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mazingerz88's avatar

Is this a good interpretation of Count Dracula?

Asked by mazingerz88 (29144points) February 6th, 2013

This statue of the famous Count has just been made available for fans. Does this statue look appealing and cool enough to you? Thanks.

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28 Answers

Jeruba's avatar

I would have expected him to look charming and seductive, not fierce and angry.

wundayatta's avatar

Cool and appealing? Not by a long shot. Try pathetic and cheesy.

flutherother's avatar

The cape isn’t bad but the count looks like a salesman or a politician.

rojo's avatar

Don’t particularly care for the pointy collar and I have to agree with @Jeruba regarding the facial features

SamandMax's avatar

You’ll have to forgive my very harsh – and it will be harsh, probably even offensive to you (even though it’s not intended) – take on this one.

It looks very B-movie.

Personally, I love a lot of things Dracula related. Just…well..not that really. I have to say @Jeruba nailed it in one sentence. But in terms of constructive criticism, whilst the addition of bats may “add a chunk of value” to it, they look like cake decorations and simply ruin the image. As for realism, bats seldom tend to fly from the ground up.

Also, he’s Dracula…not Spawn. That over-sized collar is probably not going to win it much in the way of sales. He needs modernizing slightly. Downsize the collar, lose the bats – entirely, and making him look a little less GRRRR and as Jeruba said, charming and seductive.
Dracula is a supernatural being, who poses as a gentleman, hence he doesn’t always rely on Grrr-ness (terrible I know). The way he is portrayed here simply emphasizes a vast amount of evil when really he should be portrayed as someone with a little more charm.

ucme's avatar

No, it’s wrong in every conceivable way, looks more like the wicked witch of the west underwent radical reconstructive surgery & it didn’t quite work out.

Berserker's avatar

Guess I’ll be the odd one out then lol. The design caters a lot the older Dracula styles that he was given in movies from the thirties all the way to the seventies. The snazzy suit, stereotypical cape, bats, tombstones. The classic Dracula image that we all know him by, kind of like everybody recognizes Jesus in paintings and shit.
And in the book, Dracula is much more ’‘monster like’’ than the modern, sexy vampire of today. (although he doesn’t dress like that) I like the older crazy ass vampires, so this statue is pretty cool for that. My only problem is the head. It’s done well, and I like the mouth and eyes, but his hair looks like he gelled it lol.
But overall I appreciate the classic Dracula gettup this statue is going for, it’s totally classic. Plus I don’t know why I keep noticing it, but the stand kicks ass, too. I’d gladly have that statue in my living room, for sure.
I gotta say though, didn’t know Marvel had Dracula in it. Since when? What comics?

Hawaii_Jake's avatar

It’s been many years since I’ve read the book, but I have read it twice. There is one thing I know about Dracula from the book: he’s lustful. He preys on young women mostly. I would even go so far as to say the theme of the book is the fight between what Victorians saw as humans’ baser natures and higher ones.

Dracula should be a gentlemen with a bite.

Berserker's avatar

@ucme lol that’s awesome

syz's avatar

I like the movement in the cape, don’t like his face. Not refined enough.

ucme's avatar

@Symbeline ain’t it just.
Of course, the real “Dracula” was Vlad the Impaler, here’s a pic of him, although I must say he looks rather like a young Santa Claus…quite dashing XD

Berserker's avatar

The man really rocked the stash.

Berserker's avatar

…no. lol

ucme's avatar

…take your time :¬)

ucme's avatar

Not many people know this, but Dracula had a song out in the mid 1980’s… Rock me daddio…rock me, told you.

mazingerz88's avatar

Thanks everyone and thanks for introducing Count Yuckula @ucme and that pissin tot bloodsucker son of him who should have been pissin blood but he’s cute. Nice link.

@Symbeline Knew you’d see it from an angle I couldn’t quite put my head on. Now I do. Though my idea of the Count was more Gary Oldman slick than Hammer’s Christopher Lee, I wouldn’t mind having this look on him. Like you said, classic. I’m not solved on the shape of the face but I’ve been waiting for a Dracula statue for quite some time and will probably just ignore this.

I don’t think Marvel had comics released on Dracula but Bowen, the sculptor, has done so many Marvel superheroes statues and asks for fans input on his designs on that website even if its not Marvel related.

Which brings me to @SamandMax comment on the bats which I happen to agree with. That it should be taken off. Great idea but its not easy to find the right spot for them. Some fans liked them, some not. The lines holding the bats are sure to clutter and distract. Personally, I would love to see the bats along the length of his outstretched arm but only with invisible attachments. Lol.

@SamandMax The final design apparently excluded the bats. Good call. : )

filmfann's avatar

@syz I think he only urinating. I don’t think he is having a movement in his cape.

mazingerz88's avatar

@Symbeline Ok, so Marvel did have a Dracula comic book series. And clearly, Bowen based his design on this. Heh. The Tomb of Dracula.

Berserker's avatar

Whoa, yeah I seem to recall these…saw em online once. I don’t quite remember…did they also have comics that featured Vlad the Impaler? Like old comics? Sort of rings a bell. But yeah, I’d like to check those out, I bet they kick ass heh. If you can still find em.

And yes, you got it for the bats. It is a bit odd that they’re on the bottom…they should be in the air. But I guess for a statue, that would be a little difficult to do. Down there they kind of look like a ’‘bouquet’’ lol.

I totally love Gary Oldman as Dracula, don’t get me wrong. I love that movie to death. no pun intended And no doubt the movie established a new, and now permanent, Dracula style. Perhaps Anne Rice deserves just as much credit for the sexy elegant vampire. I’d love to know the actual history behind all this. How and why vampires changed from crazy monsters (anyone familiar with Count Orlok?) to cunning sex gods. Lol.

But I’ll always love me some olde Classic Drac.

mazingerz88's avatar

Nice pic there. Thanks. Was just reading about Marvel’s Dracula comic book on Wiki and it ran from 1972 to 1979. This is funny. Instead of Christopher Lee, Dracula’s face was taken from Jack Palance!

Re the bats, they do look like a bouquet. Heh. Bowen said he wanted them to break out from the ground. Dunno. Maybe in the story, Drac’s huge underground tomb was filled with them. So that would make sense. But in a statue…not.

Vampires changing from crazy monsters to cunning sex gods you say. The transition went alongside society’s slow “shapeshifting” from sexual conservatism to open market lust trade? Elegant vampires. I’m only aware of Anne Rice. Wonder if there are other writers like her but didn’t get the chance to have David Geffen, Neil Jordan, Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise interpret their works.

I love Count Orlok and I hope you’ve seen Willem Dafoe and John Malkowich’s movie based on Nosferatu.

Berserker's avatar

Wait, what, I’ve never seen that movie. Nope. But it has to be a plan, if it’s based on Nosferatu. Kind of a weird plot though, reminds me of Dracula and Son. Does it have leather coffins with zippers lol?

Another example of sexy vampire novels are the Count Saint Germain series by Chelsea Yarbro. Not too much my style, but they are fairly popular and use a lot of the modern vampire ideas. Some of it is hardcore though, from what I’ve read she borrows from the more crude vampire, too. (the main vampire is 4000 years old, that’s a little much bro XD) There’s a few others, a book called Mina which is an unofficial sequel to Dracula. It deals with Mina cheating on Harker with another vampire…the book was meant to empower women, so I got interested, until the author portrayed Mina as an idiot, scuse my French. A real disappointment, almost insulting. But it does include the back story of one of the succubi from the original novel, which was awesome. A few others I have in mind, but none that made the success that Anne Rice or Chelsea Yarbro enjoyed.
And I think this whole transition thing you explained made a lot of sense. It has to tie in with these theories I have about vampires essentially being what we want to be. Strong, perfect, successful, sexually epic…all neatly wrapped in a veil of rules that make you sigh. or something Someone somewhere has to have done some study on why we find vampires fascinating. Well, death is always an issue with people, and vampires have more than enough to do with death, desires and regrets.
That is besides, the monster vampire which I personally believe to be born out of our ignorance on death and disease centuries ago. (the vampire myth itself is older than Christianity, which is kind of funny when you think how a vampire is ageless, lol) When you know jackshit about something, it becomes a primitive monster…lots of great authors in the 1800’s tapped into this idea.

Now Twilight, I don’t understand it, but were I the age I am now when reading Rice’s stuff, I probably would have said the same thing. I really hope not, though

…sorry. We were talking about the statue. And I want it. :D

And oh yeah I just thought, in the Dracula book, Van Helsing and friends go to the Carfax Abbey to destroy the coffins containing the dirt in which Drac has to sleep in. When he finds them, he unleashes rats to attack them. This also happens in the movie. (in both cases, the rats fail miserably) So…maybe instead of bats, the artist should have included rats. In fact in the book and movie, there are a lot more rats than bats, and the only time you see or read about a bat is when Drac himself turns into one.

ucme's avatar

He rises!! Well, not really, but it’d be cool if he did.
I’ve actually been there, Whitby is just a few miles down the road from where I live.

Berserker's avatar

@ucme Whoa you’ve been in there? What’s it like?

ucme's avatar

@Symbeline Fucking epic, bit touristy as you can imagine & very cold, but that just adds to the suspense. Been there a few times, the first was on a school trip, our history teacher was cool as fuck & into Dracula, so thought it a good idea to take us kids there, he was right.

mazingerz88's avatar

@Symbeline You might really enjoy this. I’m checking out that Yarbro tale soon. Thanks for pointing me again towards another good vamp tale. You recommended The Black Castle last year and now I can’t stop wishing for somebody to produce it even if it’s just for a TV special!

I’m gettin old. A while ago, tried to recall in detail, encounters between Mina and Dracula in the book that were written as subtly sexual in nature but couldn’t remember anything. Just want to remember whether those were presented more as horror, thinly veiling any heightened form of sexuality which in Stoker’s time may not have been appropriate but not in Coppola’s, the director who seemed to have done it in reverse, more “trying hard to be sexy” than scary, either intentionally or not, in his movie adaptation.

Btw, Bowen is working on a Frankenstein and Wolfman. : )

Berserker's avatar

Yup, I love The Black Castle. And yeah serious, somebody needs to make a fuckin’ movie of it already. Personally if you ask me, Don Sebastian is way more badass than Dracula haha. The other books are a bit lesser, but that first one is great. And for sure I’ll check out Shadow of the Vampire. Would probably already have, had I known it even existed.

Whether those were presented more as horror, thinly veiling all that sexuality

Kind of, and pretty much. Dracula barely has any physical contact with any of the characters besides Jonathan and Lucy, and obviously, with everyone at the end when they fuck his ass up. And what relation there is shows Dracula as a hunter. He doesn’t love his victims, he rapes them. He does not care about them, as he cared for Mina in the movie. The movie Dracula is a sweetheart compared to the book Dracula.
Because Dracula bit Mina, they now have a mental link together; and all he can say to her is; well bitch, you’re mine and there’s just about fuckall you can do about it.

However, Mina feels sorry for him and actually defends him a little when everyone else is all like, we’re killing his ass! She feels for him, although I guess back then you just couldn’t go right out and be all specific and stuff about lust and feelings?

@ucme Ha lucky. I had cool field trips as a kid, but man, Carfax Abbey. You certainly had a kickass teacher.

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