Robert Kirkman’s Skybound have been picking up some pretty high profile licenses in the last few years; with Kirkman’s own interests seeming to lie at the heart of many of them.

His love of classic movie monsters no doubt led to Skybound getting their hands on the under-utilised Universal Monsters license; with a stable of excellent movies and characters to draw from, many of which are iconic and still hugely popular, this should hopefully prove to be fertile ground for Kirkman and his creators.

If the first issue of Universal Monsters: Dracula – the first title to make use of the Universal Monsters branding – is anything to go buy, that license is in incredibly safe hands indeed.

Based on Universal’s movie version of Dracula, rather than the original source material, it expands on that classic take and brings a dark, atmospheric and visually stunning opening chapter to the reader.

Renfield – portrayed as a deathly pallid, Joker-esque madman – has been institutionalised, following a massacre on a ship that saw fourteen crew members horrifically murderered.

While eating small flies, Renfield spins a fantastical story about his ‘Master’, to the fascination of the staff and Doctors trying to work out just what could be wrong with him.

Yet it seems that his tale may not be so fantastical after all – as a shapeshifting creature stalks the streets of London, looking for new prey.

James Tynion IV knocks this one out of the park with his script, with vivid and immediately familiar characters being introduced over the course of this issue’s pages.

The artwork is the star of the show here, however, as good as the writing is.

Martin Simmonds is on art duties – and his stunning compositions are absolutely breathtaking at times. Recalling the scratchy, detailed, near-surrealist styles of artists such as Ashley Wood and Ben Templesmith, Simmonds creates a phenomenal sense of mood and a foreboding atmosphere.

Renfield himself is rendered in such a stylistically pale manner that his features become near-indistinct; a white mask with sullen, deeply dark eyes and a mouth full of shark like teeth.

Though we don’t yet see a great deal of Dracula himself, when we do, he’s an incredibly powerful presence; his pages absolutely drenched in the vivid red blood that he spills for sustenance on his hunts.

With the news that Skybound’s second stab at bringing the Universal Monsters back to comics is going to be with a Creature From The Black Lagoon mini-series, it looks like it’s shaping up to be a very exciting time for comic book creature feature fans.