American Vampire: Anthology #1 – Review

By: Scott Snyder, Jason Aaron, Rafael Albuquerque, Jeff Lemire, Becky Cloonan, Francesco Francavilla, Gail Simone, Gabriel Ba, Fabio Moon, Declan Shalvey, Ivo Milazzo, Ray Fawkes, Tula Lotay, Greg Rucka, JP Leon, Dave McCaig, Jordie Bellaire, Jared K. Fletcher, Steve Wands, Travis Lanham, Dezi Sienty

The Story: A group of super-creators gathers to tell short stories set in the American Vampire universe.

Review (with very minor SPOILERS): Whoa! This was really incredible.  I knew I wanted to read this issue because I’ve read and loved every issue of American Vampire.  It wasn’t even a question for me, despite the $7.99 price tag.  I love AV and this was a MUST READ.  Even if it costs as much as two other comics, it was twice as long and probably ten times as good.

Even though I expected quality, I was still surprised by the excellence of the content.  I really didn’t know what to expect from the stories within.  I’m sure there have been interviews out there that detailed the content of assembled stories, but I quit reading such interviews a long time ago.  So, I went into this cold and couldn’t be more pleased.

The issue features a framing sequence by Snyder and Albuquerque (the regular creators on AV), set in 1967 New Mexico featuring everyone’s favorite American vampire: Skinner Sweet.  There isn’t a ton of content here.  Just a few little pages showing Skinner getting into a messy fracas that is surely a tease for when the ongoing series returns from hiatus.  I can’t wait to see more of this story.  Why did those bikers want to kill Skinner?  Skinner versus Hell’s Angels?  That sounds nifty.  I’ll read that.  Please hurry up and create those comics for me, sirs.  It also raised an interesting thought in my mind: Skinner sure hasn’t gone very far from home.  Except for his World War II excursion, he has never left the American Southwest and southern California.  I’m not really sure if that means anything except that Skinner was probably a lot like other Americans of that era: He mostly stayed around his home area except for war.  I mean, we haven’t seen Skinner in New York or South Beach.  Kinda interesting…

Newsflash for Writers: New anthology looking for superhero stories

Hey comic fans! I don’t know how many of you out there are writers as well as comic fans, but I recently saw a new anthology being developed called “No More Heroes.” Most anthologies are closed (i.e.: writers submit stuff by invitation only), but this one has an open submission policy. Basically, they are looking for short stories between 3000-9000 words about some of the remaining super-powered beings in a world where most of the heavy-hitters have been wiped out in a giant cataclysm. Short stories are a great way to break into something bigger, so if you’re interested, have a look, write a story, have someone read it and give you good feedback. Then, fix it and send it off.   Here’s the website: No More Heroes.

Disclaimer: I have no connection to this anthology, nor am I submitting. I just saw it on Ralan.com and recognized it as one of the few prose outlets for superhero fiction and thought the loyal readers of WCBR might be interested.

-DS Arsenault