I don’t know why I haven’t read Kim Newman’s Anno Dracula. I’ve always wanted to; it combines my love of alternate history with my love of a good old fashioned Victorian monster mash. Then it turns into a long-form vampire epic, following bloodsucking immortals through the centuries of history. That all sounds like my jam! When I heard about a comic series of “Anno Dracula: 1895 – Seven Days in Mayhem,” penned by Newman himself, I thought this was finally my chance to dive into the world of Crown Prince Dracula.
Written by Kim Newman
Illustrated by Paul McCaffrey
Colored by Kevin Enhart
Lettered by Simon Bowland1895. Prince Dracula has ruled Great Britain for ten years, spreading vampirisn through every level of society. On the eve of Dracula’s Jubilee, radical forces gather to oppose the tyrant. Kate Reed, vampire journalist and free-thinker, takes a seat on the revolutionary Council of Seven Days, though she learns that the anarchist group harbours a traitor in its midst. The Grey Men, Dracula’s dreaded secret police, have been ordered to quash all resistance to the rule of the arch-vampire. With intrigue on all sides, the scene is set for an explosive addition to the Anno Dracula series.
My experience was decidedly a mixed bag. I certainly enjoyed Paul McCaffrey’s artwork, and the world Kim Newman has created is one I’d love to spend more time in, but I left the comic unsure of who the target audience was. “Anno Dracula” is not, as I initially assumed, a comic adaptation of Newman’s novels. On the last page, a winding timeline explains that this comic takes place between the first two published novels in the series. On the one hand, this issue has all the signs of a new-reader friendly jumping on point, but on the other hand it seems to be full of references to the novels. This can be made to work, but the issue never escapes the feeling of trying to serve two masters.
We open with a dramatis personae “introducing the leading female members of our tale.” This is the first content in the whole comic, and thus my introduction to the characters and the world of “Anno Dracula.” I carefully read the four character descriptions, getting myself amped for a story of vampire intrigue. We next get a page taken “from the journal of Dr. Van Helsing.” So far so good, though it is written in that cursive font that’s never quite as readable as comic writers seem to hope it will be.
Then we get to the real comic, and wow, McCaffrey has a great time pulling out all the stops. Steampunk battleships sail alongside war-zeppelins. A goulish undead Frenchman in a rear admiral’s hat commands a crew that includes a mad-science Thomas Edison and a spiky-helmeted German vampire. Then Dracula’s horde arrives and they are glorious. Bat-faced creatures dive upon the ships in flight caps and goggles! A disgusting kraken rises from the depths, covered in huge crab creatures! A topless mermaid and what appears to be the Creature From the Black Lagoon drag sailors into the murky depths! Armored vampires in old-fashioned diving suits swarm the fleet! If you’re going to open a comic with a splash page, this is how you do it.
Sadly, the issue kind of peaks here, on the fourth page. It never manages to achieve the same insane comic book heights. That’s fair, the entire issue can’t all be battles, but after teasing the possibilities of a world where Dracula rules the British isles, spending the rest of our time with humans and vampires feels disappointingly pedestrian. Which isn’t to say the book is without visual spectacle, but even bloody murder feels tame after that battle.
As we wind our way through the story, we meet the characters introduced on that first page. The thing is, they usually come with a caption box explaining who they are, again. Then the narrator also explains who they are in a caption box. Sometimes, they then explain who they are through dialogue. It’s too much.
The thing is, based on the quality of the prose itself, Newman seems like a really fun writer. He’s great at the fun Victorian Britishisms (when a secret meeting is interrupted, a man shouts out “We’re rumbled!” which is delightful) but the pacing and the exposition are all over the place. Do we really need lengthy descriptions of some of the characters multiple times? It’s especially egregious when other characters, prominent in this issue, are left completely unexplained. It takes until the middle of the issue for the basic backstory of Dracula’s rise to power to be explained at all, in a flashback sequence which begins with “as you know,” which is a terrible way to deliver any exposition. Why couldn’t the background be included in lieu of the unnecessary first page character descriptions, or through the device of Van Helsing’s journal?
Continued belowAll of this leads me to conclude that Newman, while a talented writer, doesn’t know what he’s doing with the comics medium. Lots of writers have recently been making a shaky transition from prose to comics, it’s a learning process, but it makes this first issue extremely uneven. Newman has the tendency to overwrite, using long swathes of narration to explain things the art conveys perfectly well. It’s a classic case of a writer not knowing how to trust an artist, because they’ve never had to work with one before.
Fortunately, McCaffrey takes the opportunity to lay down some storytelling of his own. No one ever mentions the moon, which has a creepy vampiric face on it. The signs and posters in the backgrounds convey a great sense of place. The best are the icky vendor carts, selling entrails to the many immortals of London.
“Anno Dracula” #1 is a mess of a first issue, which is a shame because it has a lot of good stuff going on underneath all the noise. Hopefully, Newman will find his comic-writing voice, and it will be as good as his prose-writing voice. If nothing else, this issue is a great showcase for Paul McCaffrey, who is clearly a talented and dedicated artist who works fantastically in the comics medium. This first issue didn’t leave me dying to read the next one, but it definitely cemented my interest in the book series.
Final Verdict: 6.6 – The creative team never manages to gel, even as they spend this issue showcasing their talents. Their fantastic ideas deserve a better comic.
