A Year of Free Comics: The crass & unexpected comedy of Abhay Khosla’s DRACULA

I like narratives that take you to unexpected places. There’s an interesting quality to a work that does its best to defy your expectations. It’s one of the reasons I love Abhay Khosla‘s Bram Stoker’s Dracula so much. From the title, you would think that it’s a retelling of history of Dracula, but it’s really a story about coworkers bickering, procrastinating and aggravating each other. It’s also crass and funny as hell.

The story essentially revolve around two new vampire hunter recruits who are getting fed up and frustrated with their older, more experienced coworker who’s stuck in his old ways. They’re a group of vampire hunters who are frustrated about killing vampires the “old way” with a stake and would rather try something new like shoving an electric toothbrush up his nose, or stabbing him with something really cool.

It’s filled with thoughtful reflections on the myths of Dracula. For instance, one of the character mentions that Dracula’s only weaknesses are crucifix, garlic and barely legal teenage girls, a nod to Dracula’s original infatuation with Mina Harker. The characters are also rightfully asking themselves what the point of all of this might be. There is no incentive to take out Dracula as that would mean they’d be out of a job. These elements were surprisingly insightful for what is essentially a comedy comic about vampire hunters.

The art is done using clip-art which gives it this very static look, but since it mostly focus on dialog and observations, it doesn’t detract from enjoying the work. It’s a funny comic, often crass and rude, but that still manages to get at something deeper from the mythology of Dracula and his antagonist Abraham Van Helsing. Your level of enjoyment will depend on our appreciation of this type of humour.

You can read Abhay Khosla’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula online and you can follow him on Tumblr.