Dracula: Book II — The Brides by writer Matt Wagner and artist Kelley Jones is the sequel to Dracula: Book I — The Impaler, and is currently on Kickstarter. Grendel writer Wagner and Jones had been meaning to work together for a while, and finally found an opportunity with the world’s most famous vampire. Cemetery Dance spoke to Wagner and Jones about what went into this comic, how it builds on the first book, and their process for working together.
(Interviews conducted by Danica Davidson)
Interview with Matt Wagner
CEMETERY DANCE: How did you come up with a background for Dracula’s brides? What sort of research went into it?
MATT WAGNER: Bram Stoker’s original 1897 novel presents a fascinating appearance of Dracula’s three vampiric brides…and yet that depiction, in fact, only lasts for a handful of pages. It’s such a searing narrative scenario that the brides always show up with equally compelling presence in almost every screen adaptation as well. But, as with so much else in the novel, the details about the specific brides are deliberately vague due to the author’s desire to keep them mysterious and thus, more sinister. One of the women does appear to be a bit aristocratic or of a higher social class than the other two, who both defer to her the privilege of first feeding on their victim.
This, of course, left me with a completely blank slate in regards to the portrayal of these women as actual characters. I knew I needed to portray three entirely different women whom Dracula chooses as his brides for three entirely different reasons. And, of course, I had to make them accurate to the time period that we’re portraying. As a result, I’m not trying to portray them in a contemporary mold…they’re each very real in their personas but they’re definitely not on an even footing with their vampiric lord. Our Dracula is an imperious monster and, as with every aspect in his life, he expects to be the master of all he surveys. We’re trying to stay completely true to the novel’s parameters and that’s how Stoker portrays him.
But, despite his authoritarian nature, Dracula’s relationship with his three brides is complex and, I hope, compelling on many levels. There’s a very alluring scene in the novel when Dracula suddenly appears and forbids his brides from feeding on his guest. They all accuse him of never having loved them and he professes that, even though he’s utterly diabolic, even he can feel love. I really tried to have that brief bit of complexity come through in our more extended portrayal.
How does Dracula: Book II — The Brides build on Dracula: Book I — The Impaler?
One of the challenging factors in writing Dracula: Book I was the aspect that it involved his origin as a vampire. As a result, he really doesn’t become one of the undead until near the end of that volume. And, of course, people expect to see vampire scenarios when they’re engaged in a tale about Dracula. So I was determined to make him still be very recognizable to the reader as the Dracula we all know and fear from the original novel; I made sure that he behaved like Dracula and spoke like Dracula so that we would hardly notice that there’s really not anything vampiric going on until the end of that book.
In the original novel, Dracula is portrayed as being the most powerful of his kind; we see him using supernatural powers that the few other vampires we encounter just don’t seem to have. Book I shows how he attains those abilities which, again, helped emphasize the aspects of his character with which we’re all so familiar.
But Book II — The Brides is absolutely packed with vampire scenes and lore. We learn a lot about his new existence as a supernatural being, his life in his infamous castle and his place in the local community. He was already known to be merciless and predatory, but is he also immediately perceived as this supernatural monster…or does that notoriety grow and gather over time? How does he eventually become so isolated and how does the castle fall into ruin — which is the way things are presented at the beginning of the novel, seen through the eyes of Jonathan Harker.
Book I covered roughly a decade of story time as we see Dracula struggle through his battles with his earthly enemies, the Ottoman turks, and his eventual seven-year tutelage at Satan’s seminary for the dark arts, the dreaded Scholmance. Book II — The Brides covers centuries of time and takes us up to the point just prior to where the original novel begins. And that, of course, presents the intriguing question of…what will our story involve in Book III?
What first got you interested in Dracula?
I’ve always been a fan of scary stuff and Dracula and vampires in general have always been my favorite type of supernatural menace. In his early non-fiction dissection of the subject, fright-master Stephen King breaks down the archetypes of horror literature into three categories — Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Wolf-Man; that is — the pestilence that consumes, the unstoppable thing with no name, and the raging beast within. He also includes a subset to that grouping, the Ghost, which can sometimes also overlap with any of those Big Three.
Like I said, I always gravitated towards Dracula. Part of that was the cool sense of style and aristocratic charm and I’m sure an even bigger part was the sexual subtext that underlies so many vampire tales. Vampire movies have always been one of my favorite categories of horror films…everything from the original, chilling unauthorized adaptation, 1922’s Nosferatu, to the Hammer Studios Christopher Lee films of the 1960s and 70s. Speaking of King…I remember watching the Tobe Hooper-directed adaptation of Salem’s Lot when it first aired over two nights on TV in 1979 and, holy shit— — it was all anyone at school could talk about the next day! I loved the mix of comedy and scares found in 1985’s Fright Night and the down-and-dirty nomadic vampires of 1987’s Near Dark. In more recent years, Let the Right One In from 2008 is one of my favorite vampire movies of all time — so much so, I even included a subtle nod to it in Book I — The Impaler.
So, considering this long-running obsession with all things vampiric…and the fact that I’ve had an almost equally long-running career as a story-teller, it seemed inevitable that I’d try my hand at depicting these blood-sucking horrors myself. And, in fact, vampires have been a recurring presence in my epic comic series Grendel almost from the beginning of its publication, over forty years ago. But I always wanted to have a crack at portraying the OG vampire, the one who I argue is, in fact, the most famous literary character of all time—Dracula himself! I realized that was a pretty daunting task…to bring something new to a character and a narrative that has been adapted to film more than any other aside from Sherlock Holmes (actually Dracula might edge out Holmes in that match-up). So I spent many years brewing on how it could be done in a way that would be true to the original source material and yet still distinctly resonate as my take on things. Kelley Jones and I have been friends and colleagues for over thirty years and we’d always regularly say to each other, “We’ve really gotta work on something together someday!” It was during one such exchange a few years back that I finally had an answer to Kelley’s echo of that familiar tune. “Are you really serious about that, dude? Because now I think I actually have something in mind that would be absolutely perfect for both of our skill sets and interests. And…it’s fucking epic!” Much to my utter delight…Kelley said yes! And so here we are, ready to present the second volume in our history of the infamous vampire lord…Dracula: Book II — The Brides!
Where can people find out more about you and your work?
I’m one of the original wave of creator-owners in the comics field and I’m best known for, as mentioned above, my epic series Grendel which is available from Dark Horse Comics in brand new Omnibus editions and for my more personal fantasy saga, Mage, published by Image Comics. I’ve also worked on a variety of mainstream characters, including many Batman projects and co-writing Quentin Tarantino’s only original foray in comics with a Django/Zorro crossover series. I’ve recently launched an all-new website and online store where people can find links to all of my books in print as well as merch and a stash of collectibles from my private vault.
You can check it out at Mattwagnercomics.art.
And for any Grendel fans who’d like to take a deep dive into the entire history of that series, there’s an entertaining podcast that covers every aspect of the Grendelverse. “The Devil in Detail” currently has over 125 episodes and can be found on YouTube.
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Interview with Kelley Jones
CEMETERY DANCE: You’ve previously worked with Dracula as a character in a Batman story. How does that compare with the Dracula you’re working on with Matt Wagner?
KELLEY JONES: It really doesn’t compare in terms of the character of Dracula. The focus of the Red Rain story was how vampirism affected the city of Gotham and eventually Batman himself. Dracula as portrayed in that story was intended as an evil thing and not much more. His confrontations with Batman were the point and there really wasn’t the need to explore Dracula’s complexities or motivations beyond the basic fact that he’s a villain. It worked out well because that would have slowed the story down and lost its primary theme and focus. What Matt wrote is an entirely different blood-sucking beast.
What is the process like working with Matt?
With Matt, everything is about the story. How to make it clear and exciting and resonating. Giving us things we’ve never seen before. With me it’s emotions and a dollop of ambiguity and a lot of shocks. Matt makes me a better artist and controls my whacked impulses by saying “Go further!” I cannot tell you how much fun it is to work with him, but instead I’ll let you read the book and you’ll see!
You said that “These tales all feel completely accurate to the time period in which they’re set.” How do you work for that accuracy?
One of the great things in Dracula: Book I — The Impaler was Matt wrote it without modernity or any of today’s compunctions so that it had a component that allowed the reader to actually be in another time. That is fascinating on the face of it. You believe the story far more because Matt writes it so truthfully without necessarily trying to shoehorn a contemporary viewpoint. Add the supernatural aspect and it’s unlike anything done about Dracula in comics. Hell…most anywhere!
Where can people find out more about you and your work?
People can find out about my stuff in old back issue bins at their local comic shop. Online I’m on X and Facebook and Instagram. And of course, Dracula: Book I — The Impaler and soon Dracula: Book II — The Brides!
