Undying Love #3 – Review

By: Tomm Coker & Daniel Freedman (script), Coker (art), Freedman (colors), Michael David Thomas (letters)

The Story: So, how did our protagonist meet this vampire who he has been protecting?

What’s Good: If you were curious about how the two main characters got hooked up, this is the story for you.  To recap, the first two issues of this modern day vampire story set in Hong Kong introduced us to a mercenary (of the honorable stripe) who was trying to protect a young-appearing (because you can never tell age with vampires) vampire and free her from her “maker”.  Originally, we were just tossed into the middle of the story and given no background on how these two ended up together.  So, if that was bugging you….this issue will resolve some things.

The origin of the mercenary (his name isn’t really very important) is pretty expected: he was a “contractor” during one of the current conflicts throughout the Middle East and central Asia.  But, I did find the vampire’s origin to be a little surprising as [SPOILER] she was apparently a sex-slave for humans.  I read a decent amount of vampire fiction, and I don’t know that I’ve ever seen that origin for a vampire.  They’re usually too powerful to be used in that way by mere humans.

Undying Love #2 – Review

By: Tomm Coker & Daniel Freedman (writers), Coker (art), Freedman (colors) & Michael David Thomas (letters)

The Story: An ex-soldier battles vampires in Hong Kong to free his vampiric girlfriend’s soul.

What’s Good: Hey!  Nice fight scene!  Well-done fight scenes have become a rarity in modern comics.  Too many fights just show random assemblages of dramatic poses from the fight instead of the actual flow of what happened.  Maybe I’m weird, but sometimes I read fights in other comics and flip back and forth a few times because I can’t figure out how Daredevil ended up in a position to choke some guy or what Batman could have jumped off of to be in a position to kick some guy in the head.  Usually, the answers just aren’t there because the creators must not have enjoyed kung fu movies when they were young….  All of that brings me to a really nice scene in this issue where the protagonist busts into a nightclub office to kill some vampires and gives us a nicely choreographed fight scene with an actual flow to the action.  It always makes sense which arm the characters are using to perform actions, all the inanimate objects stay in position; blood splatters are on the correct wall in the next panel, etc.  It’s just really nicely done.

Undying Love has a dark sense of humor too.  In the aforementioned scene in the nightclub office, when the protagonist busts in, these three vampires are entertaining themselves by singing karaoke, playing dominos and looking at Playboy centerfolds while two dead strippers are flopped on the couches with twisty party straws (like we all drank out of when we were kids) sticking out of their chests so the vampires could drink their blood.

As for the main story, I think anyone who enjoys modern vampires stories will get a kick out of this as it plays with lots of standard vampire tropes such as the power a vampire has over its “offspring”, warring sects of vampires, a “kid”-vampire who is actually incredibly old and powerful, etc.

Undying Love #1 – Review

By: Tomm Coker & Daniel Freedman (writers), Coker (art), Freedman (color), Michael David Thomas (letters)

The Story: A modern day vampire story in which a soldier falls in love with a vampire and attempts to free her soul.

What’s Good: Well, this is a very stylish looking book.  Although Coker is using a lot of photo-reference, this falls more onto the Alex Maleev side of the equation where they make photo-reference look good (as compared to the tracers out there).  If I had to speculate, it looks like Coker is starting with a photo for the general outline of the character or face and then inking digitally over the top of it, so while the faces certainly have the photo-outline look, they also have a very rough and chunky inked shading that keeps it looking good.  This is important because a lot of photo-ref artists focus so much on the outline of the character that they forget that shading within the character is what gives it vitality and emotion.  I really don’t mind photo-reference as long as the artist does something cool with it and these guys do just that.

The story is entertaining and pretty straightforward, going right into the action as we see a Caucasian man and Chinese woman who are on the run.  They’re clearly in love, but something is chasing them.  Then they are confronted at a shrine by a talking fox and all these ancient Chinese soldiers with swords and armor and a fight ensues.  The man pulls out his gun and starts mowing them down.  The fight progressed and then WOW .the Chinese woman nails one of the soldiers and she has fangs an glowing red eyes: She’s a vampire!  That’s why they’re on the run!

I have taken to really avoiding preview promotional material and didn’t see this twist coming at all, and my initial reaction was “Cool! She’s a vampire!” so the creators are not guilty of creating, “yet another vampire book.”

My Name Is Bruce – One Shot – Review

By Milton Freewater Jr (writer), Cliff Richards (pencils), Michelle Madsen (colors), Michael David Thomas (letters), Bart Sears and Francisco Ruiz Velasco (covers)

To anyone trying to avoid spoilers for this movie don’t get this comic. It’s not a bad story, it just tells the movie’s plot. I was expecting more of a prequel, but from what I’ve seen of the trailers this book tells the short-short version. Still, it’s got me excited for the movie. I’m hoping the film’s writing to be funnier, but I feel that Bruce Campbell’s performance will handle that.

Milton Freewater’s writing keeps up a pretty frantic pace throughout. I don’t know who decided to adapt a film into a one shot, but 32 pages isn’t enough to cut it. That said, Freewater does the absolute best he can with so little room. Characters suffer the most since there isn’t room to develop them, but the story itself feels complete with a clear beginning and end. The problem with the lack of character development, however, is nothing really hits the mark. Bruce gets no introduction so the idea of him being a prick and transforming into a hero doesn’t fly. It’s also hard to get a real sense of the stakes with the story moving so fast. It’s all climax, little setup and less character. Will the demon kill everyone? Who cares, I don’t know anyone’s name – just Bruce Campbell’s.

From cover to cover Cliff Richards’ art looks lazy. Since the demon is the only character that gets more than four lines of detail the rest of the book looks slapped together. Granted, the demon is the most interesting visual element. But it’s no excuse for such a drastic drop-off in pencil quality for everything else. The backgrounds are weak, and the remaining characters look too similar. Some would argue that the lack of detail could be attributed to the action taking place. With everyone running and dying, the less detail would show the speed of the action. I don’t buy it, and neither should you.

I feel a prelude or non-direct tie-in would’ve been a better way to go for this book. It’s pretty clear that it wasn’t a priority for everyone involved. Since that’s the case, why spend your money on it? (Grade D-)

-Ben Berger