Just finished reading this excellent small comic by Dan James. It is subtitled An Omnilingual Nosferatu Pictomunication Novel and it is exactly that. Aside from the colophon, only one word appears in the work itself, an ominous sangre . The tale loosely follows Bram Stoker’s Dracula, but with several twists of locale, language and character.
Dan James’s illustrations are really great; The woodcut style seems very simple at first, but as you go along, there really is so much detail to consider. And his ability to get the story across without words is brilliant. I thought I’d breeze through the book in only 10 min. but it actually took a lot of concentration to make sense of the pictures, which kept changing perspective and focus. There were several pages that I had to look at for quite a while trying to grok what was happening, however, when it finally clicked, it was like solving a puzzle: quite satisfying.
The hero of the story is a quirky mustachioed fellow in a 10 gallon hat who receives a mysterious letter containing polaroids of vampire victims and a map. He sets out on a quest to find the vampire, and along the way encounters a wide-range of disconcerting characters, including the monster at the end of the book. The end is quite shocking.
But it was the pictures that I loved most, from the quirky protagonist with his wooden stake launcher thing to the hell hounds, and the renfield-esque girl munching beetles. I liked the shifting perspectives and really enjoyed puzzling through the details to get the creepy narrative.
