Bram Stoker’s Dracula is one of my favorite novels, to the point where I own three copies: a dinged up old paperback I picked up used, a fancy pants hardcover with extensive notes, and the recent edition with Becky Cloonan illustrations. It’s a true timeless classic, a book that, for better or for worse, fully planted the vampire into popular culture, never to leave. As many know, though, the so-called “Dracula” was a real man, a Romanian leader named Vlad Tepes, otherwise known as “The Impaler.” To say the very least, he was a man with… a reputation. Many academic books have been released exploring the background of the historical Vlad Tepes, and the vampiric myth that surrounds him, but that isn’t exactly what Mark Sable and Salgood Sam’s “Dracula: Son of the Dragon” is. Instead, this miniseries weaves fact with fiction to tell the story of Tepes’s transformation from Impaler to vampire. Looks like I’ll soon have more Dracula fiction on my bookshelf.
One of the things that sets “Son of the Dragon” apart from other Dracula stories is that it features Tepes as the lead character. Normally, Dracula is some otherworldly force, fully alien to the reader, whose head we can never get inside — in fact, that’s how his creator, Bram Stoker, wrote him. Throughout the years, Dracula has been reserved as an antagonist for many reasons: particularly because he is a monster, but also because it is a daunting and almost presumptuous task to give an “inside look” at one of the most iconic characters in fiction. That’s not to say it hasn’t been done; it just hasn’t always been done… well. By keeping one foot on the ground in historical facts — well, what we believe to be fact, anyway — writer Mark Sable has a good foundation to build from; with these historical roots, he seems much more capable of building a believable, human (at first) Dracula than those who solely work from, say, Stoker’s novel.
Of course, while Sable has proven himself as a writer in comics such as “Graveyard of Empires” and “Grounded,” there’s still a gamble when trying to judge a comic’s writing just by the concept (as we know, concept and execution are two different things). Luckily, we don’t have to just hope for the best when it comes to the art. The pages provided by artist Salgood Sam are absolutely gorgeous, and suit the eerie tone that the book assumedly will have. Done with black line work and brown tones, with the ocassional splash of deep red, the pages have a rustic quality to them, as if it was an ancient tome dug up depicting the “true” tale of Vlad Tepes. The level of detail is impeccable, with both characters who are highly expressive and “sets” that show not the slightest sign of skimping. Even if Sable does a faceplant — which I highly doubt, as those comics of his that I’ve read have been between good and great — this is going to be one gorgeous book worth having in hand.
One slight setback is that in order to have it in hand, you’ll need to donate $26, and even then you’re getting a black and white ashcan. Worry not, though; this ashcan comes with about thirty pages of annotations, sketches, and other “bonus features,” along with the sixty page story. It also includes a unique bookplate, your name in the credits, a hand-drawn sigil of the Order of the Dragon, and a subscription to Sal’s digital anthology RevolveЯ, which will include both the serialized, full-color first part and other comics, so it really isn’t a bad deal at all. If you want the full-color print trade, it will take $40; considering how gorgeous the artwork is, though, and that it also includes the digital subscription, the bookplate, and your name in the special thanks section of the book, it would be a fair price even if this wasn’t a crowd-funding project. If you’re looking for a cheaper option, it only takes $15 to get the digital subscription and the special thanks.
The project includes many incentives beyond these “core ones,” all of which are worth checking out (one of which includes Sable writing a comic issue specifically for you, which is nuts). The book’s target goal is $14,000 — ambitious, maybe, but perfectly doable. “Dracula: Son of the Dragon” has to potential to breathe life into a character who has been abused over the decades, and even if it doesn’t, it looks damn good. Sounds like it’s worth a donation to me.
