REVIEW: American Vampire #1

“Big Break”
Writer: Scott Snyder
Artist: Rafael Albuquerque
Colors: Dave McCaig
Letters: Steve Wands

“Bad Blood”
Writer: Stephen King
Artist: Rafael Albuquerque
Colors: Dave McCaig
Letters: Steve Wands

Review: Art Bee

The Eisner Award for Best New Series in 2010 was awarded to American Vampire, a book coauthored by Scott Snyder and Stephen King, whose back must have been hurting. The world acclaimed Stephen King left the project after the fifth issue and the conclusion of his, “Bad Blood”, arc. Some time ago I was tempted to get onboard with this series but at the time my interest in vampire stories was vamped out. Let’s face it; since the ‘90s we have seen just about every spin on the vampire story able to stick to the wall.
Granted this series was doing something fresh with the genre in looking at new bloodlines of vampires rising up over the course of U.S. history, but it seemed too late to me.

“Big Break” focuses on a young actress in the Roaring 20s, Pearl Jones, as a snapshot of her life before it takes a drastic U-turn.
“Bad Blood” shows us the fateful day a notorious outlaw, Skinner Sweet, was apprehended and taken by train to stand trial for bank robbery, train heists, and murder in 1880. 

My research of the title spewed forth some pretty wonderful information. Both storylines are intertwined and are origin stories with King’s also being a prelude to the other. It is not evident in the first issue, but I was able to sense it before my research. Each story is well written and laid out with King’s “shining” brighter (pun intended).
I am not sure how much collaboration there was between Snyder and King, but my jealousy for Snyder is high now. Both writers hit the references of the time periods well but the language of “Big Break” seemed off to me.

The artwork was very well done. I have never been a fan of Albuquerque’s work but I do love his consistency. It’s that consistency that allowed me to realize one character is in both stories. It was subtle clues, but they were there. Artistic uniformity is so important in a series; otherwise a reader can get confused trying to follow subjects. The colors in both stories really added to the relevance of the tone. The choice of tones sold the era of each, and the shading on the part of both artists was top shelf. My overall grading of the artwork is very good, and my eyes say, “Thank you very much” (my eyes sound like Andy Kaufman in stereo).

This series has been added to my list of, “Looking For”.
Granted, I pulled this issue out of a back issue box last week, saw “Stephen King”, and yelled, “Sold”.
Normally I could have possibly regretted such a decision…not so much this time. The issues in American Vampire may be hard or easy to find, but that is the fun of comic hounding.
Remember to give orphaned comics a home and have them spayed or neutered.