Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Bram Stoker's Dracula (Fernando Fernandez, 1984)

I really love this graphic novel adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula by comic artist Fernando Fernandez. Originally created for the Spanish version of Creepy magazine in 1982, then printed as a hardcover graphic novel in the U.S. two years later (the softcover reprint scanned below is from 2005), the artwork is simply magnificent. Almost any frame could be blown up and mounted to the wall. And although it's been a long time since I've read the original novel, this comic seems fairly faithful to that text, including details that are often omitted in other adaptations, such as the scene where Dracula delivers a whimpering infant to the women vampires.

I'm not sure how I managed to miss this when it was first published back in 1984, but I can tell you that if I had found it the first time around, I would have had to keep it somewhere safe, out of the eyes of prying parents, because of some partial nudity. (This is, after all, a graphic novel.)

Click on any of the scans below to enlarge.
















4 comments:

said...

Wow that is some fantastic artwork.

Is this still in print?

BTW speaking of graphic novels, I once worked at a bookstore that would not allow us to use that term in the signage for trade paperbacks.

The reason? The company bigwigs feared people might infer that we were selling 'pornographic' novels.

Brother Bill said...

Out of print, but readily available on the secondhand market.

Unknown said...

It is terrible tragedy that Fernando Fernandez has passed away. You can help remember him by contributing to his memorial website at http://fernandofernandez.people2remember.com/

Guillaume said...

That's is an old relic. I have lost hope to see a faithful movie adaptation of the novel, but this graphic novel seems very close, albeit it looks very 70s ish.