This first installment of History's Greatest Villians is about Dracula and his origins and I found it to be amazing. I have read many books about Dracula and this was one of the best.

Having a huge interest behind the person that was directly responsibale for the creation of Dracula, the blurp sold me, but the content inside was a let down. People would rather joke about real life events than tell a compelling story. I am sorry, i can not help but dislike this one.

Interesting concept but didn’t like the execution of the story, it wasn’t my taste. I’ll give it another opportunity later on.

This one is a really interesting concept and I like the idea of a graphic novel about infamous people throughout history. It is the first graphic novel I’ve read and I wanted to see whether I would enjoy it. There are some interesting aspects certainly but I think the humour is a little ill-judged in places if I’m being honest.

Vlad Dracule is a figure I wish I knew more about but I've struggled to find an engaging book about him. This is better than the other attempts I've made. The illustrations and text work together well to convey events. It's not a particularly coherent narrative, though .Just a bunch of disjointed episodes. And I couldn't always follow how characters were or where something happened.

I like the idea behind History's Greatest Villains: Dracula by Bernard Swysen & Julien Solé, but the execution proved a poor fit for my tastes. 

On one hand, I felt the concept of a graphic biography intensely creative, but I also found the humor of this volume tonally awkward for the subject matter it covered. My primary comment, however, is that the author offered little aid to readers who aren’t already familiar with Voivode Vlad Dracula of Wallachia’s story. 

The narration jumps from one point to the next, referencing people, politics, and places at a truly blistering pace. Personally, I did not feel the novel offered enough historical exposition to understand the motives, movements, or culture of the cast. That oversight left me feeling less than satisfied with the overall story and hard-pressed to recommend the book to other readers.

I wanted to know more about the man who inspired Bram Stroker's Dracula. A graphic novel series about history's greatest villains seemed a good way to do that. Certainly faster and more enjoyable than reading his Wikipedia page.

Unfortunately, this was neither enjoyable nor informing. All I know now is what I already knew before: Vlad III. Drăculea likes to impale people.

This graphic novel tries to make Dracula's life funny and amusing to the reader. I don't think that really works, considering the impaled men, women and children on almost every page. Together with the rather cartoonish artstyle, you can't really take this graphic novel seriously.

And yet, it is not the books fault. Yes, this is one of those 'it's not you, it's me'- situations. Most of the comments or references went straight over my head. It's really hard to follow the story when you're not familiar with Dracula's life or the time period in general. I only got what's happening at the beginning, because I've read And I Darken, a YA novel by Kiersten White depicting Vlad's life had he been born a girl. After the part of his life that was covered in And I Darken (and that was not a very large part), I had no idea what's going on.

But the thing is, I'm sure that this graphic novel would be great for people who already know Dracula's life story. Historian Matei Cazacu wrote the book's preface and found this book to be historical accurate and funny. And I totally believe him that he enjoyed this. After all, he knew what was happening and who the fuck all these people were.

I don't recommend this graphic novel to anyone who, like me, barely knows anything about Vlad the Impaler. If you're a history buff though, this could be your thing.

I have always been a history nerd, so when Netgalley offered up this book that promised fun way of discussing dark history, I jumped up at it. It was a fun way indeed, Vlad was a terrible person. Many portrayed him to be terrible to his enemies, but what people don't realize is he's not exactly friendly towards his subjects. I think it also owes to his horrible childhood. But anyways, despite the fun, there are some things that shouldn't be make light of, such as child rape the graphic nature of death. Overall, I still really enjoyed it though!

History's Greatest Villains: Dracula by Bernard Swysen & Julien Solé presents the life and times of Vlad Dracul- the Dragon, the Impaler- in a graphic novel format. I had such high hopes for this graphic novel! Sadly I was to be disappointed. I thought the concept was neat, and plenty of research seems to have gone into the work. However, the artistic style chosen was more cartoonish, and lacked the grittiness I would have expected (as in 300 or Sin City). Not only that, but the attempts at humour throughout was crude and ill-conceived given the topic at hand. Vlad Dracul is a fascinating figure from history, but he was a harsh man in a harsh world. He accomplished great things, and committed grave atrocities. There's nothing humourous there, not even of the gallows kind. 

***Many thanks to Netgalley and Europe Comics for providing an ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I Loved this!!
If you have ever wanted to dice into Vladmir's history but found it too tedious, then this is perfect for you.
I loved the art and the humor in this. the art reminded me of newspaper comics. Its not meant for kids , it has some gory scenes.

I tried to understand the humor but it was lost on me. Even for someone who has a dark sense of humor, this was pretty upsetting. All Vlad Dracula did was kill people who slightly upset him and impaled them. And that was all the humor there was? And a king fighting for an actual crown. Hmmm. 
I couldn't finish it. I only could get halfway through this book and it was painful to even do so.

Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with the review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you, NetGalley for the preview of this graphic novel.

I have read about Vlad Dracul before and I was curious to read a graphic novel about him. But sadly, this did not meet my expectations. Vlad was a horrible man and this book made bad jokes about all the horrifying things he did and made his decisions look comical. Also, so much information was crammed into the pages that it made me hard to follow the storyline.

I like this series so far. Dracula was a fun topic as well. I'll definitely recommend this to patrons and professionals.

I was really intrigued to read some non-fiction in graphic novel format. I can see where the author was trying to go with this but unfortunately it fell flat as the humour did not fit with the serious topic. I did not finish this as I could not continue due to the inappropriate jokes.

I think sometimes it is better not to comment on a book, and this is one of those times. This was a disappointing book to go through.

Okay, so I didn’t actually finish this graphic novel. I just couldn’t. So my review may not be completely fair, in that I don’t know how they cover the latter two thirds of the subject.
	However, the tone for such a serious subject was just too light, and the artwork too comical. I am not exaggerating when I say that they were joking about slaughter and child rape in this book. I know that they were likely trying to make history approachable here, but they missed the mark.
	I was originally really excited when I saw this graphic novel listed on NetGalley. I’ve always been fascinated with the origin of the legend Dracula, so I was happy to see it condensed into graphic novel form. Unfortunately my hopes for this series were utterly let down. I honestly don’t think I’d be willing to try any other ‘history’s greatest villains’ after this one. It’s a great concept, but a wasted one.

I think things got lost in translation. Great concept and artwork, but the storyline - particularly the dialogue - was awkward and took me out of the story.

Abandoned at about 25%
I just can't.... There's too much happening and not enough explanations and I cannot keep up.
The premise is cool, and parts of it were funny (though very dark), but I'm not a historian. If I was already familiar with the full story, I'm sure I would like this, but I'm not, soo...

I ended up giving this title 2/5 stars. I don't know what it was really, but it didn't really resonate with me?
I think maybe there was something lost in translation; the humour didn't seem to be my thing. I finished it as it was short, but probably couldn't recommend it.

I had such high hopes for this book, but it was kinda messy and hasty in trying to chronicle the entire life of "Dracula" that it wasn't enjoyable at all in the end. 
I can see that they tried to make into a graphic history lesson, but it wasn't engaging, even though I liked the art, and it was boring even though they'r retelling the story of Vlad. I won't give up on this series, because I love a good book about villains, but I hope the next one is better! 
I thank netgalley for the book!