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faithtrustpixiedust 's review for:
American Vampire, Vol. 1
by Scott Snyder
I haven’t been living under a rock. I know that the names Scott Snyder and Stephen King are enough to make random people turn their heads when they overhear you in a supermarket. So I figured, why not tackle both names at once? Why not read a comic they wrote together? And about my favorite paranormal creature, the vampire, no less?
I expected greatness.
I should have lowered my expectations.
The Art
Oh wow. I didn’t know mainstream comics could look this awful and still get the greenlight for 9 volumes. Maybe Rafael Albuquerque is your cup of tea. Maybe you’re blind. I don’t know. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The facial expressions in this were just…how???? Who sits down to draw, makes this monstrosity, and then calls it a day?
And who looks at it and says, “Yup, looks good! Let’s send this baby to print!”
Honestly, the only panels that didn’t look like garbage were the silhouette shots, and that’s only because I couldn’t see the people, only their black and white outlines.
The Story
Wow, Scott Snyder must be only good at one kind of bat-related property because he really sucks at vampires. He wanted to be original? He wanted to bring the fear back to vampires? Well, he seems to think that “original” means to do what everyone else is already doing.
Evil group of mustache twirling, chair sitting villains who do nothing for 90% of the story? Check ✔
Brooding love interest who saves the main character? Check ✔
Hints of a love triangle between the normal, good-for-you human and the bad boy vampire? Check ✔
And let us not forget that Snyder thinks phones run on magical vampire energy or perhaps just wishful thinking. He has a character who lives on a boat in 1925 and has a telephone? Um??? Did he do any research whatsoever? Radiophones are the only thing potentially likely but 1) there wasn’t even a transatlantic phone yet, and 2) regular (not radio) telephones still ran on a wire. There’s no way he has a regular phone on a boat. Forget vampires, the real strange stuff is that Henry the hobo is a time traveler.
Stephen King fared slightly better, but not by a lot. His side of the narrative at least tried to be coherent and well written, however pompous and pretentious it ended up being. It wasn’t really scary, except for one sequence that didn’t last for too long.
But what really nailed the stake into his coffin was this:
Why don’t you just kill me now, Stephen, so I don’t have to live in this world any longer?
TL;DR & Conclusion
I don’t understand why it was the way it was. The art was horrendous, the writing was just plain weird, and the tropes!!! It was so cliche!!! Which is hilarious because the forward and afterward are all about how it’s unique and transcends the current vampires, that they were gonna make vampires scary again, but I’m more afraid of Edward Cullen than I am of their stupid vampires.
Have you ever seen the movie Byzantium? With Saoirse Ronan? Well, it’s one of my favorite underrated vampire stories, and managed to do a past/present split perfectly while maintaining a linear narrative. If you want cool vampires, just watch that. It has some annoying parts, but you have to take what you can get. Or even just watch 2011's Priest, which is awful but better than this.
I expected greatness.
I should have lowered my expectations.
The Art
Oh wow. I didn’t know mainstream comics could look this awful and still get the greenlight for 9 volumes. Maybe Rafael Albuquerque is your cup of tea. Maybe you’re blind. I don’t know. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The facial expressions in this were just…how???? Who sits down to draw, makes this monstrosity, and then calls it a day?
And who looks at it and says, “Yup, looks good! Let’s send this baby to print!”
Honestly, the only panels that didn’t look like garbage were the silhouette shots, and that’s only because I couldn’t see the people, only their black and white outlines.
The Story
Wow, Scott Snyder must be only good at one kind of bat-related property because he really sucks at vampires. He wanted to be original? He wanted to bring the fear back to vampires? Well, he seems to think that “original” means to do what everyone else is already doing.
Evil group of mustache twirling, chair sitting villains who do nothing for 90% of the story? Check ✔
Brooding love interest who saves the main character? Check ✔
Hints of a love triangle between the normal, good-for-you human and the bad boy vampire? Check ✔
And let us not forget that Snyder thinks phones run on magical vampire energy or perhaps just wishful thinking. He has a character who lives on a boat in 1925 and has a telephone? Um??? Did he do any research whatsoever? Radiophones are the only thing potentially likely but 1) there wasn’t even a transatlantic phone yet, and 2) regular (not radio) telephones still ran on a wire. There’s no way he has a regular phone on a boat. Forget vampires, the real strange stuff is that Henry the hobo is a time traveler.
Stephen King fared slightly better, but not by a lot. His side of the narrative at least tried to be coherent and well written, however pompous and pretentious it ended up being. It wasn’t really scary, except for one sequence that didn’t last for too long.
But what really nailed the stake into his coffin was this:
“Unfortunately she was his goddaughter”
Why don’t you just kill me now, Stephen, so I don’t have to live in this world any longer?
TL;DR & Conclusion
I don’t understand why it was the way it was. The art was horrendous, the writing was just plain weird, and the tropes!!! It was so cliche!!! Which is hilarious because the forward and afterward are all about how it’s unique and transcends the current vampires, that they were gonna make vampires scary again, but I’m more afraid of Edward Cullen than I am of their stupid vampires.
Have you ever seen the movie Byzantium? With Saoirse Ronan? Well, it’s one of my favorite underrated vampire stories, and managed to do a past/present split perfectly while maintaining a linear narrative. If you want cool vampires, just watch that. It has some annoying parts, but you have to take what you can get. Or even just watch 2011's Priest, which is awful but better than this.