Dynamite Entertainment has announced my new six-issue miniseries, VAMPIRELLA VS. DRACULA which actually spins out of an old Alan Moore short story. I’m really excited about where we’re taking this thing.
A most, I would expect, unexpected trip down a rabbit’s hole of myth and monsters. From the official press release:
VAMPIRELLA FACES DRACULA!
VAMPIRELLA VS. DRACULA IN COMIC STORES EVERYWHERE NEXT JANUARY 2012!
October 12th, 2011, Runnemede, NJ – This coming January 2012, Vampirella faces her deadliest enemy – Dracula, in the aptly titled Vampirella vs. Dracula #1, written by acclaimed writer Joe (Vampirella and the Scarlet Legion) Harris and covers by Joseph Michael Linsner! Spinning out of Alan Moore’s retelling of the ageless horror classic, Dracula has come to America to play out his timeless narrative in this brave, New World. Only he didn’t realize ANOTHER vampire already beat him to it. Drawn to one another across continents and centuries by a mysterious force, both Vampirella and Bram Stoker’s immortal monster find themselves sucked into a time-tossed epic of love, hate, death and damnation. But can an epic built for one vampire possibly hold them both?
“When Dynamite asked if I’d be interested in building a “Vampirella/Dracula” series out of what’s, honestly, a quite brilliant short comic story by Alan Moore, I really had no idea what to do,” said writer Joe Harris. “‘The New European’ presented this updated, chilling vision of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” that really resonates and mines its horror from facets of that immortal story not ordinarily considered when you read the original text. But when I starting thinking about the possibilities I really got into this. In the original Moore story, protagonist Jack Halloran accepts a regrettable invitation from the mysterious Dragunsun and, in turn, he unwittingly helps this modern iteration of Count Dracula come to the United States where they play out this sort of updated cycle in which Jack is revealed to be this time period’s version of Stoker’s protagonist, Jonathan Harker while his wife, Mia, is seduced and stolen away by the vampire.
Jack is eventually left, broken and alone, in this dingy New York City back alley to consider the audacious horror of it all while this reborn, triumphant Dracula writes this new ending to the classic story and wins where he’d previously failed. Considering where to go from here, I wondered… what if this cycle never really ends? What if there are forces at play here pushing our characters toward a sort of pre-ordained narrative in cycles that loop over and over, toying with these characters’ lives and loves for their own savage amusement? The story of “Dracula” is a tragedy and, if Dracula found a way to break the arc and prevail… what would this mysterious audience watching this never-ending performance think? What if Jonathan Harker, Jack Halloran or whatever other iteration of the book’s hero could figure out how to stop this loop? What if Dracula realized he wanted something else… that Mina Harker was not his true love, and that what and who he really desired lay much further back in the memories of a life Bram Stoker was only influenced by but did not chronicle directly? And where does Vampirella fit in?
So I came up with this series spanning six issues and three time periods drawing on the works of the original Bram Stoker novel, the life and times of Vlad Tepes, the infamous “Impaler” of 15th century Walachia who drove out the Turks in defense of Christendom only to lose his beloved wife to a suicide that damned her soul to hell, and who sought to debase himself so horribly that he might one day join her there, as well as this modern version, the dark and manipulatively charming Dragunsun introduced in the original Moore short story. Over the ages, he’s repeated the same tragic mistakes and lost the same terrible things. But he’s finally waking up and asserting control. Only Jonathan Harker is too. As is this shadowy, mystical organization linked in history to Vlad Dracul, “The Order of the Dragon”. And when they drag Vampirella into this to try and right the ship and protect their investment, things get really interesting… as well as bloody, sexy and violent all at once.”
“The Alan Moore story with art by Gary Frank is one of my personal favorite Vampirella stories, and as usual with Alan the ideas are rich, even in just a single story. We wanted to build on this, but wanted to wait for a creator who not only appreciated the story, but would add to the entire mythos. When Joe (Harris) handed in his Vampirella And the Scarlet Legion, he did an excellent job. We asked if he would be interested, and he gave it some thought, and came up with a story that he felt would build on Alan’s story. We are extremely happy that the inspiration for this story comes from that Alan and Gary created can be expanded by someone as gifted as Joe. I think that fans will agree.,” says Dynamite Entertainment President and Publisher Nick Barrucci. “And as a bit of a bonus, we are providing that original story to issue #1 at no additional cost! 48 Pages #1 issue! No Extra Cost!”
