Bite Club: Vampire Crime Unit #1
Quick Rating: Very Good
Title: Watching the Detectives
Another mystery strikes the Del Toro family.
Writers: Howard Chaykin & David Tischman
Art: David Hahn
Colors: Brian Miller
Letters: Jared K. Fletcher
Editor: Shelly Bond
Cover Art: Frank Quietly
Publisher: DC Comics/Vertigo
Review: Bite Club is back, and I couldn’t be happier! For those of you who missed the first miniseries, Howard Chaykin and David Tischman present us with a world where vampires are publicly accepted as - more or less - another ethnic group, albeit one with very specific appetites. The first miniseries dealt with the death of the head of the Del Toro crime family in Miami and - ultimately - the rise of Risa Del Toro to take over her father’s business.
This issue, a murder in a vampire dance club sends alarms up around Risa and Detective Paco Macavoy is sent in to investigate. While the Del Toros are still the central focus of this story, Macavoy is our viewpoint character and the stars are the officers of the VCU. This makes for a nice change of pace, showing us a different by no less interesting aspect of Chaykin and Tischman’s world.
Pretty much everything is turned up this issue - the blood, the sex, the violence are all even more prolific than they were in the first miniseries. Heck, if you can’t guess that just from the cover, you’re not paying attention. David Hahn is back to handle the artwork again, and again, I’m highly impressed. As with the first series he has a simple, almost cartoonish style that stands in stark contrast to the boobs and blood that are flying all over the place. The dichotomy is what makes it work so well, I think. Brian Miller’s muted color palette works far better here than the same technique has elsewhere in the past, giving different segments of the book different focuses.
This is a really unique title - a crime drama with just a dash of horror (even though the standout elements are almost exclusively identified with the horror genre). The first miniseries was unlike anything I’ve read in comics in a really long time, and the second is off to a roaring start.
Rating: 8/10
Title: Watching the Detectives
Another mystery strikes the Del Toro family.
Writers: Howard Chaykin & David Tischman
Art: David Hahn
Colors: Brian Miller
Letters: Jared K. Fletcher
Editor: Shelly Bond
Cover Art: Frank Quietly
Publisher: DC Comics/Vertigo
Review: Bite Club is back, and I couldn’t be happier! For those of you who missed the first miniseries, Howard Chaykin and David Tischman present us with a world where vampires are publicly accepted as - more or less - another ethnic group, albeit one with very specific appetites. The first miniseries dealt with the death of the head of the Del Toro crime family in Miami and - ultimately - the rise of Risa Del Toro to take over her father’s business.
This issue, a murder in a vampire dance club sends alarms up around Risa and Detective Paco Macavoy is sent in to investigate. While the Del Toros are still the central focus of this story, Macavoy is our viewpoint character and the stars are the officers of the VCU. This makes for a nice change of pace, showing us a different by no less interesting aspect of Chaykin and Tischman’s world.
Pretty much everything is turned up this issue - the blood, the sex, the violence are all even more prolific than they were in the first miniseries. Heck, if you can’t guess that just from the cover, you’re not paying attention. David Hahn is back to handle the artwork again, and again, I’m highly impressed. As with the first series he has a simple, almost cartoonish style that stands in stark contrast to the boobs and blood that are flying all over the place. The dichotomy is what makes it work so well, I think. Brian Miller’s muted color palette works far better here than the same technique has elsewhere in the past, giving different segments of the book different focuses.
This is a really unique title - a crime drama with just a dash of horror (even though the standout elements are almost exclusively identified with the horror genre). The first miniseries was unlike anything I’ve read in comics in a really long time, and the second is off to a roaring start.
Rating: 8/10