So there I was, miserable day, and what pops up on screen? A message telling me Clive Bryant, head of Classical Comics, had emailed me.
In fact, other messages followed as Clive offered CBO an exclusive peek at their latest title -Dracula!
It is one I’ve been waiting for since, being a horror film/comic buff, Dracula has to rate pretty highly on my things to grab comic-wise. Clive wrote:
“People tell me it’s Staz’s greatest work to date. I can’t comment, but I think it’s superb. It was a great adaptation by Jason Cobley, James Offredi did a wonderful colouring job, and of course the Lettering Genius that is Jim Campbell was in his element.
Overall I think it’s our strongest title yet, and one to be proud of.
Cheers,
Clive.”
The specs:
DRACULA
152 pages
soft back.
cover price: £9.99
Original Text: 978-1-906332-25-9
Quick Text: 978-1-906332-26-6
Available early November
So, I downloaded the pdf Clive sent and sat back to view them. Firstly, the covers look great as you can see below:
Well, as anyone in publishing comics and books knows, the cover is the most important thing initially. It needs to grab the eye of the punter (customer) and make them pick the book up. That’s the “hook”. Both these covers do the job though the Quick Text cover grabbed my eye first -that would make a great poster!
Once hooked, the customer needs to be impressed by what is inside. To me that is the next important thing -if you browse throught a comic you are not going to read the entire thing and certainly not if it is 152 pages thick!
Now, I have always been a bit 50-50 when it comes to Staz Johnson’s work (I loved a zombie strip he drew in Super Adventure Stories waaay back in the 1980s) so it surprised me that this work won me over. Mentally I can delete colour so that all I ‘see’ is the black and white work -colour can hide a lot of faults. The work is quite possibly the best I have seen from Johnson.
Great figure work and costume detail and each scene hits the spot so well that I feel quite excited about the fact the book will be available shortly. If Johnson or the team working on this book do not get some sort of industry award (we all know who I’m talking about) it will be a black mark on the industry.
It has been some forty years (eeeek!) since I read the original Dracula novel by Bram Stoker but it’s no problem. The lines are burnt into my brain. So, has it been well adapted? In fact, based on what I’ve seen (far more than on show here) it does look like a faithful adaption.
Is it Classical Comics best book to date?
YES!
Not only will it be of interest to students but it also ought to appeal to the horror buff -whether a film, comic or book fan. The mood set by the colour work is great and if you run a book shop you need to order this one for the upcoming Christmas season. The same applies to comic shops or comic dealers -this has all- year- round appeal.
I can’t wait for the review copies and if this isn’t a best seller I just give up. My big persuader is the art. And I’ll leave you with some of those pages and see what you think.
dr
In fact, other messages followed as Clive offered CBO an exclusive peek at their latest title -Dracula!
It is one I’ve been waiting for since, being a horror film/comic buff, Dracula has to rate pretty highly on my things to grab comic-wise. Clive wrote:
“People tell me it’s Staz’s greatest work to date. I can’t comment, but I think it’s superb. It was a great adaptation by Jason Cobley, James Offredi did a wonderful colouring job, and of course the Lettering Genius that is Jim Campbell was in his element.
Overall I think it’s our strongest title yet, and one to be proud of.
Cheers,
Clive.”
The specs:
DRACULA
152 pages
soft back.
cover price: £9.99
Original Text: 978-1-906332-25-9
Quick Text: 978-1-906332-26-6
Available early November
So, I downloaded the pdf Clive sent and sat back to view them. Firstly, the covers look great as you can see below:
Well, as anyone in publishing comics and books knows, the cover is the most important thing initially. It needs to grab the eye of the punter (customer) and make them pick the book up. That’s the “hook”. Both these covers do the job though the Quick Text cover grabbed my eye first -that would make a great poster!
Once hooked, the customer needs to be impressed by what is inside. To me that is the next important thing -if you browse throught a comic you are not going to read the entire thing and certainly not if it is 152 pages thick!
Now, I have always been a bit 50-50 when it comes to Staz Johnson’s work (I loved a zombie strip he drew in Super Adventure Stories waaay back in the 1980s) so it surprised me that this work won me over. Mentally I can delete colour so that all I ‘see’ is the black and white work -colour can hide a lot of faults. The work is quite possibly the best I have seen from Johnson.
Great figure work and costume detail and each scene hits the spot so well that I feel quite excited about the fact the book will be available shortly. If Johnson or the team working on this book do not get some sort of industry award (we all know who I’m talking about) it will be a black mark on the industry.
It has been some forty years (eeeek!) since I read the original Dracula novel by Bram Stoker but it’s no problem. The lines are burnt into my brain. So, has it been well adapted? In fact, based on what I’ve seen (far more than on show here) it does look like a faithful adaption.
Is it Classical Comics best book to date?
YES!
Not only will it be of interest to students but it also ought to appeal to the horror buff -whether a film, comic or book fan. The mood set by the colour work is great and if you run a book shop you need to order this one for the upcoming Christmas season. The same applies to comic shops or comic dealers -this has all- year- round appeal.
I can’t wait for the review copies and if this isn’t a best seller I just give up. My big persuader is the art. And I’ll leave you with some of those pages and see what you think.
dr
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