The latest offering from Titan Comics collects Penny Dreadful #1-5, a canonical prequel to the first TV series, telling the story of the events that led to Vanessa searching for childhood friend Mina. (Vampires, basically it’s vampires). The Penny Dreadful prequel comic is available from March 28.

Written by writers of the TV show Krysty Wilson-Cairns and Andrew Hindraker, Penny Dreadful maintains the quality you’d expect with convincing interpretations of the characters and exciting story lines.

One of the features of a vampire story is that a lot of it is set in the dark. With a TV series this can lead to dramatic tension and atmospheric sets, but in a comic it risks looking like the colouring isn’t finished. This is not the case with the excellent artwork of Louie De Martinis, who manages to create pages that appear colourful but mainly featuring one colour. Vampires are drenched in red, outdoor night scenes feature an eerie blue and grey, candlelit rooms are covered in yellow. On top of that, the panels have a stylized aged look where pages are covered with artistic scratches and mystic rune-like symbols in faint shadows. This all adds to the atmosphere of the comic book.

The story is a lot of fun, as much as a story about demonic vampires can be fun. Vanessa is having visions and hears that a demon known as the Master has control of Mina. Vanessa teams up with Sir Malcolm Murray to save Mina, wherever she is.

Penny Dreadful is completed by character and design features about the TV vampires and Vanessa, plus the creations of fan art contest winners Ashley Sahms, Jacqueline Diaz and Richard Soledad. We might be seeing them again at some point.

PENNY DREADFUL TPB
Writers: Krysty Wilson-Cairns, Andrew Hindraker
Artist: Louie De Martinis
SC, 128pp, $14.99, On sale: March 28
ISBN: 9781785853685

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