With just under a week until All Hallows’ Eve, our 31 Days Of Horror 2023 celebration continues uninterrupted!
Over the past few installments, this particular column has highlighted a number of perfectly timed ghoulish and truly terrifying comic book releases. Today we reach the apex of monster mountain with a series that takes inspiration from a classic film – and an altogether monstrous and timeless villain.
In a deal between Universal Products and Experiences and Skybound (which has a publishing imprint under Image Comics), a series of comic book titles featuring classic silver-screen monsters is finally released to a horror-hungry audience! The first eager offering: Universal Monsters: Dracula, a four-issue monthly miniseries full of dread, horror and blood. Lots of blood.
Written and illustrated by great comic book talents in James Tynion IV (Something is Killing the Children, The Department of Truth, The Nice House on the Lake) and Martin Simmonds (Swan Songs, The Department of Truth), two talents with a penchant for horror, Universal Monsters: Dracula is a retelling of the classic 1931 black and white Dracula film that famously starred Bela Lugosi. Of course, the two creators add some colour to the monster’s legendary mythos by slyly changing some plot points and deliberately adding others, all the while incorporating plenty of deliciously gratifying red splashes to the page.
Universal Monsters: Dracula is a story for today’s audiences. Sure, it still takes place in the early twentieth century London, but that gothic feel of horror still has pull on our psychological and emotional states today. Some of the riveting images that artist Simmonds commands with his painted brushwork is definitely the kind of horror that will move contemporary readers into states of disgust and terror. Importantly, Simmonds ably transposes Lugosi’s famous glare to the printed page menacingly. It’s an absolutely wonderful visual representation and readers will certainly feel both its allure and it’s terrible command.
This is a story perfect for the scary season, the first issue a testament to the storytelling horror that is still to come, written and illustrated by creators who unflinchingly have a love for the characters and the genre. It’s a series that reminds us how great Universal’s Dracula film was and how important the monster remains to this day.
Take a thirsty bite into the powerful and primal red! Make the run to your local comic book shop and pick up the harrowingly wonderful Universal Monsters: Dracula #1 today!
