‘The Dracula File’ – Finley-Day, Bradbury & Furman (Rebellion)

I’m not going to bang on too much about reading ‘Scream’ as a kid, I did that over here so there’s no need to go into it again ;o) One of the stories, in the comic, that really freaked me out though was the ‘The Dracula File’ and it’s antagonist (the clue is in the name of the story…) who literally could not be killed and would drain you of blood while you were trying to figure out what to do next. When I realised that ‘The Dracula File’ had been collected into a single book, by Rebellion, I knew that I had to have some of that and although it took me a while, I grabbed a copy in the end. It took me a little longer to actually read it (there are too many piles of books, in my flat, and it got lost in one of them…) I’ve finally read it though and am here to tell you about it. This will be a shorter post than normal but you’ll get why as we go on…

Fleeing vampire hunters from behind the Iron Curtain, Count Dracula returns to Great Britain with an unquenchable thirst for blood! Unable to accept that the supernatural defector has slipped through his fingers, KGB Officer Stakis decides to defy his superiors and continue his hunt for the unholy terror. Can he stop 1980s London from becoming the Count’s new feeding ground?

There is a lot to love in ‘The Dracula File’ but it is all ultimately hamstrung by the fact that ‘Scream’ comic only lasted fifteen issues, before folding, and the so the story peters out into a series of ‘one off’ encounters, that don’t really go anywhere, before ending completely. With that in mind then, ‘The Dracula File’ is more of a curio piece then (rather than a story in its own right), a reminder of what ‘Scream’ was capable of back in the day, and on that basis it works very well indeed.

The story may not have finished but what there is of it shows a plot that had the potential to really branch out and become a classic ‘Good Vs Evil’ scenario (refreshing to see a KGB officer as the ‘good guy’ back in 1984). And it is very creepy and horrifying in equal measure. Gerry Finley-Day’s script is spot on, he really knows his ‘vampire stuff’ and uses it to keep the story flowing nicely. Dracula is adept at getting himself out of trouble but you never feel like it’s a ‘get out of jail free’ card. Vampires are cunning after all.

What really does it for me though is Eric Bradbury’s artwork. It’s creepy, it’s sinister and it really brings to life Dracula’s shadowy world and all the things that lurk in those shadows, whether they’re human… Or something else. The story may end abruptly but it’s worth reading anyway, just for that artwork.

Don’t think that you’ll be picking up a complete story then, because you won’t I’m afraid. What you get instead is a creepy little slice of what British comics could do, back in the eighties, and ideally should have kept doing. Oh well, this will do me just fine :)