Customer Reviews

American Vampire Vol. 1

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Six words which will make you want to read this: "Original Stephen King comic. With VAMPIRES."

In actuality, this is a two-part comic -- one part is by King, while the other is by a guy I had never heard of named Scott Snyder. But both halves of "American Vampire Volume 1" are united by a common theme -- vintage Americana is mingled with some gruesome, bloodthirsty vampires, in the 1920s and the Wild West. And it is AWESOME.

Snyder follows a young starlet named Pearl, who is invited to a party thrown by a film producer. The next day, she is found covered in bites in the desert and dying of blood loss. But then she wakes up to find vampiric cowboy Skinner Sweet next to her, and he informs her that she's now a vampire.

But she's not the same kind of vampire as the ones who attacked her -- like him, she's a newly evolved "American vampire" with claws, monstrous teeth and immunity to the sun. Now Pearl is out for revenge against the "old-style" vampires who killed her -- and along with her new love interest Henry, she's got some bloody revenge, treachery and a brewing war to deal with.

King's story goes further back in time to the late 1800s, and shows us the original "American Vampire" -- the infamous Skinner Sweet, an outlaw who runs afoul of a vampire in the desert. When a flood washes out the town where he's buried, the newly undead Sweet returns to the world... and he's more dangerous than ever before.

"American Vampire" is a pretty unique kind of comic book -- two brilliant writers (one famous and one unknown) writing two intertwined story arcs about vampires from long ago. Even better, both King and Snyder manage to do something unique and special with the vampire mythos that doesn't involve pale, wangsty aristocrats.

And while the stories are closely connected, King and Snyder have very distinct styles. King's is faster, brasher and earthier, adding sudden splatters of horror to a seemingly simple Wild West story. Snyder's is a slower, more refined story that suddenly bursts into a bloody revenge tale. And there's a clever undercurrent to his story -- predatory Hollywood bloodsuckers as REAL bloodsuckers? Not bad.

Snyder also has a knack for creating likable characters -- Pearl is a thoroughly likable protagonist, a strong young lady who has to make the best of being transformed into a bloodsucker. King's characters are less endearing, but no less vibrant -- his depiction of Skinner is of a ruthless, grinning cowboy covered in dust and stubble ("I want candy!").

And Rafael Albuquerque is well suited to both stories -- he relies heavily on shadows, black profiles and dark figures, but also suffuses the daytime parts with strong desert light. He also does some brilliant things with color -- our first glimpse of the vampires takes place in a room filled with bloody background, and the train battles take place against a slow-burning sky that fades into the color of flames.

"American Vampire 1" is an excellent start to a promising new series -- and Snyder and King are quite a formidable storytelling team. Vibrant, creepy and wonderfully bloody.

Volume 1 of American Vampire is set in two time periods - it begins with Scott Snyder's story, set in 1920s. We meet Pearl Jones, a struggling actress hoping to make it big in Hollywood. The unfortunate and naive Pearl is brutally attacked and left for dead, that is, until Skinner Sweat steps in and offers her the chance to wreak vengeance on those that ruined her life.

The second half of the tale, told by Stephen King, contains the gruesome origins of the wicked Skinner Sweet. We're taken back to the Wild West in the 1880s, where we learn about Skinner's criminal past as a human and the powerful vampire he later becomes. And this American vampire isn't any ordinary bloodsucker, he's evolved and is bigger and badder than any of the old ones could have imagined.

Artist Rafael Albuquerque captures the two different time periods perfectly. In the first half, the pages are full of old-school Hollywood glam and class. When it came to depicting King's story, Albuquerque was dead on, making the panels grungier and perfectly Western. Same artist, but two unique and flawless styles. His artwork was one thing that impressed me the most.

Overall, American Vampire: Vol. 1 was awesome. You've got a real badass horror story full of deadly and terrorizing vampires, which is exactly what this vampire-flooded world needs nowadays. Horror fans will love the macabre artwork and narrative, and others will simply love the refreshing change in vampire story-telling (you have to admit that the weak and whiny vampires get real old real fast). I definitely recommend this graphic novel to anyone looking for a classic horror story.

Not going into the how amazing this comic is, plenty of others have done a fantastic job of that already. I just wanted to comment on the high quality of the Kindle Fire Ed. Unlike many of the other "optimized for Fire" editions on Amazon, this one fills the screen with high quality images that even make the large files on comixology look less than crisp.

For the most part I've avoided purchasing any digital comics on Amazon, but if more quality products like this can be released I may spend a little less $ at comixology. Give us the next volumes already!

Flipping back and forth between 1880 Colorado and New Mexico and 1925 Los Angeles (with a short stop in 1909) writers Stephen King and Scott Snyder entertain us with a new refreshing twist on the old vampire legend in the 1st Volume of the graphic novel "American Vampire." Rafael Albuquerque's exceptional artwork augments the story written by King and Snyder.

"American Vampire" is a remarkable blend of Old West and Roaring 1920's. With this backdrop the story revolves around a new breed of vampires with new powers (such as immunity to sunlight) and weaknesses. The two writers have created two great characters, Pearl Jones, a bit part actress in Los Angeles who we meet in 1925 and Skinner Sweet, a bad-ass outlaw in 1880 Colorado. The two time periods begin to interweave as the stories unfold in the opening chapters.

In 1880 outlaw Skinner Sweet, the candy loving "outlaw killer and defiler of women," finds himself at odds with an old European style vampire, Percy, after robbing some of his business interests which turns out not to be good for his health. Buried and forgotten, Sweet as it turns out is not really dead but has been transformed into a new adaptation of the undead the American vampire.

Forty five years later Pearl Jones has an unwanted experience with the same Percy and a few of his vampire acquaintances at a party where she is assaulted and killed. With Sweet's unasked for intervention (is the candy making Sweet sweeter) Pearl is able to cheat the grave and seek her revenge on Percy and the old European style vampires.

For me this was a new transfusion into the tried and tired Vampire stories. The hardbound graphic novel "American Vampire" Volume 1 was a compilation of five single issues. It was a pleasant break from my usual reading habits and I am looking forward to reading Volume 2. I highly recommend reading this new series by Vertigo and give it 5 stars.

Can't be his real name. I mean, he's an outlaw who likes candy. He has to have given himself a nickname. He robs banks, rapes and pillages in the Old West. oh, and then gets turned into a vampire.

Sweet.

American Vampire, Volume 1 by Scott Snyder, Rafael Albuquerque and Stephen King is a bloody fun book of revenge. One story is the story of Skinner Sweet's transformation and the lawmen who attempt to stop him. The second takes place in Hollywood, where some old Euro-vampires feast on young starlets. Pearl Jones survives long enough for Sweet to find her and turn her into a vampire like him, far different than the others. Sweet and Pearl can thrive in sunlight. These vampires don't sparkle though, they kill, especially those people who've wronged them.

Highly recommended.

There are bloodthirsty killers and blood-drained dead aplenty in the hardcover edition of American Vampire from Vertigo. It collects the first 5 issues of vibrantly colored panel-stretching art from Rafael Albuquerque and colorist Dave McCaig, detailing the two side by side stories that tell the death and times of the American-made vampire, Skinner Sweet. Cover art, sample script pages, and a foreward by King and afterword by Snyder are also included.

I was surprised to see how concise Scott Snyder and Stephen King's script pages are. Comprised mostly of dialog, they leave ample room for Alburquerque's interpretive embellishments with visual characterization to imbue emotional energy into each panel. Snyder's story begins in 1925 Los Angeles where Pearl and Hattie, two yearning-for-stardom actors in Hollywood, become intimately acquainted with the blood-thirsty--thirstier than usual, anyway--movie moguls running the studio. Stephen King's story begins in the 1800s to tell how Sweet's taste for sweet candy turns to the sour-sweet taste for warm blood.

King's writing stands out for its cussing, brutal killings as Sweet takes revenge on lawman Jim Book, and for narrator Will Bunting, a newsman who was there at the time. Bunting wrote a dime novel about it called Bad Blood. We meet him when he's promoting the reprinting of his book at the Sagebrush Bookstore. Three people are in attendance--two are awake--as he recounts the truth behind his "fictional" tale.

Old World European vampires running the rails, tired of Sweet's train robberies, run afoul of Sweet's ill-temperament and newly- acquired abilities, which include walking in sunlight, long razor sharp claws with the strength to wield them, and an expanding jaw with pointy fangs. Compared to the Euro-vamps, Sweet is a wolf to their sheep.

And he knows it.

Between the Wild West and the Roaring Twenties, Sweet does turn sweeter. Or so it seems. He helps Pearl deal with the Old World European vampires running the studio and then mosy's on his way. Hints to his main weakness and unfinished business he's hankering to tidy up are left with us to roll our own on until we meet up with him again along Snyder and King's revitalizing vampire series trail.

I've got dibs on Brad Pitt playing Sweet in the big screen version.

Mr. King develops a story for characters created by another. Fun read. Nasty characters. A bloody good time.

I just finished reading this book, and I must say I was completely blown away. Comprising two separate story arcs by Scott Snyder and Stephen King, with art by Rafael Albuquerque, these books establish a new take on the American Vampire. This hardbound book contains 5 separate comic issues, culminating in the merging of the two arcs at some point in the 1920s. The characters are interesting and some appear in both arcs. The art is spectacular and so are the production values of this book. Highly recommended. I'm excited to see where this saga leads going forward.

Are you sick of humorous vampire policemen? Have you had enough of romantic vampires with Southern accents? If your answer is a whole-hearted "yes", then American Vampire is for you. American Vampire is about bad guy vampires, plain and simple. And revenge.

American Vampire is brought to us from the folks at Vertigo, illustrated by Rafael Albuquerque, and written by Scott Snyder and some guy named Stephen King.

A.V. is filled with great visuals and dialogue from the Old West and the 1920s.

The story is told in two parts. One is the origin story, written by King, of Kid Rock lookalike Skinner Sweet, a no-good, dirty, rotten bank robber with a sweet tooth who crosses an evil vampire banker and is killed and buried after a bit of vampire blood is mixed with his own. The town is even flooded by a dam just to make sure he stays buried. What fun would that be, though? Of course Sweet rises from his watery grave as one badass day-walking vampire, more powerful in the sun than the night-walkers who came before him, and, therefore, a threat to all the other vampires.

The other half of the story, written by Scott Snyder, is the story of Pearl Jones, a hard working Hollywoodland starlet wannabe who is tricked into becoming dinner for a group of vampires led by a powerful movie producer. Pearl is saved from death, however, by Sweet, still alive and well after all of these years. Oh my God, however, this is the part where the vampire and the girl would fall in love and buy a house in most stories, but not here. Skinner Sweet turns little Pearl into a day-walker like him and walks away, leaving her to exact her own revenge. He also leaves her a snack: the famous actor who gave her to the vampires in the first place.

American Vampire is not a romance story in the least but instead is full of action, drama, and horror. And blood, big teeth, and razor sharp talons. Skinner Sweet is not the vampire you'd want to have a romance with or have consoling talks with. He's a cold blooded killer...the way a vampire should be. There is a love story told here, however, between Pearl and some guy with a forgettable name but the romance is not heavy handed and full of beautiful, sweet, loving dialogue. The guy, a former marine, even helps Pearl bring down the vamps who fed on her, even the one who said she tasted like vanilla and berries. After she ripped into his throat she said he tasted like something much worse.

At its core, American Vampire is a horror-ific tale of revenge for Skinner Sweet and Pearl Jones and they take revenge as only American Vampires could.

If you're looking for a great vampire read without all the romance, go to the graphic novel section of your favorite bookstore or website and get this book. The story is amazing and the visuals are top notch. I only wish to Hek that one day I get a chance to collaborate with any of these talented individuals.

Robert Ford knows a lot about wishes as he is the author of the wishes with an evil twist series, The World of Hek, Book One: Forever and Christlike. Both are available wherever fine books are sold and available for your Kindle or Nook at a new, lower price.

Created by Scott Snyder, AMERICAN VAMPIRE VOL. 1 will always be remembered for being the "Vampire comic book that Stephen King wrote." I'm a fan of Stephen King's writing. However, King is only responsible for part of this volume. The book is actually split between two different stories split into four different chapters. One of the stories deals with the origin of the Skinner Sweet, the title character of this Volume of the comic. This is the story that King tells (though as he explains in the Introduction, he had to stay within the master framework of the story from Snyder). The second story takes place in 1920s Hollywood and isn't really about Sweet, but is about a young woman named Pearl Jones.

The origin story is told from the perspective of an aging author who is giving a lecture upon the re-release of his very popular horror Western, "Bad Blood". In 1880, the notorious outlaw Skinner Sweet has finally been apprehended and is placed under the custody of James Book of the Pinkerton Agency. Sweet is a man who has robbed lots of banks and killed lots of people in cold blood. He also has a penchant for eating candy. He knows he won't ever make it to jail because his gang is going to derail the train and set him free. Indeed they do, but what no one considers is that one of the financial backers of the Pinkerton Agency is actually a vampire who needs Sweet dead for his plans in the Wild West of America to come to fruition. That vampire kills Sweet and his gang, but before Sweet dies a drop of the vampire's blood splashes into Sweet's eye. So, Sweet comes back as the "first" American vampire (the story hints that there might be other American vampires out there). Unlike the European vampires, Sweet can walk in broad daylight and appears immune to many of the other weaknesses of those vampires. Oh, he's also got that arrogant, can-do attitude typical of all Americans.

The other story in the book is set in 1920s Hollywood. Pearl Jones is an aspiring actress. When she's invited to a private party thrown at the home of a major film producer, she thinks it might be the break she's been trying to get. As it turns out, the reason the party is so exclusive is that it's a special feeding party for vampires. Pearl is practically left dry and is found the next day by her roommate and boyfriend wandering in the desert with massive bite marks all over her. Pearl dies, but not before the creepy guy next door (Skinner Sweet) puts some of his blood in her eye. When she wakes up, Pearl is in the morgue and Skinner informs her of what he's done. He goes over a few "rules" with her and then leaves. As it turns out, Pearl is even a different type of vampire than Sweet. She grows massive monstrous claws and saber-toothed tiger fangs. Like Sweet years before, she's sets out to get her revenge (something Sweet approved). Along the way, she confronts her boyfriend Henry who loves her just as much even after finding out what she's been turned into. It's a love story far more interesting and realistic than the one in the Twilight books.

The illustrations of the series are done by Rafael Albuquerque. Besides just vivid pictures, he does a great job of using different color tones to capture the mood of the age. Sweet's death takes place in 1880 and though in color, it has a sepia-feel to it similar to that of old movie Westerns. Also, though it's a slightly different time frame, his 1920s Hollywood has the perfect blend of both the blithe and bleakness of the period.

I really enjoyed AMERICAN VAMPIRE VOLUME 1. Both of the stories were really interesting. The stories are intertwined, yet they are very distinct stories. Also, the conclusions of both tie-in nicely with the next Volume of the series. I enjoyed Sweet's origin story, but in all honesty I found Pearl's story the more interesting of the two tales. She's a much more likeable character than Sweet. Overall, this is a solid opening chapter to what appears to be a very interesting American comic book horror saga.