Scott, Henderson Return to Swing Sword of Dracula in November

New one-shot by Jason Henderson, Greg Scott, Joel Sequin, cover by Tony Harris

The comic series that re-imagines Dracula as “the world’s most dangerous terrorist” up against a UN-backed military outfit returns with its original creative line-up in November with Sword of Dracula/Vampirella: Extended and Dangerous. The book is published by Digital Webbing Press, publisher of Bloodrayne.

“This is Greg Scott’s first new Sword of Dracula work in several years,” said Jason Henderson, creator of the series and screenwriter of games like Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2. “It was Greg who originated the ‘Black Hawk Dracula’ look of the original series and time and time again people have asked to see Greg back on the series.” But Greg Scott has been in high demand, Henderson said—working on books that took advantage of his hyper-real style like DC’s Gotham Central and Boom Studio’s X Isle, Enigma Cipher, and Fall of Cthulhu. Henderson, meanwhile, has been busy writing Tokyopop’s manga series Psy-comm and Humanoids’ upcoming French sci-fi series Clockwerx, both with co-writer Tony Salvaggio.

Sword of Dracula/Vampirella: Extended and Dangerous extends a story that originally appeared in Vampirella Magazine #8-9., in which the famously sexy vampire Vampirella interfered with commando Ronnie Van Helsing’s attempt to wrest a vampire witness from an attacking vampire clan. “Greg and I took those few pages from the magazine and said, ‘how can we make this bigger?’” said Henderson. “The result is a story that’s almost completely new.”

Whereas the short story from the magazine featured only low-level vampires, Extended and Dangerous lets Scott return to drawing Dracula himself. “And this is SOD Dracula, remember,” says Henderson, “powerful, cruel, and capable of cutting his own thumb and making a slashing chain of blades out of the blood. Greg made you believe that this Dracula could exist.” Cinescape Magazine referred to this reconceived Dracula as “the most innovative re-imagining of Stoker’s character in a century.”

In the comic, when Dracula, the world's most dangerous terrorist, loses a key vampire witness to Ronnie Van Helsing of the Polidorium, it's an all-out war of vampires, guns, trucks and RPGs to get the witness back. And into the middle rides Vampirella, who is picking a side all her own.

Henderson said he and Scott have plans for more Sword of Dracula one-shots. “What we’ve discovered is that we missed working together, we missed the energy of the original team. And I mean energy—I might leave a note for Greg that says “Vampi makes a dramatic appearance in the middle of the armored car robbery,” and if he thinks the method I’ve devised for Vampi’s appearance isn’t good enough, he’ll ditch it. I’ll get a call at two in the morning; Greg will say, you know, ‘It’s a motorcycle. On fire.’  Go, man. Energy energy energy! We have a really unique method and now we’re planning to use it on more SOD very soon.”

The cover is by Eisner-award-winning artist Tony Harris, who created all the covers for the original run of Sword of Dracula.

The Harris Publications character Vampirella has appeared in magazines since her creation in 1969, while Ronnie Van Helsing has been the star of the "vampires as terrorists" series since 2003.

"It's very rare for a woman other than Vampi to be on a cover with Vampirella," said Henderson. "But Ronnie Van Helsing is a pretty forceful woman, and she's turned into a pretty popular character-- she's taken on a life of her own with Sword of Dracula fans, and she's so different from Vampirella that they made a perfect team-up. I'm also happy to report that Ronnie doesn't wear a swimsuit. Vampi does, though."