The Dracula File

by Gerry Finley-Day, Simon Furman, Eric Bradbury (Illustrator)

COUNT DRACULA GOES BATTY FOR BRITISH BLOOD!

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, Rumanian KGB officer Stakis decides to defy his disbelieving superiors and destroy the unholy horror that has plagued the world for centuries. Will 1980s London become the Count’s permanent, new feeding ground?

Written by 2000 AD stalwart Gerry Finley-Day and featuring Eric Bradbury’s nightmarish vision of horror’s greatest icon, The Dracula File is a book that you can really sink your teeth into!

Genres: Horror, Graphic Novels, Comics, Vampires, Comic Book

96 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2015

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Coincidence...or something more...? YOU be the judge:

I have stacks and stacks and bookshelf upon bookshelf and desk upon desk in my man-cave filled with unread books and comics. So, to keep things changing up, I have devised a completely random way of picking what I read. Random stack, random bookshelf, random desk, random place in the stack, desk, bookshelf...completely random. Yet, odd patterns often emerge.

This morning, I randomly picked a graphic novel by Owen King. My next random pick yielded a graphic novel by his brother, Joe Hill. While reading the Hill comic, I was listening to the recent Varese Sarabande deluxe edition of John Williams' DRACULA score. And the next random book....THE DRACULA FILES. Coincidence, or something sinister at work...?

Regardless, I had a blast reading this book, which finds Dracula defecting to Great Britain in 1984, at the height of the Cold War. Propulsive episodic storytelling from Gerry Finley-Day and Simon Furman keeps things moving along at a brisk pace, and gorgeous, horrific artwork by Eric Bradbury completes a phenomenally entertaining package.

Be warned: As this was a serialized story, taken from a canceled comic book, there's no real end to the story. But it stops at a good place, and left me satisfied. A true hidden gem that I'm thrilled to have discovered!

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this one. The biggest flaw in the series, however, is the fact it was never finished. The stories in this volume were serialized in a British horror comic magazine, SCREAM! But the book was canceled before the serial could be completed. Also, the fact the story is presented in small installments may bother some readers.

This was published in 1984, and the premise is Dracula flees Romania during the Cold War, and makes it across the Iron Curtain. The Soviets know that Dracula has basically defected to the West, and decide to just let Dracula run wild and cause trouble in Great Britain. However, one Soviet agent realizes Dracula is too dangerous to allow politics to get in the way, so he follows Dracula to Britain in an attempt to stop him.

Just a very well done series with great art. While no Dracula comic will ever surpass (or even equal) Marvel's Tomb of Dracula, this was probably as good as any other Dracula series I've read.

[Michael · Rating 1 out of 5]

On a par with the B-roll material found in the less successful 2000 AD back-ups and its sister mags, Starlord and the 80s Eagle. Too bad it wasn't Pat Mills, Alan Moore, or Alan Grant on writing duties. Servicable but dull.

[Alex Sarll]

From short-lived horror comic Scream, one of those annoying is-it-a-sequel-or-a-remake takes on the public domain's most revisited vampire, in which he comes to Britain, again, but this time during the Cold War, with a rogue Rumanian agent on his tail. Eric Bradbury's art does a great job of selling it all, and there are some wonderfully atmospheric panels of the imperious, predatory Count, his feral minions, the down-at-heel 1984 Britain in which he lurks. The story, though, is...a bit stupid? Take Stakis, the hunter. For one thing, he's apparently in the KGB, which set me on a whole investigation of whether the KGB had local stations in other Warsaw Pact countries, and whether they would employ native agents if so, until I realised, it was probably just that Finley-Day couldn't be arsed to do his research and look up what the Securitate were called. And his competence level varies wildly from issue to issue, even page to page; he can hold his own in a fight with Dracula, then be held off by a tramp trying to protect a bat. One minute he's doing some smart detective work, the next he's just trudging around vaguely hoping to stumble across Dracula, and ripe for ambushing. And it's not just Stakis; most of the time Dracula doesn't show up in mirrors, except in one story which inexplicably hinges on his doing just that. The best moments are those which play on the incongruity of the Count in a modern (as was) setting, where we see him feeding on the audience for a Dracula film, or an unpleasant bus conductor – and there's a beautiful scene with bats flocking in formation behind the transport plane flying him to England. This sometimes lapses into comedy (Passing bobby, to drained cabbie: "Hey mate, you've left your meter running!" Narrator: "The driver's lifeblood was also running..."), and in the later stories is clearly being played that way deliberately – hence Dracula in a suburban semi, where the milkman finds a note demanding eight pints of blood, or Dracula in a fairground, escaping down the helter skelter. Part of me wishes they'd been able to carry on further in that vein (yes, I know), but maybe it was for the best that this was put out of its misery.

[Victor · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars. What's here is solid and interesting--a Cold War era take on Dracula, essentially rebooting the novel but keeping it in continuity, kind of--but there's just not much here, due to the troubled and sporadic history of horror comics in the UK, a subject deftly covered in the two accompanying essays. The primary continuity is reprinted from the short lived Scream weekly comic, with a few (MUCH less worthwhile) single stories from the scattered Scream specials published over the next few years. I get why there's a cult following for these stories, because as an ongoing, multiyear comic, this would have easily been four stars, maybe more, but as it is, 3 1/2, with the half mostly because I've got a soft spot for horror comics.

[Sarah]

Dnf 10%

[Lee Bright · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this because it was in a childhood favourite comic of mine called Scream. I was 8 years old when I got my mum to buy this comic for me. I remember it fondly but haven't read it since then so I wasn't sure I'd really enjoy it.

Well I needn't have worried. The first thing to grab me was the artwork, Eric Bradbury's work is outstanding. If only todays comic book artists could put such detail into each and every panel.

The story is great, I think it actually works better collected in a volume, as it moves along more smoothly than having to wait for the next installment a week later.

Reading this comic now makes me think what on earth was my mum thinking, buying this for me when I was 8 years old. But I am glad she did, things like this probably shaped my life as a horror fan and it was most likely my first introduction to Dracula.

[Timo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Treasury of British Comics is so much fun and so beautifully executed imprint of lost things in UK comic history. This one is a prime example of that. Crisp print quality, gorgeous covers, very interesting articles about history, this time about the history of Scream! magazine. Sadly, not every time the comics themselves live up to that output, but still, all of them deserves to be printed like this and saved for upcoming comic nerds.
This one is one of those that has tolerated time well. Stories are a bit silly, but then again, when they aren't, the art is a bit crap here there but when it isn't when done in the crush of deadlines. Good, solid easy vampire fun set in 80s England that looks like 60s teleplay. Fun fun.

[Norman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eric Bradbury's art always appeals and in the horror genre it works very well...as it did in the comics he illustrated back in the 60s and 70s. Those who read the scratchy dark style in strips like "Mytek the Mighty", "The House of Dolmann" for Valiant, and "Maxwell Hawke" for Buster, but especially "Cursitor Doom" for Smash! will remember them mostly I suspect due to Bradbury's art. Back then it was on pulp see-through paper but here it's a lush shine and in hardback.

Why am I avoiding the subject of the narrative itself, because it was very fair to middling. Chris Weston's cover is gorgeous too!

[Wayne Farmer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit of a nostalgia trip although I was too scared at the time to even get the comic. I remember looking at issue 1 at a friend's house though. Would love to read the whole run. The Dracula Files was something I remembered from that issue and it was an OK strip - but lacked a bit of originality for me. Also one of the final issues clearly had a glaring mistake when everyone knows vampires don't show up in mirrors.

[Rob McMonigal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dracula's back in Cold War Era England and he's on a typical murder spree. The art and story here are really good, but as with all ongoing Dracula stories, they have to keep finding ways to not kill him off entirely and that makes it drag a bit. Still a nice hidden gem.

[Mark · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read the first two episodes and gave up; an interesting twist to have Dracula involved in 1984 cold war shenanigans, but the execution is hokey and the panel layouts are infuriating, so I won't be reading any more of this; of it's time and it shows.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent 80s Cheesy Vamp Fun

[Colin Oaten · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hardcover collection of the strip from the classic but short lived 80's British horror comic Scream with stunning artwork from comics legend Eric Bradbury.

[Mark L · Rating 3 out of 5]

Classic art and dark British comic humour but sadly unfinished

[Nakedfartbarfer]

In the 1980s, a parasitic aristocrat flees the Soviet Union to better sustain himself in capitalist England on the lifeblood of hard-earning proles of The Great Wen 🇬🇧

Loved the art!

[David Varley-Doran · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collects all the original Dracula strips from the Horror Comic Scream!.
Dracula leaves his home country of Romania and comes to modern day 80s London, pursued by a KGB defector, Colonel Stakis.

The collection starts strong with both Dracula and Stakis crossing to the west and that set up is just too juicy not to enjoy. Unfortunately, it doesn't last. There must have been a decision at some point to reset the approach and we are taken flashback style to old Romania. Pitchforks and everything.

This section is still great, there's some awesome character design in the two Vampire Hunters that come after Dracula, but really I want more of Classic Dracula in modern times.

After this the story comes to a pretty sudden stop. This is because Scream! as a whole was cancelled after 15 issues. There are a couple of extra stories from the specials/annuals but these are stand alone episodes of Stakis clashing with Dracula. They are pretty fun, at one point Stakis deploys an eagle to hunt Dracula in his bat form and Dracula escapes down a fairground helter-skelter!

Disappointingly, the artists on these episodes are no where near the excellent Eric Bradbury, whose detailed black and white artwork covers the initial run.

So this is not quite a lost classic, but a fun diverting quick read.

Hopefully Dracula and Stakis can return in a future Misty & Scream special or something.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

The writing is fun and Bradbury's art is a delight.