Matt Wagner and Kelley Jones team up to tell Dracula's secret history

(Image credit: Marvel Comics)

Dracula is one of the most enduring characters and stories in all of fiction, and now two top creators of horror comics, writer Matt Wagner and artist Kelley Jones, are coming together for a new tale that digs into the untold history of Bram Stoker's legendary vampire.

Interestingly enough, both Wagner and Jones have a horror comics pedigree that includes mashing up Batman with vampires. Wagner wrote and drew the limited series Batman and the Mad Monk, a retelling of the classic Golden Age story in which Batman fights a hypnotic vampire. Meanwhile, Jones drew the Batman/Dracula: Red Rain trilogy, which actually pitted Batman against Dracula himself - even leading to Batman becoming a vampire.

Now Wagner and Jones will combine their horror comic bona fides for Dracula - Book 1: The Impaler, which tells a fictionalized version of the legendary backstory of Dracula which is only hinted at in Stoker's novel, including his roots in the tale of the real life Romanian folk hero Vlad Țepeș.

"The first graphic novel explores what led Dracula to seek out Satan's tutelage and how he became the lord of the undead. This project is a real labor of love for Kelley and I," says Wagner in an official statement. "We are enormous fans of Dracula and the many interpretations of his mythic story."

"Our version of Dracula is bloody, sexy, and monstrous; this is very much a horror story, with deep roots in Stoker's novel," he continues. "But this isn't yet another retelling of the novel in comics form. We’re bringing you the never-before told stories behind the story…the sinister tales hidden in the shadows of the original novel."

Here's a gallery of art from Dracula - Book 1: The Impaler:

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"Matt Wagner has been a great friend of mine for over thirty years and I always regretted that we never got to collaborate on something together and told him that many times," adds Kelley Jones. "I love Dracula from the novel on down and, after our first conversations about this project, I knew that Matt would tell the tale no one had told before and no one would ever forget. Being able to bring this to life has been the most rewarding achievement in my career and I think it shows."

To publish Dracula - Book 1: The Impaler, Wagner and Jones have launched their own comic company, Orlok Press (a name that references the character Count Orlok from the 1922 silent film Nosferatu, which is considered the first filmed adaptation of Dracula). Orlok Press is now crowdfunding Dracula - Book 1: The Impaler on Kickstarter.

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I've been Newsarama's resident Marvel Comics expert and general comic book historian since 2011. I've also been the on-site reporter at most major comic conventions such as Comic-Con International: San Diego, New York Comic Con, and C2E2. Outside of comic journalism, I am the artist of many weird pictures, and the guitarist of many heavy riffs. (They/Them)