Horror novelist Stephen King is quoted as saying, “If you’re going to write horror, write what scares you.” Well, if his smash-hit comic book series Cult of Dracula is any indicator, writer/creator Rich Davis knows what scares the hell out of him. The first-time comic writer is sharing his nightmare with the world, and readers are devouring it.
The ongoing series, which started in 2020, was first released by Second Sight Publishing and is now through Source Point Press. The comic, which continues to sell out, is currently in the midst of its second chapter, Rise of Dracula, just had its third and final chapter announced, titled Reign of Dracula. With the title’s growing popularity, it’s safe to say that Rich Davis’ Dracula saga is a cult worth joining.
Over the series’ six-issue run, which is now collected into a single graphic novel, Davis’ writing captures a drive-in exploitation cinema experience that readers can hold in their hands. The story pulls from Biblical text and Charlie Manson’s ramblings to personify horrors, both supernatural and human.
Cult of Dracula is the new approach to the vampire story that fright fans have been howling for! The story serves as a vibrantly bloody reimagining of Bram Stoker’s classic gothic horror novel. The bones of Stoker’s Dracula are re-shaped into something more akin to a ’70s southern gothic grindhouse movie directed by Wes Craven. Think The Wicker Man meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but with vampires!
From the start of the series, readers are met with a ghoulish onslaught as a CSI team picks over the remains of the event already dubbed by the media as “The Dracula Cult Mass Suicide.” Corpses of all ages litter a compound, invoking thoughts of the Jonestown tragedy or the Waco, Texas siege. It boasts powerful imagery, as special agent Bram cases the area for any clues to help unravel the bloodbath of a puzzle before him. At the same time that agent Bram collects the pieces in the present, the readers are hurled back to the past, just days before the massacre, to watch the inciting event unfold. A documentary film crew, led by father Van Helsing and reporter Mina Murry, are present with a rare interview with the reclusive cult leader, R.M. Renfield.
This is where Davis’s narrative voice is challenged, as the story is told in a non-linear fashion, hopping from the past to the present and even to the beginning of time itself. The time jumps often can take place on the same page, and it is up to the reader to know where they are in the story. Davis isn’t holding hands here; the writer expects the reader to be paying attention and not just flipping through the pages looking at the art. The origins of major characters and other important plot points can be missed if even the smallest detail is glanced over instead of relished. In this adaptation, Renfield is maimed with burn scars that cover his body, and the reason behind this is only shared with those who possess a keen eye.
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Solid respect is paid to Stoker’s source material, as every character of note makes some sort of passing appearance. That said, Davis is very much taking his liberties with the original story. The lore he creates is less centered around a 14th–century Romanian ruler with a tendency to impale folks, and more on the primordial she-demon, Lilith. Thus, gender-swapping the role of Dracula, who is now the first wife of Adam, banished from the Garden of Eden for not obeying. Established in Cult, Lilith is cursed by the angels for merely wanting to be equal within the Garden. In a way, the story is re-contextualizing Dracula into the first feminist icon. The comic draws strong and interesting lines about what it means to be a monster and how it all comes down to the point of view and perspective.
In the original novel, both Lucy and Mina were just pawns on the board, moved by Van Helsing and Dracula in their game of wits. Here, Davis makes real strides with the characters, moving them from pieces to players, very much in control of their situations. Mina begins as a typical Lois Lane archetype, there to get the big interview, but as the story progresses, her transformation mirrors something comparable to Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones. When readers finally reach the ending of Cult, they’ll need to flip back to page one and re-read it all again, just to see what breadcrumbs were left for them. The comic does an excellent job of walking the tightrope between character study and body count, never allowing one to be sacrificed for the other.
Due to scheduling issues, the illustrating duties changed hands between issues two and three, from Henry Martinez to Puis Calzada. While Martinez introduces the world and characters well, changing to Calzada was a major improvement for the title. The art in the first two issues is fine but can read very flat, with a few of the characters looking too similar. When Calzada comes aboard, a rich and well-aimed style washes over the book, as the pace of the art finally matches the pace of the writing. Davis shapes a whirlwind story of blood, guts, and cult worship. His pace almost felt hindered in those earlier issues, whereas Calzada’s page structure features a funnier flow for the eye to follow. A gory Saturday morning cartoon is a good way to describe the Davis/Calzada partnership. The gore is up to Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive levels of stomach-turning. Comparatively to the New Zealand zombie movie, the stylistic approach Calzada brings to the title keeps the grotesque parts ravishing rather than revolting.
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Also of impressive note is the series’ letterer, Ed Dukeshire. It’s a small detail, but each of the vampire’s voices is done in a different, more booming, stretchy font design, even down to the color of each individual dialogue bubble being different. For example, the three brides’ dialogue was done in blue to show how they travel on the winds, and Dracula’s dialogue is done in harsh red to signify the weight that her voice bares. When Lucy is turned into a vampire, her dialogue changes from the normal “human” black and white to bubblegum pink with a bouncy text, beautifully indicative of her new bubbly and freed nature as a vampire. I mean, Lucy then eats an entire nursery of babies, but she’s very bubbly about it.
One last thing about Cult of Dracula, the comic never holds back. It moves at a neck-breaking pace, and the story never relents. Right when the reader believes they’ve been shocked for the last time, BAM, someone gets ripped in half, small intestines flying everywhere. Rich Davis knows what story he is telling and the audience he is telling it for. All horror fans can do is hold on for dear life and join the Cult of Dracula.
