Sunday, November 29, 2009

DRACULA (SMN) jon j muth

Dracula: A Symphony in Moonlight & Nightmares
Jon J Muth
Marvel
2/5

All of the water color illustrations on this book are good, some are truly excellent--to fine art levels. It is not really a graphic novel, most of the pictures a full page and there are words in the pictures or sequential story telling. The text is present as prose or play-like dialogue sometime on a separate page with a heavy black border and some times over or around the pictures.

As I have already mentioned the pictures are great, the text is okay, an abbreviated and modified version of the Dracula story, but the formatting and overall result is a bit of a mess. Mr Muth is a talented artist, but I think he over-reached himself on this one and missed the mark. But a more sympathetic reader might find the eccentricities of this montage more appealing.

I read the 1986 version, there is also a 1993 version which I believe may differ--but I have yet to see a copy of it.

2 comments:

Diane Scott said...

Good, honest review... I like that! Sounds like the illustrations are the book :)

ConnieFoggles said...

The cover art alone looks interesting.