Widely thought to be a short story reworked from the abandoned first chapter of Stoker’s Dracula, this tale sees an unnamed Englishman (possibly / probably Jonathan Harker) travelling through Europe. Stopping off in Munich on his travels to Transylvania, he takes a walk to an abandoned village on what happens to be Walpurgisnacht, a spring mid European version of Hallowe’en, contrary to the advice of his landlord. Inevitably he almost comes a cropper in the graveyard, thanks to some inclement weather, a beautiful corpse and a big old slobbery wolf. I first read this in my copy of the excellent Penguin Book of Vampire stories (ed Alan Ryan), highly recommended for any fans of the undead. This is a reworking of an illustration I did almost a year ago, actually on Walpurgisnacht itself (30th April) but I was neverry happy with how it turned out - it’s a disorganised jumble, the figure in the middle is just not right and it’s cheesy as a wedge of Stinking Bishop. I’ve basically used it as an exercise in trying out some of the things I learnt on the Photoshop course I did recently, which also serves the function of my repeating those things which gives me a better chance of actual remembering them. It was always a bit of a sow’s ear and it’s far from a silk purse now, but I’m moderately pleased with how it’s turned out. It’s still very cheesy though.