r/Dracula

I'm late (I was sick and mildly miserable + working on other stuff), but I was finally clear to catch up today on the two very short passages. Fortunately the person I listen to had some other general vampire knowledge to research and was kind enough to read that, too, so I still got to draw for over an hour. *Unfortunately,* because I'm so slow, that time resulted in very slight changes. **Technically, I was able to redraw and further adjust Johnathan's clothes, accessories, and a little bit of hair/face, but I imagine it's only extremely noticeable if you look between these days and the ones from last week or whenever.

Batman's starting to get *real* pushy now 👀

Cabeza decapitada inspirada en la novia vampiro interpretada por Michaela Bercu en Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992). Este fue mi primer proyecto en miniatura de efectos especiales, realizado completamente a mano con partes recicladas de muñeca, cabello sintético, plastilina, pintura, maquillaje y técnicas de efectos prácticos. Con materiales sencillos, quise recrear el momento inmediatamente después de que Van Helsing decapita a la novia en el castillo de Drácula. (Solo fue insipirado)

From the auction catalog notes:

Stoker, Bram (1847-1912). Dracula. Westminster: Archibald Constable & Company, 1897. 8vo. (Minor spotting to preliminary leaves.) Original yellow cloth lettered in red (rubbing to extremities, darkening to spine with some leaning, spotting to text block edges, hinges touched up).

Provenance: Helena Scott (ownership inscription dated July 1897); A.C. Dunn (ownership inscription); Davies & Son (booksellers' ticket).

"The world's most influential and enduring supernatural novel of vampirism, starring the most celebrated and evocative character in macabre literature" (Dalby).

FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE without the publisher's advertisements at the end as seen in the earliest presentation and review copies issued in May and June 1897, with the last page of text numbered 390 followed by an integral blank leaf. Prior to beginning work on Dracula, Bram Stoker compiled over a hundred pages of notes relating to vampiric folklore, the earliest of which is dated 8 May 1890 and comprises a short outline of what would become the novel's first chapter.

The story took a further two years to flesh out before Stoker began serious work on it during his summer holidays in Cruden Bay, Scotland, from 1893 to 1896.

Though well-reviewed, Dracula was not an immediate success and earned its author next to nothing in royalties, despite never having gone out of print. It has since become a cornerstone of the modern horror fiction genre and is considered the template for most future depictions of the vampire in popular fiction.

It's binding, widely regarded as the most celebrated and instantly recognizable book bindings of the Victorian era, exemplifies "the use of a significant cover in the form of a lurid yellow cloth binding with lettering in red.

To modern readers, this livery, created by an anonymous designer, is merely bold and eye-catching. For the original audience, however, it was freighted with symbolism and association. The livid red anticipates the emphasis on blood and bloodiness, but more important is the use of the colour yellow...it projected the notion of depravity by linking the text to The Yellow Book, the celebrated periodical published by John Lane in the 1890s as the organ of the Decadents. In its association... yellow...'became the colour of the hour' and was 'associated with all that was bizarre and queer in art and life, with all that was outrageously modern'" (Cooke, Simon. "Visualising Dracula." In: The Book Collector, Summer 2021, pp.234-237). Barron, Horror 3-186; Bleiler, Supernatural 1546; Dalby, 10(a); Wolff 6581. 

As I continue to listen through/follow along with the Daily Dracula series I found, I use that time to take a break from my other drawings and work on this for as long as the audio clips run (I love when there are multiple entries, cause it gives me more time to draw). I'm a slow worker (only made a *little* bit better as I tried to start the year actually practicing my anatomy and fundamentals), so there's not a lot of changes between these two and the first one I posted, but the changes *are* there. My favorite part is a little doodle of the Count scrambling down a wall (I like to get distracted).

I'm still pretty fond of my depiction of Dracula, although I'm struggling to properly depict the not-quite unibrow (as I understood it) and his "long" mustache (on my very first scribbles, I had iy pointed straight outward, which was goofy even for me.)

I think my Johnathan still looks a tad younger than he is in my head (I may be wrong, but I'm imagining a youthful mid-to-late 30s, as he seems old enough to be taken seriously, but young enough to still be inquisitive in nature and acting at the behest of someone his senior.) Anyway, I made his face a tiny bit longer and maybe wider (I don't remember), and after the shaving fiasco from a bit ago, a little scruffier (maybe imperceptibly so)- maybe it'll grow on me as the story progresses.

I'm going to lose my mind the first time we hit a long gap between entries.

Hi, everyone!

Since it’s self-promotion Saturday again, I wanted to show y’all a behind the scenes featurette I made for my movie!

https://youtu.be/mWaj1lhqI2E?si=5b0iJZrHQJXcg9cf

Seed and Spark campaign will be launching on the 26th (the 129th anniversary of the book’s release) so stay tuned!

Never thought I‘d see something like this

I think we absolutely need a movie that does justice to father uffizi. Or how we call him „Asian Blade. And the actor of Liu Kang might be the best cast for this role.

Help please to hype this.

So...I'm helping to liquidate an estate with a sizable amount of high-end antiques, and this is one potential piece. I say potential, because I can't validate the backstory on this guy...yet.

The family tells me that it was obtained in the early 1980s in ATL for $6000 from a seller, who obtained it from an individual who was assisting in the renovation of an old theater in Boston years prior. The claim it that it was used in a theater for the original run.

That's all the information I have. The one thing I have going for the story, is that I've authenticated a good amount of their items so far, all the way up to the $100k+ range, so it's not out of the realm of possibilities that it COULD be something special.

Ultimately, it'll either wind up at auction or in the hands of a private collector, if I can verify authenticity. If anybody could point me in any avenues to explore for potential info - I'd definitely appreciate it!

In 1897, Dracula did not arrive as a movie monster, a Halloween icon, or a pop-culture vampire.
It arrived as evidence.
Diaries. Letters. Telegrams. Newspaper clippings. Ship logs. Medical notes. Witness accounts.
Bram Stoker built Dracula as a Victorian archive — a case file of terror assembled document by document.

On World Dracula Day — May 26, 2026, Dracula Legacy will open the collector’s pre-order for a faithful hardbound facsimile inspired by the original 1897 edition published by Archibald Constable & Co. of Dracula by Bram Stoker.
Yellow cloth.
Red lettering.
Compact Victorian format.
Scholar-endorsed.
Collector-grade presentation.

Endorsed by two major international Dracula scholars:
J. Gordon Melton, Ph.D.
Author of The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead
Hans Corneel de Roos
Editor/translator of Powers of Darkness: The Lost Version of Dracula

This is not a modern redesign.
This is not a mass-market reprint.
This is Dracula returned to the form in which the world first encountered it.
The collector’s box set is now in preparation.