Universal Monsters: Dracula #1 // Review
It starts with a fly. There is a pale, white face looking at the fly as a hand reaches out to it. It is the hand of a man named Renfield. He’s talking to a psychiatric professional who is working with him--a Doctor Seward. The fly in question isn’t precisely therapy. It DOES help explain a few things about a very complex situation in Universal Monsters: Dracula #1. Writer James Tynion IV and artist Martin Simmonds open a four-issue adaptation of Tod Browning’s 1931 film adaptation of Dracula. The team that worked so well on the captivating Department of Truth opens a stylish examination of the 1931 cinematic horror classic.
Renfield is tortured. He is burdened and liberated by the terrible power of his master. Seward is having a hell of a time working with him. It’s challenging to navigate the strange corridors of so warped a psyche, but he IS trying to understand him. Seward confides in his concerns about Renfield with a solicitor friend of his...a guy name John. Meanwhile, Seward’s daughter Mina is talking with her friend Lucy about the mysterious little man named Renfield and some of the awful things he’d done.
Tynion frames the first part of a four-part series primarily with a trio of conversations. Renfield talks to Seward. Seward talk to John. Mina talks to Lucy. The title character is a voiceless phantom on the edge of the action. There’s a hell of a lot of exposition going on in the first issue, but it firmly establishes the plot while allowing the artist plenty of room to get to work on setting a mood of blood and shadow lurking around the edges of the drama. Tynion doesn’t draw a whole lot of insight into the characters, but he DOES manage a very sharp fusion between the trappings of a 1931 horror movie and the classy poise of a contemporary comic book.
Simmonds has quite a challenge. This isn’t just any adaptation of Dracula. It is an adaptation of Tod Browning’s adaptation of Dracula. The characters need to look like screen actors from eight decades ago while hitting the page in a way that feels new and compelling. Simmonds manages to tighten up and amplify the presence of Herbert Bunston’s Doctor Seward. Simmond’s portrayal of Dwight Frye’s Renfield look considerably more gaunt and monstrous than he did in the film. And then there’s the matter of Bela Lugosi--he always looked kind of comical in the role. Simmonds conjures a likeness of Lugosi that manages to look quite faithful to the actor while pulling off the weird miracle of making him look strikingly powerful. It’s quite an accomplishment.
As bad a movie as it was, Tod Browning’s Dracula is starkly iconic and a landmark horror film. There’s something kind of cool about a big two-page title spread that reads “Universal Pictures and Skybound Present...Dracula.” Tynion and Simmonds manage a first issue that feels darkly cinematic while intensifying the atmosphere that feels that much more powerful than that which was committed to film on the Universal Studios Lot in the Autumn of 1930.
