The Kickstarter Campaign for DVK is now UP! We are currently over halfway to our goal with 10 days left! Please share or contribute if you can! Thank you! 

Here is a few pages, reposted so you can see the original pages and the new colors!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dvkcomic/dracula-vs-kong

We’re very excited to announce our plans for a physical edition of Dracula vs. Kong!

We’ll be launching a Kickstarter on February 18 for a small run and getting them in your hands and on the shelves of select Chicago comic shops! 

The new “Deluxe” print and paid PDF version will include “Blood Red and Green” coloring as well as improved lettering and new art and pinups. It will also feature a cover by Eisner-nominated creator Tim Seeley (Hack/Slash, Local Man).

Keep your eyes out on our socials for updates and exclusive BTS art.

Today we bring you the final page. It’s been so much fun bringing it to life, and we hope you’ve enjoyed it just as much! 

We’ll be dropping info soon on our physical release crowdfunding campaign and we might have a few other treats along the way. Stay tuned!

...And we're back with new pages! Hope you enjoyed the look behind the scenes and we hope you enjoy the final chapter even more!

Before writing the script, I would sketch out the pages that I had in mind. This helped me work out the story flow, what needed to be done where. By doing the outline and these sketches together, I figured how many pages the story would take.

For some of the less action packed pages, I couldn’t figure anything out (and I didn’t break out my copy of Wally Wood’s 22 Panels.) 

Upon completing the script I sent it to Rats for approval, I did a few revisions based on his feedback (you can see the marked revisions in the images below.) After the final revisions I sent it along with my sketches off to him and he reinterpreted in his own inimitable fashion.

Rats will send me his thumbnails, and rough sketches, I’d say if it looked good or if there was something that seemed off. If there was, including a couple pages where my original idea didn’t work, he’d redo it.

With page one, we wanted to pay tribute to the Draculas and Kongs of the past before introducing our own takes. It was conceived with interpretations of classic scenes, but with Rats’ designs. The text lays it out obviously, even if you don’t pick up the exact references.

Page three with the 1/2 splash and panels underneath was supposed to resemble a 2000s superhero comic “reveal” layout. Not specifically inspired by anything, or for deliberate homage or thematic implications, but just in that it seemed a useful layout to convey grandeur, but also move to the next scene.

There were two pages in the script where I wanted to directly take layouts from other comics, as I thought it was useful, one of which is for an upcoming page and wouldn’t end up working.

The other for page 15, which directly references the “Psychic Spread” Stuart Immonen used in All-New X-Men, The panels represent not a shattered psyche, but instead are a story being told, so the panels have a point on the end of each, drawing the eye to the next panel, in an attempt to make the layout less evocative, more literal. As to whether it worked entirely, that’s up to the reader.

Page 28, I thought would be cool to have a staircase like layout, signifying them ascending the mountain, but English reads left to right and down, so it wouldn’t have made sense. And Rats Tried. (I did eventually sketch out a possible way it could work for my own curiosity. It “worked”, but it wasn’t natural and a huge waste of page space.

I think it was pulled off stylishly and I applaud Rats for being able to pull off the more ambitious layouts. It as his first long comic and my first ever. I’m very happy with how it’s turned out and I hope you are too.



Also included is my original sketch for Dracula’s final form. When I showed Rats, he just said, “so like a big bat?”

“Yeah.”

Hey everyone,
New Pages will be back in two weeks, but in the meantime, I’ll be doing two columns about the creative process behind our comic. Thanks for sticking around!

The idea came to me on my way to get pizza. I was thinking about old monster movies (which is a good 1/4 of what I think about).  I realized Dracula and Kong (via the original novel) are in the public domain. After a quick look, I realized no one had done a meeting of these two before, so I asked Rats if he would want to do it. We had wanted to do a comic together but hadn’t really put in any effort to figure out what. His answer: “Maybe, depends on the story.” I took that as a yes.

The pizza was good, by the way.

So we wanted them to fight, but the question is how? Dracula and Renfield washing up on Skull Island seemed obvious, but what could allow them to have an actual confrontation? Dracula would have to be scaled up, mutated to be a monster that Kong could face. 

The line of thinking from there was that something allowed the Dinosaurs to survive and the monsters to survive and change. The creatures of our Skull Island aren’t based in reality nearly as much as previous versions, which we hope distinguishes it while leaning into an unnatural feeling.

Originally I had a meteor fall on Skull Island, ala Lovecraft’s Color Out of Space. That would be what changed the Island. Rats thought that was weak and as I wasn’t trying to ape Lovecraft in any other way, I agreed it didn’t work.

In a burst of Johnsian Literalism, I thought, “What If Skull Island was literally a skull?” It was easy to figure out the rest. A space god falling to Earth, changing the flora and fauna. Dracula, wanting world domination in the original novel, and expressing displeasure that he could not conquer on a battlefield any longer, would want to reclaim that. He would want power.

It works on a meta-level too, I think, being that we ourselves, are vampires feeding on the works of much smarter, more original creators. At least, that’s how I feel, I can’t speak for Rats.

I set out to read both original novels to make sure we knew which parts of the mythologies were were legally allowed to use, but also to re-familiarize myself with Dracula. I hadn't read Kong before but was pleased to see most of the elements in the film were there. We watched many a Dracula movie and most of the Kongs as well to get visual and tonal inspiration.

After he read the script, I asked Rats what he thought the theme was. He didn’t know that there was one. 

Dracula is heavy in metaphors about sexuality and foreigners. Kong is about our exploitative relationship with animals and nature and some have suggested, a fear of black men attacking and claiming white women. (Love that movie, but under that lens, yikes!)  Ours had to have some theme, and hopefully not any of the negative racial ones of the original works. 

Sexuality is an important theme in both original works, entirely absent here. I don't have a good excuse. Perhaps Dracula and Renfield could have taken the sacrifice as a guide, but even then, there wouldn't have been much of reason narratively. While it crosses through my mind, without altering the entire story, there wouldn't have been a way to work that in.

I think it ended up being Dracula exploiting and conquering the natural world, infecting and corrupting it. It can be read that Dracula represents colonialists taking that which is not theirs even after they’ve left, the effects remain. Dracula is an English literary character encroaching on an American icon, changing it, as we’ve followed in Mother Britain’s imperialist path.

Or maybe it’s just monsters fighting. Probably that one. 

One thing we felt we needed to address was the portrayal of the natives of Skull Island. The original novel and film portrayed them as era-typical stereotypes of "lost tribes" drawing from Eurocentric views of Africans as savages. We didn't watch the 70s film, so I can't speak to that. Peter Jackson's 2005 remake is a stellar film but is somehow more racist than a film made 70 years earlier. The Tribe are inhuman monsters, reflecting the Island itself.

We decided to forgo that route entirely by having the islanders have intermingled with various cultures via shipwrecks over the years. Also plays up the horror, I think. "You never escape the island. You join it or die."

I sent the plot outline to Rats, he started character designing and I started on the script.

Dracula needed someone to bounce off of, plus needed someone to watch his coffin during the day. In the novel, Dracula can go out in the sunlight but has reduced power. We decided to use the classic "destroyed in sunlight" for narrative convenience.

Renfield seemed the obvious choice for a companion, having the most dramatic personality. Technically in the novel, Renfield wouldn't have been on the Demeter when Dracula sailed to England, but I decided to go with him because John Harker didn't seem particularly compelling to me. He's also not a raving lunatic in our version, merely incompetent and groveling, though you can tell he's on his way. 

For Dracula, I took inspiration most from Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan's "Tomb of Dracula" comics from the 1970s. A Warlord out of synch with modern times. His supposed nobility hides his monstrous nature.

Contrast that with Kong who looks inhuman, yet has always possessed a humanity. We decided to play up Kong as a protector, a caring beast. The sacrifices survive and he cares for them. This Kong is a lonely child, only appearing in the last third, which isn't dissimilar to the original film/novel. We had tossed around ideas of making him more Orangutan inspired, although decided against to maintain recognizability. And with the villain of the last Monsterverse film being one, we chose correctly.

Next week a breakdown of script to finished pge, including original layout sketches and more.

Editor’s note: We will be taking a two week break from posting pages to allow our artist @27_Rats a little time to work on other projects. In the meantime, Nicoli, the writer, will be posting some blogs with insights on the collaborative process and his thoughts writing the script. They should be informative and we'll also include some behind the scenes sketches.

We missed a week, sorry about that! There's a lot going on in our personal lives right now, but we're back and with an announcement.

After Chapter 2 finishes, we're taking a two week break from posting new pages, but Nicoli will be posting two blogs about the writing process, the collaboration between us and future of the comic!

While you're waiting for your food today, feast your eyes on this new page!

Hope everyone enjoys pages 1-4! Starting November 10, we'll be releasing a new page every Thursday! 

Kong is the King of Skull Island, a giant ape with the heart of child. Kong has a soft spot for beauty and possesses a gentle nature, but has been fighting to survive his whole life. When Count Dracula arrives on his island, his greatest battle is about to begin. 

Dracula is the vampire prince of Transylvania. A bargain made long-ago left him immortal, as long as he consumes human blood. Having drained the Carpathian Mountains dry, he planned to extend his reach to England, but a freak storm washed him to the shores of Skull Island.

Here, this former warlord is forced to rely on Renfield, his meek lackey for his survival. When he learns of the secrets Skull Island, he develops a thirst stronger than that for blood. That for power…

R.M. Renfield is Count Dracula’s loyal minion-not by choice, but out of fear. The Master took hold of Renfield and enlisted him in his plot to control England, but they were swept off course and crash landed on Skull Island.

A sniveling insect-eater, Renfield desperately reaches for power, but cowers before anyone with more. A man with ambition, but no real talent, it seems being Dracula’s lackey is the most he’ll ever achieve. He should be happy with it, as the other option is being Dracula’s meal-or one for the creatures of Skull Island.

The Prince of Darkness vs the King of Skull Island. October 31. Tune in each week for a new Character Bio leading up the release!