Author: James Tynion IV
Genre: Graphic Novel
Format: Hardback
Pages: 120
I adore Universal Monsters, they were my first introduction to horror movies, and these books were my first step into real horror books when I read the abridged, children's versions way back in the 90s. So when I saw they'd gotten graphic novel adaption I was excited. It combined two of my favorite things, and then Dracula had to go and add a third of my favorite things. When I realized James Tynion was working on this one, I ran to the library and checked nearly every day I was waiting for it to get to me.
Now, this is definitely an if you know, you know kind of read. So if you haven't read the book Dracula or seen Universal Studio's movie based on the book, you are in fact going to be confused. Because there are large filler chunks removed from this book. If you know the story back to front and back again, you won't mind because now how it's all going to come together. Just a bit of warning.
The plot does move at a fast pace to get where it's going in just a little over a hundred pages, which is fine because remember I know this story. What I really liked about this book was two-fold. The first thing was that we got so much more of the character Renfield. He's always been a personal favorite of mine because I also seem to adore the weird little side characters. And, while in the books he's always sort of this footnote, the reason Dracula arrived in England, his little patsy if you want. But I've always wanted to know more about him.
So it was a delight to have the character a little more at the forefront of the story, and the art direction on him was so good and so creepy. I loved that he had bugs crawling up and down his arms all the time, and the black around his eyes while the rest of him was bleached bone white. I also like how all that morphed at the end as he was asking for forgiveness. You physically get to see his change from Dracula's Renfield to the human version of himself.
This leads to my next favorite part of this, the complete art direction. I was in love with the color choices on this, how everything was a little grainy inside the panels like an old film reel. But you'd get these great full-page art pieces with Dracula in different forms that were very clear and so beautiful. This whole book was one work of art after another. You can really tell everyone who worked on this book was a fan of the story. Because so much of this story was told through art as much as through dialogue.
I'm so glad I started with this book in the series! James Tynion did an amazing job and didn't disappoint. The whole team attached to this did amazing. I cannot wait to see the rest of this series play out, but it's looking like I'm going to need to buy the whole series. Mostly because I hope they do the gambit of Universal Studio Monsters. So many of them deserve to be dusted off and shown to a new audience!
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