wait! wait! I forgot. 15? please and thank you. <3
dark shadows ask game!
15. Have you listened to any of the audio dramas or read any of the comics or novels? If so, what are your thoughts?
so! I've listened to a handful of the audio dramas, I've read all of the gold key comics and the newspaper strips, and I've read almost all of the ross novels. I haven't touched the main plotline audios, any of the newer comics/the graphic novel, or the other prose novels from Parker and Rainey.
overall I'd say they're fun, but not that interesting? there's been quite a few instances where I finished a ross novel/gold key comic/audio drama and thought it was mildly entertaining, but really wasn't worth the time I had spent on it. I do enjoy the element of the ridiculous in most of the spinoffs purely for the "what the hell, sure" factor and there are a number of plots like that which I do think are fun just because they're pretty out there: like the time travelling invisible pirates, or growing humanoid plants that resemble Stokes and Julia, or the time Barnabas accidentally enthrones a vampire Latin American dictator. Quentin shaves his head to go incognito as a Buddhist in one of the Ross books. sure.
I'm least interested in the parts of Dark Shadows that have a heavy focus on Barnabas/Quentin/Angelique, which is essentially the major selling point of most of the tie-in material; and that's what a lot of fans are interested in! I get that. but it doesn't really appeal to me in the same way. my favorite tie-ins are (unsurprisingly) those which feature my favorite characters from the original series: the first couple of Ross novels that have Vicki, Burke, and Roger; the audios about Burke's secret survival in the crash (And Red All Over) or Laura's history with the Collins family (Blood & Fire); the Gold Key comic with Roger/Liz incest (no. 28); etc. The Crimson Pearl is nice for the various features from the Collinses throughout history, and that's something that I do like about the Ross books, the comics, and the strips — they take full advantage of the playground of the Collins ancestry. I really like the Ross novel where Burke and Vicki go tomb-robbing and accidentally raise the zombies of a Collins slave ship captain and his wife (The Curse of Collinwood, I think) and there are a number of adorable moments between Roger and Vicki in the early books — like the time he rescues her from an old well, or they dance together at a costume party, or he remarks on how especially attractive she is when she's angry, though he supposes it's perverse of him to notice.
otherwise, there are only a few that stand out to me as being strong stories in their own right. from the audios: The Doll House, The House by the Sea, The Last Stop, and Beyond the Grave. And I do really really like the Tony and Cassandra mysteries, I will say. I think they're charming 1) as murder-mysteries on a plot level, 2) explore Tony and Cassandra on a character level, and 3) feature interesting performances from Lacy and Parker. They're all pretty delightful to listen to. The only Ross novel that I would say is really compelling is Barnabas, Quentin, and the Vampire Beauty, which, although it suffers from the same pitfalls of everything else which positions Barnabas as a sexy irresistible hero, actually has pretty interesting things to say about medical horror (primarily against women), and that shows vampirism as predation in a way that's quite different from the way the series usually goes about it.
the tldr; is that most of the tie-in material I've mentioned leans heavily into Barnabas-as-protagonist, creature of the week, and increasingly convoluted sci-fi elements, which are beloved by many but not always by me.
