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Many of you have wondered how accurate is our depiction of Vlad the Impaler.  The quick answer is that our graphic novel is filled with factual happenings, but it is also a work of fiction. Ernie Colon and myself imagined the kind of private life such a man would have lived and shaped that into our story.

To begin with, Vlad and his brother Radu were truly left in the hands of Sultan Murad of the Ottoman Empire by their father, the elder Vlad This was part of the price for the Sultan's help in gaining the throne of Wallachia. Young Vlad and Radu did indeed become  janissaries of the sultan's.  And Vlad later did have the sultan's aid in his attempt to gain the throne of Wallachia.

These kind of historical details are accurately portrayed here, from Vlad's and Radu's beginnings to the crucial battle between the two brothers and to the astounding final outcome of Vlad's epic adventure. The man's life was thoroughly researched, and as gory as the book seems to be, that is how it happened---and, yes, as gory as it still is happening today.

Some weeks ago, a publication asked me what was the most amazing thing I learned from researching the life of Vlad.  The following is what I told them...

I had recently met two native Romanian women and shyly told them that I was working on a graphic novel concerning the life of Vlad the Impaler. The eyes of both of them lit up. "Oh, yes," one of them cried. "He is one of our greatest heroes.  We learn about him in school."

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"Vlad the Impaler" is the fourth graphic book that Ernie Colon and I have created together. The first one, "The 9/11 Report," was published three years ago and, happily for us, became a best seller. Twenty or more years ago, we'd barely have ONE completed and published in three years time. You see, Ernie lives in Huntington on Long Island and I live more than 3,000 miles away in Los Angeles. We hadn't seen each other for more than 15 years before we finished that first book. Yes, I said FINISHED the book. We didn't see each other at all while we wrote and drew it.

Thank goodness for the invention of that thing called the computer. I wrote the script, yes, on the computer, and emailed it to him. He drew it on, yes, the computer, and emailed the pages back to me. We then edited it and offered each other suggestions, made changes when we decided it was necessary, and voila, the book!

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"Vlad, the Impaler," I'm afraid, is my first attempt at a graphic novel.  I have edited several in the past, even one by my co-creator Ernie Colon, but this is the first one I've ever written.  Ernie and I have had successes in NON-fiction graphic novels, especially in our rendition of the graphic 9/11 Commission Report. But Vlad is fiction.

Not pure fiction by any means.  The creep actually existed and is the inspiration (sinspiration?) for Dracula. He existed and perpetrated most every vile act we depict and describe in the book and certainly caused more pounds of blood to fall than Ernie's red ink indicates.

His personal life may not have been as damning or, if you prefer, as delicious as is illustrated here.  But, frankly, I don't know.  I made assumptions that it was and wove the story around those assumptions and judgments of his personality.

But Vlad, the historical Vlad Dracula (for so was he named) was indeed the source for Bram Stoker's creation of Count Dracula, the vampire. The two even lived in neighboring provinces: Vlad in Wallachia, Count Dracula in Transylvania, both provinces of today's Romania.

Now why would I choose such a man to be the central character (I retreat from calling him the protagonist) of my first graphic novel?  My answer, to begin with,  is embarrassing.  You see, I was researching a person named Janos Hunyadi, known as the White Knight-and who incidentally makes a bloody appearance in the book-and came across the story of Vlad.  To tell the awful truth, I had never heard of Vlad before. 

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Sid Jacobson is our guest blogger during the week of October 19th. If you have any questions for Sid Jacobson, add a comment to any of his posts.

Here is more information on Vlad the Impaler:

From the bestselling author illustrator team of the 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation comes the truly gory tale of the historical Dracula

The Dracula myth has sparked a legacy of endlessly entertaining creepy tales. The fictional character, originally penned by Bram Stoker, was inspired by and named after a real-life fiend-Prince Vlad Dracula, the fifteenth-century ruler of Wallachia-a man infamous for massacring and impaling his enemies. In brilliant four-color illustrations, Vlad the Impaler tells the ghastly prince's life story from his seizure as a boy by the Turkish Sultan, to his love life, to his maniacal attempts to retain power regardless of whose throat he must slit.

From the bestselling writer and illustrator team who brought us The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation-hailed by Stan Lee as "beautifully and compellingly written and illustrated. . . . It will surely set the standard for all future works of contemporary history, graphic or otherwise"-this graphic novel, based on a true story, is replete with gory details of torture tactics. Ideal for readers who made 30 Days of Night and World War Z bestsellers, the combination of riveting legend and blood-and-guts drawings will be an anticipated addition to the graphic novel fan's library. 

About Sid Jacobson: