| Title | : | The Complete Dracula |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1606900609 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781606900604 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 168 |
| Publication | : | First published February 16, 2010 |
The Complete Dracula Reviews
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I can't say that Dracula has ever been on of my favorite classic, but I have been thinking of re-reading the book since it has been years since I read it. But now I don't need to since I read this faithful graphic novel instead. But I must admit that I would have preferred the book instead and I will probably try to re-read the book sometime in the future when my memory has faded a bit...
I had some problem with the font, a lot of different fonts was used some worked fine on the Ipad, some were a lot harder to read, so, in the end, I read part of it on the computer and part of it on my Ipad (depending on If was near a computer since I wasn't always at home)
Also the art...hmm it just didn't do the trick for me. I wasn't really overwhelmed by it.
But it the end it was a hell of a ride! ;)
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Dracula is a book that has always been a favorite of mine. In the past eighteen years I've read it five times. I have several different editions, some annotated, some with book illustrations. I'm sorry to say that this graphic novel adaptation was a major disappointment. No, I'm not sorry...this version is complete and utter garbage!
I had previously read graphic novel adaptations,
Stoker's Dracula by Roy Thomas and Dick Giordano as well as
Dracula The Graphic Novel: Original Text by Jason Cobley and Staz Johnson. I prefer those versions.
I didn't think it was possible to take a book as good as
Dracula and greatly dull it down as much as they did with this. Several parts were cut out. For instance, I found myself actually thinking that there were pages missing from my copy while reading the beginning of it. I realize you can't fit every part of the book in there, but they really hacked this apart. Although it was interesting that . A lot of the dialogue from the original text was altered and cut apart as well. Van Helsing was illustrated to look exactly like
Edward Van Sloan, the actor who played him in the 1931 movie version of Dracula when that's not the way Stoker described him at all. Even Dracula (although he had the facial hair and shifted from old to young) had his hair slicked back like Bela Lugosi instead of the "bushy hair" that Stoker described.
I did not care for the art either. It was digitally painted...and don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking on digital art at all! There is some amazing stuff out there that has been done with programs like Photoshop and Corel Painter, etc. No, in some parts the art was just plain sloppy and boring, even so unclear in some of the panels that I was like "what the hell am I looking at?". The artist that did the covers was really good though. Maybe this thing would have been a little better if they had let him do the whole thing.
I didn't even bother reading the afterward. After all, I gave it one star!
Maybe one day someone will make a truly faithful adaptation of Dracula. Until then I'll stick with the Marvel edition and the Staz Johnson version. -
As a huge fan of Dracula that already owns several different versions of the book – annotated editions, anniversary editions, and various illustrated editions – to say that I was excited to get my hands on this graphic novel is putting it lightly. However, my excitement rapidly devolved into a hollow disappointment as I went through the book. Oh, it does a decent job of telling the story, but does so in an unenthusiastic, nearly clinical manner.
To begin with, the layout of the pages were horribly boring, with most pages depicting 9 panels per page framed with a bold black border. There is so much more that can be done with panel organization nowadays and this book dropped the ball. Instead of using the panel framing to enhance the story by doing full page spreads or various layering as is often found in comics, this volume stuck to the sterile 3x3 layout. This also caused problems with the lettering and the images being forced to be incredibly tiny.
The illustrations themselves were also disappointing. The interior artwork is done by a different artist than the one that did the cover images, which is often the case in graphic novels. However, they usually try to match styles. The interior style was done in a realism format that looks like sloppy acrylic painting (probably done in Photoshop and not in actual acrylics), and I mean sloppy. I’m sure some people will appreciate the interior style, but I was not a fan and strongly believe that the book would have been better off if they had used a more traditional comic book style (like the cover pages) rather than shoddy realism.
The font choices were also poor. Seeing as how Dracula is an epistolary novel, the letterer chose a basic typewriter font to depict the segments that they chose to tell in the past (or letter) format. However, the particular font they chose was incredibly difficult to read in such a small size. They would have been better off using a sans serif font like Helvetica to depict the letters, and the standard comic sans for the dialogue portion.
All said, the book does do a decent job of illustrating Dracula directly, so if you’re looking for a straight up illustrated version of the book (such as you’re being assigned to read the book in class and don’t want to work on using your own imagination to visualize the novel), than you may enjoy this more than I did. My disappointment comes from my hope that they would have taken the opportunity to use the comic book medium to do something visually stimulating and dynamic with the work (come on, comics can be absolutely stunning, the medium is designed to be visual); instead what I got was a shoddy illustrated depiction of the novel from someone who can’t, or refused to use their own imagination. -
As always, enjoyed the story - it *is* the ultimate vampire story after all, IMO. And to think that it is actually composed of letters and extracts from journals, yet it keeps the reader on the edge! I was surprised to see how well this kind of story telling fell into a graphic novel. However, I was a bit disappointed by the illustrations. Albeit being very good, I just felt that a graphic novel about a vampire could have been more vividly illustrated. (Or, quite possibly, I have just been spoiled by the Sandman series. :)) Maybe it is supposed to go in line with the spirit of the Victorian time period. Oh well, just a minor detail - I did enjoy this one!
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Dracula is part of our culture. Virtually everybody has heard of him, even if they haven’t read the original book by Irish author Bram Stoker. This book is an adaptation of the original.
The conventions of the vampire fantasy were developed in the original. Reading this adaptation, I learned how those conventions came about and I feel as if I have a good feel for the original work. In that sense, I’ve expanded my repertoire of literary knowledge and feel I’m a more knowledgeable literary devotee.
Not being a fan of graphic novels, I read this anyway as part of this year’s Extreme Book Nerd challenge. To my complete surprise, I enjoyed it. I find it hard to look at pictures to determine meaning, but in this graphic novel, the words explained enough that looking at the pictures wasn’t necessary.
In the story, Dracula comes from Transylvania to England to expand his field of victims. Although one woman dies before the adventure is over, fortunately there is a team of people devoted to the destruction of Dracula for the betterment of mankind. -
I love the book Dracula, so I was highly intrigued by this graphic novel adaptation. This managed to be faithful to the original, while bringing its own level of horror and eeriness to the story with really great drawings.
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After reading the original Bram Stoker novel I also found this graphic novel and thought it would be an interesting comparison. It is the complete story and follows the style of the original in showing us different documents by various people. The drawings are dark and surreal, some pictures seem photorealistic, others are more comic style/abstract. The colours are very dark too, even the parts taking place in daylight are dark and forbidding. The colour red is only used for emphasis. This all fits the story very well and the pictures are artistic without question.
Nevertheless I didn't really like the graphic novel. I think it's mainly because the changes of place and time following the different narrator's voices are hard to follow, there are a lot of characters. A great deal of the story has to be told through added documents and lots of text in each panel. I just had the impression that pictures and texts rather competed against each other than working together as they are supposed to do in a graphic novel. But maybe it wasn't just such a good idea to read the original and the graphic novel so shortly after one another. -
While this graphic novel provides a great overview and faithful adaptation of Stoker's somewhat tedious novel, it fails to evoke the same terror and chilling Gothic atmosphere that the novel does. I was most disappointed how short the Transylvanian section at the beginning was, as this is my favorite section of the novel (Harker's journey through the Carpathians to Dracula's castle and his stay at the castle).
I love the artwork on each comic cover issue but the artwork for the story itself was hit or miss...many times inconsistent and distracting. Despite that, it is still worth reading and having in any Dracula collection. -
This graphic novel reminded me of the old Classics Illustrated comics I read when I was a kid. Basically, this is Bram Stoker's Dracula with pictures.
Some of the pictures were very good - almost photographic in quality. Others I did not like as well. I didn't care for the pictures of Dracula himself.
Since I've read Dracula, I did not find this as interesting as if I had never read the novel. I would have enjoyed this more if I were younger and had not read the actual book.
(Okay, every time I picked this up to read it I fell asleep, but that may be due more to my work schedule than the comic.) -
A workable adaptation of the classic vampire novel, marred by poor art.
See my whole review here:
http://noflyingnotights.com/?p=8751 -
Dracula is a truly awesome classic. It has its moments, especially in the first half, where it’s a little hard to take. I wanted to roll my eyes when Jonathan went through his horrific experience at Dracula’s castle, then “forgot” everything when he caught a brain fever after his escape. That was convenient for the story. Or when Van Helsing refused to tell everyone what he thought was happening to Lucy until it was too late. If you’d told them everything, you idiot, they wouldn’t have left her alone or taken her garlic away ‘because it was stinky’! But once you get past these hurdles, it’s a rollicking good time. Best of all, it features a brave, intelligent female character, without whom Old Fangs would never have been caught. All of this is not to say that THIS version of the book is the best, however. I was excited to see the story available as a graphic novel, and a detailed graphic novel at that. But the artwork was not to my taste. Instead of clean drawings, the art was colorized and blurred to look like paintings (I’m guessing; I’m not sure what the intent was). This worked at times, but left the human characters looking strange and ugly. The sketches at the back of the book in the author’s notes were actually much more appealing to me than the finished artwork. All in all, though, this is an interesting take on the book for fans of Dracula and an accessible version for those unwilling to read the original.
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Probably the most faithful comic adaptation. The artwork often leaves a lot to be desired -- it's a very dark, gothic painted style that hides more than it reveals, which works well for some of the darker elements of the story, but provides no contrast to the moments of reality and levity -- making the whole thing look like an opium-induced fever dream inking.
I also probably shouldn't have read the collective notes at the end which make too many statements to the effect of "Mina is awesome and all the men are patriarchal misogynists who suck." -
Picked this one from couple of graphic novels which are based on Dracula, because this one was said to be most faithful to the Bram Stoker's Dracula.
Now, the story is epistolary i.e. told in letter format & the author might have done the best he could; but it being a graphic novel had immense opportunities to be even more creepier, terrific form of the original book, which it couldn't achieve.
The fonts used were also difficult to read sometimes & the artwork was decent, but having read a fair share of graphic novels, I think it could have been better. -
I think I would tend toward a 3.5 on this one based on some of the changes the creators saw fit to make. Of course, you won't get the depth with this graphic novel as you'd get with the actual novel, but this is a sufficient version for someone that doesn't want to sit down to read one of the best books ever...
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Moore's adaptation reads fine.
The Worley's art is sadly not atmospheric but is simply muddy. (If only Cassaday had done all the artwork and not just the covers!)
Lastly the fonts chosen are far from the best.
Stoker's novel deserves better. -
A bit disappointing, honestly. The cover art is excellent, but the artwork inside leaves much to be desired, and the pacing of the writing just feels wrong. At least it didn't take that long to read.
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Pretty faithful graphic novel adaptation of the original book and as usual I like almost anything with vampires in it (except twilight)
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Really liked it, and the inclusion of the introduction
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The plot follows Bram Stoker's original novel, so that part of this book is fine. Unfortunately, the art is boring at best and ugly at worst.
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Nossa! Que é isso? Assim você me mata! Ai, ai, e não estou falando do Drácula! Estou falando da terrível qualidade deste encadernado. Nossa, adaptações para quadrinhos são sempre um terreno pantanosíssimo, mas nesse caso a Vaca foi pro Brejo de vez! Os textos ocupam quase todas as páginas do quadrinho e muito mais do que uma porcentagem de 40%. Além disso, o leitor acaba se confundindo mais ainda com a diferença entre tipos de balões e os tipos de fontes que variam conforme o personagem que os recita. Claro, Drácula é um romance escrito através de missivas, mas dava para atenuar essa característica se quem adaptou esse texto soubesse trabalhar nisso. O pior, meus amigos, que a pessoa responsável por esse quadrinho adaptado é a filha do nosso mago barbudo de Northampton, a filha de Alan Moore, Leah Moore. Bem que o pai dela poderia ter dado uns toques para ela: minha filha, não é assim que se faz uma adaptação. Mas vai ver ele estava tão irritado com o que fizeram com sua Liga Extraordinária que resolveu nem dar bola para isso e deixar o barco seguir seu destino. Triste.
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This is a well done, and what I'm assuming, thorough interpretation of Bram Stoker's Dracula. I have never read the book so this review is based off the graphic novel's claim it's "The original masterpiece fully restored", but if it's anything like this comic book, neither has anyone in cinema for the last 100 years. I can fully agree with writers and directors of Hollywood why they cut out so much of it, it does seem to drag. The drawings were beautifully created, but sometimes seemed generic and without any detail. Which is fine, but if the story doesn't seem to entice readers, then the drawings should do the part in a graphic novel.
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Adaptação em quadrinhos da obra de Bram Stoker. O texto é extremamente fiel ao livro, sem arriscar, mantendo a estrutura de diários e cartas presente no romance. O que me incomodou muito foi a arte da hq, com seus desenhos "duros", sem movimento, design feio (fora Drácula e Van Helsing, todos os personagens masculinos são praticamente idênticos), cenários desfocados e falta de fluidez. O quesito narrativa gráfica é praticamente inexistente até as últimas páginas, onde é feita de maneira tosca e praticamente incompreensível.
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I was pleasantly surprised by the thought and focus that went into this graphic novel, especially since I didn't particularly liked the original book. I liked the art, and the little details that went into a lot of their decisions, which you can read at the end of the GN and make this a definite must for those who enjoy the tale of the Impaler.
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Adaptación a cómic de la novela Drácula (Bram Stoker), llevada a cabo por Leah Moore, John Reppion y Colton Worley. Sin desmerecer el trabajo del ilustrador, creo que con otro estilo de dibujo/arte podría haberme llamado más la atención. Existen adaptaciones mucho mejores, personalmente os recomiendo la que realizó Fernando Fernández en 1982.
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I'm astounded. How did they cover an entire novel in such a slim volume?
Incredibly impressive. The cover says, "The only Dracula adaptation you'll ever need." True, true. I may have enjoyed it more than the book itself. -
A true to the novel graphic adaptation.. but the graphics were disappointing...
