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You know, not every comic needs a strong story to build itself upon.  Sometimes a good concept is enough.  Or maybe even just a great cover.

Frank Frazetta's Dracula Meets the Wolfman begins with a Frank Frazetta painting featuring the Wolfman and Count Dracula battling in the ruined remains of a once-regal castle, with a small cemetery and another castle in the distance.  Bats flutter in the sky, perhaps ready to aid their master.  The Wolfman has Dracula down, ready to kill but you can't call Dracula down and out yet.  This isn't the end of a battle but merely one moment of an epic battle caught on canvas. 

That image is basically the pitch for Image's latest comic based off of Frazetta's paintings.  Steve Niles and Francesco Francavilla begin with Frazetta's painting but never go horribly far beyond that.  And that's not neccessarily a bad thing.  Niles's story remains fairly simple as the woman that the  Wolfman loves is offered up to Count Dracula as a sacrifice.  It's a uncomplicated story that's all conflict that doesn't really have to offer up any kind of resolution.  The motivation of the characters remains purely on the surface and Niles's doesn't even try to explore his characters in any way.  This book isn't about the characters; it's all about the conflict.

Francesco Francavilla does the heavy lifting in this book.  Taking Niles's thin story, Francavilla needs to establish the mood and the characterization. Francavilla's style is more immediate and unpolished, steps above full thumbnails but not labored over and smoothed out to the point where it looks overthought and overworked.  You can still see the ink brushstrokes in almost every panel.  This actually looks like art that a person produced rather than some cold and calculated artwork, mass produced to sell to everyone.  Through the stark use of color and a very unpolished artstyle, Francavilla creates a moody and older-looking comic.

That's one of the charms this book has going for it; it feels like an old fashioned monster comic.  Neither the artwork or the story are that sophisticated or take themselves too seriously.  Their story reminds me of the old monster movies I used to watch on Saturday afternoons when I was much, much younger.  At an unsophisticated age, you don't care about technique or story or characterizations, particularly from your monster movies.  You cared about seeing monsters fighting each other, whether it was Frankenstien and the Creature from the Black Lagoon or Godzilla and Mothra.  All you wanted to see was everyone fighting and that's exactly what Niles and Francavilla deliver here; twenty-some pages of the Wolfman fighting Dracula.  Isn't that just cool enough in and of itself?

Frank Frazetta's Dracula Meets the Wolfman
Written by: Steve Niles
Drawn by: Francesco Francavilla
Lettered by: Jason Hanley

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