In 2010, there was a four issue limited series from IDW Publishing, Bram Stoker’s Death Ship: The Last Voyage of the Demeter, it expanded on the five pages in the Dracula novel! The film, The Last Voyage of the Demeter, was just released in theaters. It had a long in development script by Bragi Schut that dates to 2006 inspired by Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979). “A Stranger on Board” is by Gary Gerani, one of the screenwiters of the horror film, Pumpkinhead (1988), and he wrote the comic limited series, Dinosaurs Attack! (2013). The artwork is by Stuart Sayger, who wrote and drew his own horror comic series, Shiver in the Dark (2002). The covers are by Cliff Nielsen with the first issue, very Gothic, showing a black and white Demeter lashed by stormy seas. The issue opens with a woman at a picnic with her son asleep under trees as a man approaches.
Colorist Dom Regan has the scene in watercolors making it very dreamlike with blue, greens, and splashes of yellow for the woman’s hair and dress. She looks up and sees a bearded man, the artwork has the sketchy lines of Bill Sienkiewicz and the dark, almost cartoony figures of Sam Keith. Then, we shift to their house on a street in Varna, Moldovia. It is 1897, the departure date of the Demeter, the captain, now older, looks at his family photo. It is on a bureau and he looks at it with sadness. Then, we get one of the crew, Anataole, in bed with a dark-haired woman. He callously leaves her to be on time for the voyage. A very different beginning than the film. The Demeter is at the docks, the cook greets the young crew member, Yuri and the captain waves to him on board the ship.
Workers are loading onto the ship six crates of Carpathian earth coordinated by the First Mate named Constantine. A name of Latin origin when Stoker has him as Russian. David Dastmalchian plays Wojchek in the film. Anatole, threatens one of the workers, but is calmed down by Constantine. We get the captain’s log entry. The daughter of the First Mate sees him off in her mother’s arms. Then, the ship sets out to sea in a splash page. The captain is at his desk as we see the Demeter’s course from Bulgaria through Turkey with the Whitby destination. We see a line up of most of the crew. The captain speaks with Constantine about his wife while Anatole makes crude comments. Actually, this would be in the officer’s quarters, the captain’s room, and Anatole could be sent somewhere while they have the private conversation.
Anatole goes on deck to start drinking and he thinks he hears something from the cargo hold. He brushes it off, but we see the suspicious look of another crewman, Olgaren. The next day, the captain records that they are stopped by custom officials at the Bosphorus which connects the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. The captain has Anatole to take the officials to check the cargo. He pries open a crate to show them that the cargo is only earth. The officials leave on a boat and the captain checks on Yuri climbs up to the crow’s nest. At the captain’s cabin, Olgaren meets with the captain and confesses about the previous night’s watch.
He says he went to the deckhouse during a rainstorm and then saw him. We see Olgaren terrified, a reaction right out of EC horror comics, seeing a dark figure. Olgaren describes him as a “tall, thin man”, but could not find a trace of the man afterwards. This is Bram Stoker’s description of Dracula and takes place in the July 17th entry. The captain reassures him that it was a dream. We see a closeup of the clawed hand of Dracula approach a large crewman who turns and then a shadowy, snarling form leaps on him and we hear a scream! The first victim, Petrofsky, was the day before, so there is some changes to this adaptation. Death Ship #1 showcases the specific incident of the Demeter like the film with moody, dark visuals, but has its own touches that are unique.
Four "Boxes of Earth" out of Five!
#BramStoker, #DeathShip, #TheLastVoyageOfTheDemeter, #GaryGerani, #StuartSayer, #DomRegan, #CliffNielsen, #Anatole, #Constantine, #Olgaren, #Petrofsky
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