Customer Reviews

Bite Club

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

 

 

"Bite Club," a too-brief miniseries from DC Comics' Vertigo line, introduces readers to the Del Toro family, an undead crime family whose story falls somewhere between "Kindred," "The Sopranos" and "Days of Our Lives."

Eduardo Del Toro is the family patriarch, who reigns over his family and its interests with an iron fist. But, since Eduardo is killed on the very first page, you can bet the story isn't about him. Rather, his family -- a mixed pack of ambition, greed and carnal desire -- steps into the gap left by his death in a struggle to take over the business. But, to the surprise of all, son Leto -- both a vampire and a Catholic priest, believe it or not -- is handed the reins of power. And that doesn't sit well with others of the Del Toro clan, siblings and cousins and family satellites who have a varying array of vices and a similar yen for control.

Collected in digest form, "Bite Club: Die Now, Live Forever" is an action-packed saga that will keep you guessing. New surprises await with every new revelation, and the series of events that unfolds near the end is shockingly twisted -- and impossible to predict. Writers Howard Chaykin and David Tischman combine forces with artist David Hahn to create a satisfyingly different sort of story, a new slant on modern-day vampires that will have readers thirsting for more.

I actually would like to give this book a 3.5 star rating.

What I liked...I'm a mega fan of mafia and vampire movies, tv shows, books, whatever, so the thought of both together was almost too much for me to bear.

I liked the storyline and the ending was nice, unexpected which is critical in this genre.

The artwork was very nice, I liked that as well.

What I did not like was that there wasn't much "vampirism
involved. It was not balanced well enough for my taste, but that's just me.

It's worth purchasing, a nice comic to read on a lazy day.

It is a strange world where vampires exist openly in the world. In Miami there are more than 100,000 of them. Many vampires trace back to bites from vampire bats. Vampires can also be made with a bite from a vampire or being born to one. In this world the Del Torro rules the Miami crime world. They are very rich and very influential. A new deal with a pharmaceutical company may enable them to go completely legit.

In this story we follow the members of the Del Toros after the head of the family is murdered at the start. We mostly follow Leto and Risa, brother and sister. One is a catholic priest (a first for vampires) while Risa runs a record company. But both are true to the family name. As the story progresses we meet a very wide range a characters and their foibles, desires, and place in the scheme of things.

The story is pretty good although much of it reads like an introduction of characters with the plot taking back seat. But still, it was a pretty good read although not really memorable. This is collected from the Vertigo mini series and contains quite a bit of nudity, sex, and violence so it is not suitable for many readers. The format is also rather small and some readers will take issue with that.

The premise is actually pretty good - A Vampire Mafia crossover of sorts. Much like all Vampire books/movies before it, great care is taken to point out how all movies/books/songs/whatever got the legend wrong and this is why their vampires are able to do such-and-such.

Seeing as this is set in Miami, this means that the Vampires walk around during the day and sun-worship like the rest of the residents of the city (David Caruso notwithstanding). People are also aware of the existance of Vampires, but this becomes one of the more convoluded parts of the comic. While the police department has a special vampire section (with one employee from what I can tell), everything else is very much integrated. This would have made some sense if the Vampire aspect was kept a bit more quiet and this was a secrative thing, but it isn't.

I do like the idea of a Vampire-Mafia crossover - it would make your hitmen a lot more useful (they are a tougher breed). In addition, you could easily swear in human members of the "family" via a bite.

They even had some interesting subplots - a sister heavily into the music scene, a brother that had become a priest and a grandson in high school that is incredibly troubled with a goth girl using him just to become a vampire herself.

Unfortunately, much of this is wasted. I realize Bite Club was supposed to be a limited run, but with as much as is introduced early on, I get the feeling that Chaykin and Tischman wanted this to be a long running series but just couldn't sell it to Vertigo. Or, perhaps it was believing in "sex sells" a little too much (peppered with a generous side of senseless violence) that had them just shy of being a brilliant series. I have no problem with this in comics, it's just like anything else - if it starts to feel like the plot is moving along just to get to the next sex scene, things get boring.

There have been other Vampire/Mafia stories before, but this one had some promise - they were close, but not quite. Maybe they thought the allure of both were enough to get past the bumps.

A VAMPIRE FAMILY ENTANGLED AS A MAFIA FAMILY... I LOVE IT AND NOT TO MENTION A VAMPIRE FAMILY MEMBER THAT HAS CONVERTED TO A PRIEST.. IT HAS EVERYTHING TO MAKE AN EXCELLENT STORY. GREAT ART AND GREAT STORY PAIR UP TO A 5 STAR PROFORMANCE. THE BOOK IS DIGEST SIZE, BUT IT DOESN'T TAKE AWAY FROM THE BOOK.
THE STORY DOES HAVE ALOT OF PROFANITY AND NUDITY.
I WOULD RECOMMEND THIS BOOK TO MOBSTER LOVERS, VAMPIRE LOVERS, AND NOTE THAT IT IS FOR A MATURE AUDIENCE.

The premise of this series has lots of potential. Vampires have been done before, and the Mafia has had plenty of representation in pop culture - but I don't think I've seen a Vampire-Mafia blend before. Chaykin and Tischman take two disparate themes and put them together with some positive results. I've read some reviews that compare it to an HBO series. It definitely does feel like a show which might run on HBO. It seems like there might be quite a bit of story to be derived from this premise. This potential is what makes the book somewhat of a disappointment - it doesn't live up to it.

The main flaw with the story is that it has very little to do with vampirism. This rather substantial fact has almost zero impact on the story. It adds a couple of racy scenes, as well as some narrative discussing the need for sun block. Aside from that, there was no need to make the characters vampires. Only minimal changes would need to occur to change this to a pure Mafia story. I can almost imagine that Chaykin and Tiscsh had what they thought was a cool title, and wrote the story around the title.

With this caveat, the actual story is pretty enjoyable. It does a good job introducing all of the characters. Most of them have the potential to be interesting, but unfortunately they are never utilized to their full potential. Still, the plot moves along and is fun to read. I had issues with the end of the story - there is a huge twist meant to surprise the reader, but the only reason it is surprising is that there were no hints dropped for the reader's benefit along the way. It comes across as a cheap surprise.

There is gratuitous sex and violence, but I don't think anybody picking up a Howard Chaykin book is going to be surprised by that. These scenes don't always add to the story (often they do not), but they do add a certain flavor to the book. It doesn't feel like the book is an excuse to show sex and violence, which is about the only time the inclusion of them would annoy me.

The art is beautiful. I hadn't run across Tischman before, but I'll keep an eye out for him in the future. Aesthetically, everything comes together quite nicely. The colors are very nice, and the book is printed on a glossy paper which shows it off nicely despite the fact that the art is shrunk to fit in a smaller sized book. You don't feel like the art has suffered due to size constraints. This is good, as this trade is priced between a full size trade and a digest trade.

The Frank Quietly covers are great. They almost make the book worth buying all by themselves. This is the one part of the book I found wishing was normal sized. The cover they used for the trade paperback is my favorite, but all of them are good.

While the book does not live up to its potential, it is an enjoyable read. I'll likely check out the subsequent series; though that's not saying much. I'm not the hardest guy to sell a comic book too. :)

Collecting the six issue mini-series from Vertigo, Bite Club takes a decidedly different turn on vampire mythology. Vampires exist, with a majority of which residing in Miami: home of a vampire crime cartel ran by the Del Toro family. When the head of the family, Eduardo, is murdered, his son Leto, who has become the world's first ordained vampire catholic priest, is left in charge of his chaotic family. However, there is more going on than what's on the surface of Bite Club, with a conspiracy including everyone involved, especially Leto's sexy sister Risa who has plans of her own. The story by Howard Chaykin and David Tischman crackles and pops with twists and turns throughout, while the art by David Hahn is superb. Bite Club draws the reader in much like many other great series from Vertigo; shockingly seductive and blood curdlingly violent from beginning to end, with the final twist something that you won't see coming. Instead of going the usual regular sized graphic novel format, Bite Club has been collected in a digest-esque format (similar to that of a manga) that is affordable for all comic fans.