and will lead to the knowledge that the #DRCL infection “shall spread regardless of race, station, sex, or age” and it is likely that stepping beyond these distinctions will be needed to combat it. I am smitten. 8.5 out of 10.
In Hardback @ Amazon US
In Hardback @ Amazon UK
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