Review: The Complete Dracula #5
The fifth and final issue in Leah Moore, John Reppion and Colton Worley's utterly remarkable effort at condensing Bram Stoker's masterpiece into five issues is out and I've read it twice.
What did I think? I loved it. It feels a bit rushed, but I loved it.
Hit the jump for more detail!
Throughout this series the art has been, over and over, what sells the work as a whole. Worley's skills are prodigious, all the more remarkable for this being his first comic, and again The Complete Dracula is a visual delight. It's never afraid of dark images - I mean images that are composed of dark, sometimes murky colors, shades that reflect the terror and mystery of the story itself as well as the physically darker times. That's one of the things the comic does that the book, loath as I am to fault my favorite novel, simply can't: the comic demonstrates to us how dark it was back then. The absence of the ambient light of modern cities - parking lots and street lights and illuminated storefronts and all the other millions of bulbs we leave on all night in the 21st century - is something that is genuinely important in parts of the story and Worley's art isn't afraid to make us work to parse an image.
Make no mistake, though, the text is just as important if much smaller on the page. Moore and Reppion have done a delicate surgery by picking and choosing which lines from Stoker's text should be used to narrate. In doing so, they have trimmed the novel down without losing its character or its plot. I was a little worried at how much storyline and literal ground had to be covered in the plot left to be told at the end of issue 4. The story survives, though, and the novel's ability to transmit the sense of hurry-up-and-wait and associated frustration felt by the characters is very effectively preserved in the final issue of The Complete Dracula. Most importantly they have condensed without changing things. This is still, ultimately, a novel told by and about Mina Murray and the comic reflects her subtle heroism and strength exactly as the novel does. If you're unfamiliar with the novel, simply know that whereas the movies are all about Dracula leering at some fainting flower, the novel is very nearly feminist in its treatment of Mina. The male characters may fret over her and how she's going to handle things but she continually handles them as well as or better than the men and does half their planning for them at the same time while being the only one who runs the risk of becoming a vampire herself. It's all right there in the comic, too, just as in the novel.
That said, I did feel like issue 5 was rushed in parts and that the rush took a toll on the artwork. Issue 5 doesn't have time for as many of the full-page panels with minimal insets as some of the earlier ones. The story is still terrifying and thrilling, though, and the sense of tragedy and loss is still there. The art does its solid best to live up to previous issues' standards and stay efficient, with smaller, more jumbled panels still wowing me. The panel of the horses in the snow is a perfect image of desolation and fear, the stillness and hopelessness of Dracula's lands, but in this issue it has to make do with a couple of column inches instead of half a page.
All in all an excellent adaptation, far above and beyond what credit I was willing to extend when I saw the first issue on the shelf. If you haven't read it, check out the inevitable trade paperback whenever it arrives. It's an excellent introduction to one of the most venerable works of horror ever produced. If you've read the comic and enjoyed it, but haven't read the novel, do yourself a favor and find a cheap copy. It's always in print and secondhand book stores probably have two dozen copies for a buck each.
Klarion
Posted to Review on 21 January 2010
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Other stuff like this: Colton Worley, John Reppion, Leah Moore, The Complete Dracula
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