Dark Shadows
Directed By: Tim Burton
Written By: Seth Grahame-Smith
Starring: Johnny Depp, Eva Green, Michelle Pfeiffer, Chloë Moretz, Helena Bonham Carter, Jonny Lee Miller, Jackie Earle Haley, Bella Heathcote, Christopher Lee and Alice Cooper
Distributed By: Warner Bros. Pictures
Rated: PG-13
Release Date: May 11, 2012

“His name was Barnabas Collins, and he was the finest man this family ever knew.”

With its unique blend of gothic intrigue, romance, and melodrama, Dark Shadows staked the soap opera status quo in the heart in the late 1960s. The series, which ran from 1966-1971, was unprecedented in daytime television for its supernatural stories filled with vampires, ghosts, witches, werewolves, and the occasional zombie or warlock. My mother would race home from high school to watch Dark Shadows, hypnotized into submission by Barnabus Collins (Jonathan Frid), 18th-century vampire and master of Collinwood Manor. With its blood-and-thunder performances and atmospheric interiors, Dark Shadows became a pop culture phenomena with 1,225 television episodes and numerous films, novels, comics, and audio dramas dedicated to the Collins family.

For those dying to revisit the creaky, cobwebbed halls of Collinwood Manor, director Tim Burton (Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood) has resurrected Dark Shadows as a 113-minute gothic comedy, written by New York Times best-selling novelist Seth Grahame-Smith (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter).

Dark Shadows #5
Written by Mike Raicht
Art by Guiu Vilanova
Colors by Carlos Lopez
Letters by Troy Peteri
Cover by Francseco Francavilla
Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: May 9, 2012
Cover Price: $3.99

Dark Shadows #5 is very entertaining. In a lot of ways. You can take it seriously or not, but either way you’re going to enjoy it. It seems that main character Barnabas Collins doesn’t really WANT to be a vampire, which is interesting. I’m not an expert on vampires, but usually once people turn into them, they really seem to enjoy it.

Series writer Mike Raicht turns out a interesting story for this issue. While it’s fun for us, the reader, it’s no fun for any of the characters involved. There are a lot of what some people would call “soap opera” elements to comic story telling, but this title is a STRAIGHT-OUT soap opera, just with horror theme to it. It’s really nice to read a comic once in a while where there are NO super powers, no fights or super weapons, just good, solid drama and that’s what this comic is. Sure, there’s a vampire element to it, but Raicht really gets the reader invested in Barnabas Collins the MAN, not Barnabas Collins the VAMPIRE.