The 1920's with a bite..
Pre Thoughts
I bought this graphic novel at comic con thinking that this book was going to be just like every other vampire story out there, but what I got instead was something totally different. At first glance I saw that Stephen King did the second feature stories to each issue. When I saw his name my first impression was "s@&^* this must be creepy!" I love Stephen King's work so seeing his name already made an impression. Now that you have some back info as to why I read this graphic novel it's time to get to the review.
My positive thoughts about American Vampire!
This graphic novel contains the first five issues of the series and I enjoyed each of them. This story was fresh and evinced a different kind of vampire story to readers. The setting is the 1920's of America and are two seperate stories. The first half of each issue is written by Scott Snyder and the second half of each issue is written by Stephen King. I loved both halves of each issue. Snyder's half focuses on a young woman named Pear, pursuing a career in acting. Things suddenly change for Pearl when she is encountered by a vampire named Skinner Sweet. Stephen King's half focuses on Skinner Sweet's past and starting out as a vampire. That is all of the story I am going to reveal. I really liked the characters and how they were written. There are new aspects to vampires that I don't think have really ever been thought upon and I really liked that. American Vampire takes on heavy concepts of personal values and many aspects of humans and vampires. What I also loved about this book was the art. Rafael Albuquerque did a fantastic job on this book. He made horror come to life with his penciling. Gore was taken to a whole new level and I loved it. His image of vampires is great and not so main stream.
My negative thoughts about American Vampire !
Unfortunately there was something I didn't like about this graphic novel and it was the dialogue. The setting of this story is the 1920's but as I was reading the dialogue of each character it didn't sound like the 1920's. My vision of the 1920's is classy America with a different tone and dialect but in the story I felt a more modern western dialogue that I should not have felt. The dialogue did heavy damage for me because I want the dialogue to feel like the time.
Conclusion!
I didn't agree with the dialogue but everything else was simply sublime. This is definitely a must have and I give it a 4.5 out of 5!
