Fangtastic True Blood Issue 1 Review

TrueBlood # 1 Comic Review

For the last few years, there has been an invasion of vampires in popular culture. Vampires are now trendy and hip, from Blade to Buffy to Twilight to the Vampire Diaries to TrueBlood. Vampires have gone from horror antagonists to sympathetic anti-heroes in a matter of years.

I have always been a sucker for a good vampire story, so it's no surprise that one of my favorite shows is HBO's TrueBlood. The show is created by Alan Ball (Six Feet Under) and based off of the Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris.

When i saw that IDW had released issue # 1 of the new True Blood comic today, I only had to think for a second before picking it up. I don't often buy comic books (or books) adapted from TV shows or movies because the writers often don't get the already established voices of the characters right. Unless the writer of the show is the same as the books, it's tough to keep all the voices consistent, and that makes the writers job twice as hard. Not only does the writer have to tell a good story, but they have to stick to pre-established voices for each of the characters. Often times these stories take place in between seasons, so a sense of danger is often lost as well, since nothing can really happen to these characters (since they'll all be back to themselves for the season premier!).

True Blood # 1 is written by Mariah Huehner and David Tischman, neither of of whom I have ever heard of. Needless to say the voices of most of the characters are pitch perfect. The one gripe i had here was Eric Northman, the vampire sheriff of area 5 was far too passive. I take this to mean that he will not be the focus of this particular story, but it is a bit off-putting because if you've watched the show, he is anything but passive. The main cast is all here - Sookie, Bill, Eric, Jason, Lafayette, Sam, and Tara. Each of their voices is pitch-perfect.

The book is drawn by David Messina and Gaetano Carlucci, with colors by Giovanna Niro. A book like this relies a lot on the artistic interpretation of the character, and the artists often draw the characters to resemble the actors slightly, or it looks like they traced them directly from real life. The characters in this book look exactly like the real actors, and it's done well. The only exception to this is Sam Merlotte. When every character in the book looks just like the associated actor, except one, that one character stands out a fair amount. This is the case here. Sam is drawn well, and resembles actor Sam Trammell, but not in the same identical way that the other characters do. When you get past this, the art is beautiful, and for a dark comic, the colors pop.

The story itself starts off with a mysterious narrator, and ends with a bit of blood and a creature that seems to be more powerful then even the combined might of two vampires. It is still the first issue, but I want to see what comes next. I'll definitely be there for issue number two.

And at least these vampires don't sparkle.

3 out of 5 stars

X-Men # 1 Comic Review

1991's X-Men # 1 sold over eight million copies, partially fueled by the speculator's market at the time, becoming the best selling comic book of all time. This is the first time since 1991 that Marvel Comics has released an X-Men # 1.

While the first X-Men # 1 was written by X-Men and Comic legend Chris Claremont, this time Marvel took a different approach. This issue was written by crime novelist turned comic book writer Victor Gischler.

The artist here is Paco Medina. The art here is good - perfect for an X-Men comic. The figures are recognizable, and not all the same. The coloring is bright and colorful. The art is not too photo-realistic for this type of comic, and it doesn't look like all the faces are traced like many comics these days.

22 pages is the length of a standard comic, and usually that is enough to tell an issue's worth of story. Unfortunately, as this is the beginning of not just a new story, but also a new series, I found it lacking. Marvel should have gone for a double sized issue (or at least 32 pages) because not too much happened in this issue. I expected some setup, but this issue was all set up. I have faith that given a few more issues, the action and characterization will be ramped up, but for a # 1, this issue is not likely to create any new X-Men fans.

The issue starts off with former fan-favorite kid X-Man Jubilee (she lost her powers a year or so ago) and current fan-favorite kid X-Men (taking the place of Jubilee) Pixie sitting at a table talking somewhere in San Francisco (where the X-Men are now based), while this big guy wearing a mask and full trench coat starts walking towards them. Pixie conveniently goes to get nachos just as big black Trench coat guy reaches his destination.

He opens his trench coat and "BWOOOOOM" he explodes, getting big black trench coat guy goo all over Jubilee.

Keeping in mind that the storyline is called "Curse of the Mutants" and it was advertised as an X-Men Vs. Vampires storyline, guest starring Blade, the vampire hunter, the characters proceed for the next twenty or so pages to dance around the word vampire, avoiding it at all costs.

I'm not sure if the writer wasn't aware that it would be advertised this way, or if he thought it would be a neat thing to do, but it wasn't. Especially with the previous weeks tie-in issue "Death of Dracula" also written by Gischler. This just seemed forced and to that effect, the characters wasted an awful lot of words dancing around the word "Vampire" when they could have just said it and been done with it.

Back to the story, we see Jubilee being tested by the X-Club (a group of X-Men scientists) and it appears she has a virus, caused by the vampire bomb. So next issue..Vampire Jubilee anyone?

That aside, characterization is solid throughout the issue. We learn that the Vampire Bomb target was in fact Jubilee, which right now seems pretty random, but i imagine this will be explained later.

The main X-Men we see in this issue are Wolverine, Pixie, and Angel. They have a good action scene later in the issue, doing some scouting work where they get attacked by a few vampires.

There are a couple more gripes i have with the issue, such as why send a kid (Pixie) to fight what you think are Vampires? In the X-Men universe, they are a pretty big threat. Also, it was frustrating that Angel didn't turn into Archangel once in the issue (something that likely wouldn't be known if a new reader were to pick this up).

My final problem with the issue is its accessibility. We see Cyclops Jubilee, Pixie, Storm, Angel, Dr. Nemesis, Dr. Kavita Rao, and Wolverine. If a new reader were to pick this up, besides Cyclops, Wolverine, Storm, and possibly Angel, they would have no idea who these characters are. At the very least, text boxes introducing the characters should have been used here, like they are in many other comics, including Matt Fractions Uncanny X-Men.

I give the issue 2 1/2 out of 5 stars. I see potential for this series, but a lot of rookie mistakes were made in this issue. Hopefully things will get ironed out in the issues moving forward.