Joe Harris Talks Dracula With Bleeding Cool

[Mark Allen Haverty]

This January, writer Joe Harris will be pairing up one of comics? oldest vampires, Vampirella, with one of the oldest vampires in fiction, Dracula, for Dynamite Entertainment?s Vampirella vs. Dracula. The basis for this version of Dracula comes from an Alan Moore/Gary Frank short storythat was part of Vampirella/Dracula: the Centennial, a 1997 Harris one-shot.

The screenwriter of Darkness Falls, Harris has been in great demand of late, with DC announcing that he is taking over for Gail Simone on The Fury of Firestorm, plus the announcement of Bastardized with Ethan Van Sciver that Rich covered earlier this month and the 2012 release of his creator-owned Great Pacific from Image.

What attracted me most to Vampirella vs. Draculawas the mention of the Order of the Dragon in the press release. As a history geek, seeing Harris tap into the actual history behind Dracula certainly peeked my interest, so I connected with him via email about this, along with the project in general.

In the press release announcing the project, you made reference to the Order of the Dragon. Will this be the historical Order of the Dragon, which included amongst its members Vlad II Dracul, the father of the historical Dracula?

Well, it?s at least based in history. And I have done some research to this end. But, when it comes down to it, ?The Order of the Dragon? in ?Vampirella Vs. Dracula? is very much a new, mysterious and powerful organization. Much more mystical than the actual Knights Order were, and even more closely tied in to Dracula?s mythos than you might expect considering it?s, essentially, an entirely new take on the concept.

We have scores of interpretations of Dracula over the last century. What can we expect from ?your? Dracula? Is he a romantic character, a horror character, or somewhere in between?

Both. In-between, definitely. Dracula, in this series, is a schemer and a vile being when you get right down to it. He has a penchant for impaling people, after all, and the machinations of his we?ll reveal are quite devious and self-serving, to say the least. But he?s tragic, too and born of pain due to love lost? and fueled, at least in part, by lust going forward.

How wedded is this interpretation of the character to the one in Alan Moore?s adaptation?

The Alan Moore Dracula as personified in the modern-day character of ?Dragunsun? is very much a character in this series.

In writing this, do you find yourself fitting Dracula into Vampirella?s world or is it Vampirella into Dracula?s world?

This is definitely ?Dracula?s World? we?re exploring. Rather, world(s), when you consider the multiple timelines and repeating narratives that loop around and around over the course of this series. Vampirella is lost in it and needs to find a way out.

Update: Dynamite has provided us with the first four pages for the first issue for previewing.

[Matt Tauber]

I bought this for the Moore/Frank story I missed the first time around. I found the Joe Harris story to be a muddled, disjointed mess. I realize time is shifting in the story, but so much happens so fast without explanation, it makes no sense. It makes a little more sense with the Moore story as context, but not enough to excuse that the writer makes too many assumptions that we know what's going in his head and kept so much in secrecy as to give us nothing to care about (unless, I guess, you're a regular Vampi reader).