Everything Picture - Round Up #4: Picture Book

And finally the graphic novel bits and pieces.

Vampire State is the final chapter of Paul Cornell's fine run on Captain Britain and MI13. It opens rather wonderfully with two of the finest and most melodramatic villains of the past century meeting on the moon to agree a non-aggression pact and proceeds to chronicle Dracula's attempted invasion of the UK. As you'd expect from Cornell it's a wonderfully twisting plot with several sleights of hand, but with the story having lasting emotional consequences for those who survive. It's immeasurably enhanced by clever kinetic artwork cour testy of Leonard Kirk and Michael Collins, bringing a neglected icon (well, neglected for those of us who hanker for the work the two Alans, Moore and Davis, did with the character).

Another writer I know via Doctor Who fandom is Javier Grillo-Marxauch, responsible for some fine early episodes of Lost, some Charmed episodes which I've never seen and above all, the magnificent but shortlived The Middleman TV series. A mutual friend, the rather wonderful Tara O'Shea pimped us some DVDs of the show whilst on a trip to the UK and dammit, hooked me and my wife immediately. It's a clever conceit, placing Steed and Mrs Peel into a landscape derived from the Silver Age of comics and lacing that with healthy pop culture references and a sly wit. The TV show was cut off after half a season, never having a chance to make it overseas, but the comic managed to tell a full story in three volumes. It opens up in the same way as the TV show, immediately juxtaposing the mad and the mundane, before settling for simply jetting off for wondrous realms of insanity. Postmodernism's a tapped out concept but it works here as the square jawed old fashoined heroism of the Middleman is offst by Wendy's modern wisecracks. It's quite a feat to have the jokes flow naturally in the conversation, and it contrasts nicely with some knowing narration. The clean line, cartoonish artwork from Les McClaine enhances the story, fitting the larger than life nature of the story well.

Brian Talbot's The Tale of One Bad Rat' is a different case altogehter. It's one of those moments where comics step away from the superhero genre with which they're become inextricably associated, and tell a very human story instead. The central character is Helen, who starts the story as a Beatrix Potter loving homeless vagrant with a pet rat on the London underground. The story gradually unfolds to tell us exactly why and how she ran away from home and, eventually how she comes to terms with it. Tabot deals skilfully with the central issue of child abuse, importantly never cheapening or sensationalising it whilst using it to tell a heartbreaking and eventually uplifting story. It's also about how we often use fiction as a refuge from the the horrors of reality, and using Potter's works as a metaphor for innocence is startlingly effective. It's one of those rare moments where comics achieve a real beauty and depth.

Suckers In The Nighttime - Dracula by Bram Stoker

Dracula's been bastardised, parodied, pastiched, adapted, used, abused and stretched into so many fictional shapes that it's easy to think you know everything about him. For all that I've been exposed to Dracula via Hammer, Hollywood, the BBC, Kim Newman and innumerable other authors I'd never actually read the source material that inspired it all. A sale in the Local Capitalist Branch of Walmart's World Takeover (aka the local Asda supermarket)changed all that. A meaty classic I'd never read for a quid? Irresistible.

I'd expected the inevitable pacing issues that 113 years since publication might bring; I was right but they weren't anything like I'd expected. Part of Stoker's genius with the novel is telling it in short, epistolary bursts. Not only does this give the novel an immediacy an omniscient narrator lacks, it makes the novel feel pacy, even when there's little actually going on. Stoker's very good at finding individual voices for his characters too, having read no other Stoker I'm convinced the author's hidden himself very well - the downside there is he occasionally resorts to dialect, and it's usually as annoying as when Dickens resorts to Chas n Dave Cockernee. The other element that keeps the novel fascinating is Stoker's flair for the lurid, the feeling maintained throughout the novel that something shocking and dramatic could happen at any moment. Stoker also uses the length of the book expertly, using it to emphasise Dracula's cunning and capabilities, and build him into a terrible, formidable opponent for the book's heroes.

Actually that's not strictly true - the turning point comes around the three quarter mark when the heroes begin to fight back. It's an expertly executed strategy from Stoker - the more we learn about the Count, the less fearsome he becomes. As in the myths that have accreted about them, vampires crumble in sunlight, literally and metaphorically.

The trouble with Stoker having created such an alluring title character though is that of the heroes only Van Helsing is anywhere near as memorable, more energetic and vital than any of his male compadres, Harker, Seward, or Morris, despite being far older than any of them. Similarly, Mina seems to have more fibre than any of those others, being unafraid to face death if the late chase across Europe fails and frankly less wet than her husband, whatever Stoker has others say about his strength.

The ending's not particularly satisfying, but then if Dracula is to be vanquished it can't be - he's near invincible if he gets back to his lair or can change form, and therefore has to be taken at his weakest. Stoker attempts to introduce some jeopardy with a gypsy guard for the sleeping vampire, but it's still something of a fizzling out rather than a grand finale. It's still an enjoyable, powerful novel though, one that could almost pass for one of the holiday read blockbuster novels of today. Sadly for his chances with that market, Stoker made the mistake of having some depth and actual writing skill.