My Rating
“Dracula”
It was a grueling 32-hour trip from New York to the Drake family’s ancestral homeland, inconveniently located somewhere in the heart of Transylvania. The flight layovers were long, the food was terrible, and now Frank, Clifton, and Jeanie are stuck driving up a narrow mountain road in the middle of a nasty rainstorm. The jeep they rented at the airport is little more than an antique that should have been donated to the local museum decades ago. Fortune has turned on Clifton Graves, the man bankrolling this little expedition. You see, his funds are running a bit low. When the money goes, so does the quality of one’s transportation.
Clifton and Jeanie Ovington wouldn’t be in this situation if it weren’t for Frank Drake. Frank’s problem with money—or the lack of it—has landed him on hard times. His father was a self-made millionaire. When he passed away, Frank inherited the money as well as the title to an abandoned castle located in the old country. “Who needs that headache?” Frank asked the probate attorney. Just give him the million!
It took Frank only three years to spend what his father had taken a lifetime to earn. Once the money disappeared, so did most of his friends.
Clifton eventually convinced Frank to travel to Transylvania and sell the Drake family castle for a nice profit. Frank was on the fence about the whole thing. The two men had once been good friends, at least until Jeanie drove a wedge between them. She dated Clifton for a while before dumping him for Frank. Even with his financial troubles, Jeanie remained loyal to Frank. Clifton despised her for it. Things only got worse when she insisted on tagging along.
The rain increased in volume as well as ferocity. Frank swerved to avoid a fallen tree and buried the jeep in a muddy ravine. With their transportation finished, the trio had no other option but to continue on foot through the torrential downpour.
Eventually, they reached a local village and secured a horse-drawn buggy. One resident was brave enough—or foolish enough—to drive the Americans farther into the mountains. By the time they arrived at the old iron gates, the rain had finally ceased its assault on the countryside.
Frank, Clifton, and Jeanie stood there in awe.
Before them towered the ancestral home of the Drake family.
Castle Dracula.
Notes
Halloween is almost here, and with Marvel’s release of the Tomb of Dracula #1 facsimile edition, I think it’s time to review this sucker!
I’ll keep this part short and sweet. If you want to see how comics used to be written—or what it was like to get a ton of content for only 20 cents—BUY THE FACSIMILE! The gorgeous artwork by Gene Colan is worth the price alone, in my opinion.
Review
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, yes, I really do recommend this comic. If you can’t find or afford an original printing of Tomb of Dracula #1, here is your chance to own a wonderful reproduction. I have to hand it to Marvel on this one.
I’ve read a lot of horror comics from this period, especially books published during the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Comparing Tomb of Dracula #1 with some of the horror titles being published by Charlton and DC Comics at the time, Marvel was operating on another level with this issue.
Gerry Conway did an excellent job taking elements from Bram Stoker’s novel and dragging Dracula kicking and screaming into the 20th century. The basic setup is simple, but it works. A broke descendant of Dracula inherits the family castle, travels to Transylvania hoping to make some money, and discovers that certain pieces of the family history should probably have remained buried.
Even though this issue debuted in the early 1970s, I don’t think the story will be lost on modern readers. Sure, some of the dialogue and storytelling techniques are products of their time, but that is part of the charm. Gene Colan’s artwork is the real star of the show. His heavy shadows, expressive characters, and wonderfully gothic interpretation of Castle Dracula give the book an atmosphere that still works more than fifty years later. It is classic Marvel horror done the Marvel Way.
I would also like to point out that Count Dracula’s abilities and weaknesses during this early period are somewhat different from the vampires modern Marvel readers may be familiar with. If you’ve seen the first Blade movie, forget the line about crosses and running water not doing squat. That certainly isn’t the case with this Dracula.
Conway and Marvel appear to lean heavily into the traditional vampire mythology popularized by the horror movies of the era. I can’t help but see the influence of Hammer Films and its Dracula movies throughout the issue. Crosses, castles, frightened villagers, Transylvanian superstition—it’s all here, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.
Tomb of Dracula #1 feels like the beginning of something special. Gerry Conway lays the foundation, Gene Colan gives Dracula a wonderfully sinister new home at Marvel, and the final product still delivers the gothic atmosphere that made the character famous in the first place.
I’m looking forward to sinking my teeth into the rest of the series.
Five out of five stars. Now somebody grab a wooden stake!