The Biography Chronicles the Horror Icon’s Tumultuous Personal and Professional Life

This fall, Humanoids, the publisher of some of the world’s most iconic and groundbreaking science fiction and fantasy graphic novels, will publish LUGOSI: THE RISE AND FALL OF HOLLYWOOD’S DRACULA by award-winning cartoonist Koren Shadmi.  The biography will chronicle the tumultuous personal and professional life of horror icon Bela Lugosi. The book will be Shadmi’s second collaboration with Humanoids in the media biography space after The Twilight Man: Rod Serling and the Birth of Television, which came out in 2019. LUGOSI will be published under Humanoids’ Life Drawn imprint, which showcases diverse voices and slice of life stories from different points of view. 

LUGOSI, the tragic life story of one of horror’s most iconic film stars, tells of a young Hungarian activist forced to flee his homeland after the failed Communist revolution in 1919. Reinventing himself in the U.S., first on stage and then in movies, he landed the unforgettable role of Count Dracula in what would become a series of classic feature films. From that point forward, Lugosi’s stardom would be assured… but with international fame came setbacks and addictions that gradually whittled his reputation from icon to has-been. LUGOSI details the actor’s fall from grace and an enduring legacy that continues to this day.

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Here’s what critics are saying about LUGOSI:

Lugosi is nothing short of a masterpiece. With riveting style and a storyline that drives full-tilt from the opening panels, Shadmi tells the tale of the man behind Dracula—his immigrant struggles, his wild love life, his dope fiend torments, his heinous treatment at the hands of studio moguls—with such vision and heart, you find yourself rooting for the monster from beginning to end.”―Jerry Stahl (Permanent Midnight, Hemingway & Gellhorn)

Lugosi welcomes you to explore the life of one of film history’s most evocative, mysterious figures in a journey that’s both haunting and humanizing, something cut from the cloth of Adrian Tomine and the Coen Brothers alike. A moving bildungsroman…with bite!” ―Steve Orlando (Commanders in Crisis, Wonder Woman, Rainbow Bridge)

“Poignant and informative.” ―Joe Dante (The Howling, The Twilight Zone: The Movie, Gremlins)

Humanoids will publish the gripping biography LUGOSI on September 28, 2021, just in time for the spooky season.

About Humanoids: Based in Hollywood, California, with branches in Paris, London, and Tokyo HUMANOIDS was co-founded 45 years ago in Paris, France, by legendary creator Mœbius, and has published thousands of titles since, including international bestsellers and iconic series such as The Incal and The Metabarons.

Koren Shadmi is an American-Israeli, Brooklyn based graphic novelist and award-winning illustrator and cartoonist. He studied illustration at The School of Visual Arts in New York where he now teaches. His books have been published internationally and include In The Flesh, The Abaddon, Mike’s Place, Rise of The Dungeon Master and most recently The Twilight Man: Rod Serling and the Birth of Television. Koren has contributed illustrations and comics to: The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Business Week, Playboy, Mother Jones, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Wired and others. His illustration work has won several awards at the Society of Illustrators.