Dracula, Motherf**cker!
Written by Alex de Campi
Drawn by Erica Henderson
Published by Image Comics
The Skinny: A ’70s Neo-Noir take on the classic Dracula story.
1970s Los Angeles is a city in love with youth, and with death. And when aging starlet Bebe Beauland faces losing the former, she turns to the later, resurrectomg Dracula. The vampire was attacked and imprisoned by his brides nearly a century before. When crime-scene photography Quincy Harker sells evidence of Bebe’s apparent death, he becomes a target for the Dracula and Bebe. But his brides aren’t about to leave their job half-done.
Dracula, Motherf**cker! positively oozes sleezy, ’70s neo-noir and Hammer horror personality. Short and stylish, this graphic novel pulls you in like a vampire’s gaze, demanding you pore over each sumptuous page. de Campi’s fang-sharp writing and Henderson’s at times grotesque art, colored in eye-searing saturated palates, never letting go until the very last page. Henderson’s softer drawing style creates an appealing contrast with the gritty subject matter, and her depiction of the count, not as a suave and seductive foreign nobleman, but as a sort of impenetrable, unknowable cloud of darkness, protean and shadowy, with too many eyes, mouths, or hands, shifting from panel to panel, is unsettling and masterfully juxtaposed to Quincy’s gritty and detailed corpse photography, much of which we see from the point-of-view of his camera lens.
De Campi’s writing is also layered and intriguing, taking the unusual perspective of the three brides, barely bit-players in Stokers novel, raised to the status of dubious anti-heroes as they revenge themselves on their creator and disrupt his own plans for them. It’s a refreshing take on a well-tread tale, and the book is exceptional for it.
If you’re looking for a treat this Halloween, Dracula, Motherf**ker! fits the bill. You can find it digitally via Comixolgy, or in print at your local comics shop.
Hugh J. O'Donnell 