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Book Review: Dracula of Transylvania by Ricardo Delgado

cover art for Dracula of Transylvania by RIcardo Delgado

Dracula of Transylvania by Ricardo Delgado

Clover Press, LLC, 2021

ISBN-13: 9781951038229

Available: Hardcover, paperback

Buy:  Bookshop.org |  Amazon.com

 

Ricardo Delgado has an impressive resume. He is an American-born artist and writer of Costa Rican descent, and a graduate of, and teacher at, the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. He has worked as a film illustrator on Star Trek: First Contact, Jurassic Park 3, The Matrix Reloaded, Revolution, and others. He has also worked on designs for animated films such as The Emperor’s New Groove, WALL-E, How to Train Your Dragon, and more. His creative endeavors don’t end there. He created the acclaimed comic series Age of Reptiles for Dark Horse, wrote Sam Specter and the Book of Spells, and the hard-boiled science fiction noir Warhead. He decided to take on the subject material of Dracula of Transylvania in a new vision of the classic tale.

 

Young solicitor Jonathan Harker, headstrong and curious natured Mina, newly engaged Lucy, brave Arthur, timid but honorable Ian, drawling gunslinger Quincy, and old professor and friend Van Helsing brave the supernatural and mundane in their quest to stop the Son of Satan, Dracula of Transylvania, and his three wives, Andromeda, Petra, and Venus, from destroying all of humanity.

 

I’ll start by discussing the pros of Delgado’s epic retelling. First, the characters are much more fleshed out than they are in Stoker’s work. While Delgado took liberties with such things as character backgrounds (e.g. Jonathan is from America in this version), the changes do not distract from the story. There is much more focus on Mina and her point of view, and frankly, she is my favorite character out of all of them. The reader gets a better feel for the characters and, truly feels invested in what happens to them. Van Helsing is well-developed, and his influence can be felt throughout the journey to find Dracula, even when he is not present in the pages. Even side characters, like the villagers fearing for their lives but wanting to provide Harker and the others with as much aid as they can, come across as being very real and more than merely bit players.

 

Then, there are the villains of the piece. Dracula, of course, is portrayed as an imposing, cruel master and conqueror, but he is not alone in his travels. His wives follow him wherever he goes, but not out of any love or familial devotion. Andromeda, Petra, and Venus each have distinct personalities and histories, and are welcome improvements from Stoker’s original novel. The reader only gets a glimpse of them in Stoker’s tale, and then they are practically forgotten. In Delgado’s revision, while they are treated as concubines by Dracula, the author gives them more than a passing mention. Another addition to Dracula’s entourage is the skeleton army led by the Roman-clad warrior Primus, also a skeleton, and an ever present swarm of rats. The hulking figure of Renfield is terrifying, and Delgado gives him a backstory that tells the tale of the source of his mental illness, as well as adding a dash of a legendary serial killer who roamed Whitechapel into the mix. War time is hell, and Renfield, Van Helsing, and the other parents were not immune to the trials they experienced.

 

The pacing is fantastic. Delgado’s action scenes are incredible, and when the characters need to slow down and take a breath or plan their next move, it does not feel forced. It almost feels like it is a break for the reader to catch their breath! Delgado provides ample footnotes throughout the novel that describe Biblical passages and various facts to further embed the reader in the Victorian era.

 

Now, I’ll discuss the negatives. While there were illustrations between the chapters, they were all black and white. The artwork included in the back of the book were in colour, and gorgeous. I think if Delgado used the same colour palette for the other pieces they would have been more striking and effective. Another aspect that was interesting to begin with but gradually became a distraction and quite daunting was the use of different languages followed by translations that Delgado admits came from using Google Translate. Since I do not read any of the languages used, I cannot determine their accuracy. I know in my own experience using the translation feature can result in terrible mistakes, so I am hoping that Delgado consulted with people who could properly translate to verify accuracy. It would have also benefited the book for another round of editing. There were grammatical, spelling, and punctuation errors throughout that could have been spotted by a careful editor.

 

Despite the negatives to the book, the story was solid and well executed. The danger of Dracula and his accomplices is much improved from the original story, as is the interaction and growth of the characters, and the action is much more intense and exciting. The accompanying artwork is a welcome addition, and we get a better sense of Delgado’s vision. I recommend this for readers who hoped for a more action packed, character driven story than the source material delivered. Recommended.

 

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

 

 

Posted on January 5, 2024 by , Reply

Book Review: You Can’t Kill Snow White by Beatrice Alemagna, translated by Karin Snelson and Emilie Robert Wong

 

You Can’t Kill Snow White by Beatrice Alemagna, translated from French by Karin Snelson and Emilie Robert Wong

Unruly, 2022

ISBN: 978-159270381

Available: Hardcover

Buy: Bookshop.org

 

 

You Can’t Kill Snow White puts a spin on the traditional story of Snow White by telling it from the Queen’s point of view. Alemagna reminds us of the darkness of the original Grimms’ tales and attempts to recapture and extend it by exposing the Queen’s evil plans, demented intentions, and murderous mind. We see her relishing the liver and lungs of the boar killed in place of Snow White that she believes are her victim’s and celebrating how “alive” and “renewed” she feels after feasting on them.

 

Although the idea of focusing on the Queen as narrator has great potential for enhancing the terror of the story and forcing the reader to feel the fear that children are protected from by modern re-tellings, Alemagna’s version does not go far enough. The fact that the focus on the queen cannot be maintained because she is not present at key points, like when the huntsman decides not to murder Snow White, causes breaks in the build up of tension. These breaks become longer and more difficult to bridge when the dwarves enter the picture and we are told by the queen that her heart is filled with “unspeakable pain” and she is full of “dread.” Are we meant to sympathize with her or to see her as so damaged that she is dangerous? Either way, the lack of development of the character does not shed much more light on her than we have had in the past.

 

It seems that rather than creating a new take on the story of Snow White, Alemagna has used it as an opportunity to showcase her art. The illustrations are plentiful and create a dark moodiness in a palette primarily of murky browns, reds, blues and golds with jolts of reds and pinks. The dwarves are Eastern European folkloric type figures, mainly bearded. The human beings typically suggest nightmares with elongated bodies, impossibly long hair, gaping mouths, and giant hands. There is much frenetic movement: sweeping, gorging, and screaming that is a much stronger portrayal of emotion and much more effective at eliciting it from the reader than the writing is able to do.

 

You Can’t Kill Snow White is published by Enchanted Lion Books under their new picture book imprint, “Unruly,” intended for older readers and adults. These publishers are on the right track by engaging the many readers who have, even since childhood, loved the way in which illustrations add depth and beauty to storytelling. What better way to draw out our deepest fears than to experience on the page the horrible pictures  we can only imagine from descriptions?

 

Reviewed by Nova Hadley

Posted on September 3, 2023 by , Reply

Graphic Novel Review: The EC Archives: Terror Illustrated edited by Daniel Chabon, original series editor William M. Gaines

Cover art for EC Archives: Terror Illustrated

The EC Archives: Terror Illustrated edited by Daniel Chabon, original series editor William M. Gaines

Dark Horse, 2022

ISBN-13: 9781506719788

Available: Kindle edition, hardcover ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

 

The EC Archives: Terror Illustrated includes illustrated prose stories of terror, murder, and the supernatural with works by Al Feldstein (also writing under Alfred E. Neuman), Jack Davis, Joe Orlando, Johnny Craig, and more! This collection also features the never printed third issue, and a foreword by Mick Garris. The book, advertised as “Picto-Fiction,” contains illustrated stories rather than a traditional comic.

 

I’m going to start out this review with the negative. There are some problematic stories in this volume, the worst of them being “Mother Love” by Maxwell Williams and illustrated by Charles Sultan, and “The Long Wait” by Alfred E. Neuman and illustrated by Johnny Craig. In “Mother Love,” Leona’s father sells her to a brute named Clint as a bride. She is endlessly abused and tormented, and rape is alluded to in this story. She is described as no smarter than a toddler, and lines like “Not that Leona thought of her life as a horror. Her mind was not capable of that” made this hard to get through. It gets worse. Clint discovers she is pregnant, and after he beats and abuses her further, he devises a plan where he would abandon her at the hospital. I don’t often ruin the end of the story in my reviews, but I will here. She eventually escapes the hospital and returns to the cabin, with her stillborn baby in a jar, and kills Clint. When the police arrive, nothing is done to try to figure out why what happened, happened. An abused woman is arrested for killing her abuser. This story is problematic on so many levels. 

 

In “The Long Wait” by Alfred E. Neuman, illustrated by Johnny Craig, Red Buckley murders his boss, plantation owner Emil Duval. As can be expected when a plantation is mentioned, you can bet there are racist depictions of Black “workers” Kulu approaches the main house and says “Kulu wanna be house-boy. Kulu wanna be servant.” Yikes. You think Buckley gets his comeuppance in the end…but it still reveals a racially insensitive reason that it occurs. 

 

This is not to say there are not some gems in this volume. There are some good stories here. The first story in issue 1, “The Sucker”, by Maxwell Williams and illustrated by Reed Crandall, is told in second person: you are on the run when you meet a beautiful dame who cheats and robs you, and the only thing you can do every night is kill her…again…and again…and again. In “Halloween”, by Alfred Feldstein and illustrated by Reed Crandall, Ann Dennis is hired as the matron of Briarwood Orphan Asylum by the headmaster, Eban Critchet. She does her best to improve the lives of the orphans in her care, but when she discovers what the headmaster has been doing, she takes matters into her own hands, and the children aren’t far behind. “The Gorilla’s Paw”,  by Alfred E. Neuman and illustrated by Johnny Craig is a violent and brutal retelling of the classic “Monkey’s Paw” tale. After a man is convinced he must purchase a mummified gorilla’s paw from a curio shop, he is plagued by nightmares and wishes he had never bought it, then awakens to find the paw holding the amount of money he paid for the paw. When he discovers the secret of the paw, he keeps on wishing, and his last wish proves to be a doozy. “Keepsake” by Jack Oleck, illustrated by Graham Ingels, gives us the story of an undertaker mourning the death of his childhood friend and unrequited love, Miss Hettie. During his time as undertaker, he kept a deadly secret for her, and after he discovers another one of her little secrets, he will be able to keep another. A fun inclusion in the third issue is the “Letters to the Editor” column the best one that denounces the magazine as “the highest and most advanced form of Brainrot on the market today” and “the stories and thoughts that these magazines contain are truly the work of Satan.”

 

This volume provides a glimpse into the horror enjoyed in the 1950s and echoes the radio plays such as Suspense, The Mysterious Traveler, Inner Sanctum, and others. Despite the problematic elements of some of the stories, I still found enjoyable tales of terror within these pages, and the artwork was well done. This book, along with other EC Comics archival editions, would be an interesting addition for comics history, as well as courses studying comics and graphic novels. Recommended.

 

 

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

Posted on March 18, 2023 by , Reply
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