Customer Reviews

City of Others

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

 

 

When Bernie Wrightson touches a title, something special happens. When Steve Niles and Bernie Wrightson create a title, the simple becomes a feast of literary and visual gems.


The "City of Others" is Wrightsons' return to a medium that his artistic skills fit perfectly. When you are 'immortal' and don't want to be found, even travelling in a the womb of a pregnant woman becomes acceptable. Enter Chunx into the United States. Stosh Bludowski is a killer. Since the age of seven, he has killed family for revenge, killed orphans, and now Blud encounters the recently dead who won't stay dead. An undead 'convention' leads to an unlikely conclusion to his adventure. His savior offers a way out with no options but to continue the curse that frees yet traps him.


Few writers and artists can create horror that pulls you along twisting and screaming the way Niles and Wrightson can in "Others". The story, while a steadily paced quest for redemption at almost any cost is rife with subtle classic horror characteristics. There are Frankenstein, Dracula, and Night of the Living Dead themes that resonate in the collection. A particularly magical touch is the art styles that change as the subthemes change. The Frankenstein pages are rendered in a softer, more gentle touch a la the classic film. The Dracula pages are more vibrant and colorful. Only a master like Wrightson could consciously imbue a book with such a deliberate shift in atmosphere.

On the surface, the book is merely a Vampyre gone mad book, but beneath the bloodshed, it is the quest for a killer and his companion gaining immortality while empowering each other. It is also the simultaneous quest for immortality by Chunx. Exactly what the future holds for Blud and Chunx should prove to be very interesting an 'more than your average monster story'!

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Tim Lasiuta

what a disappointment, what a rip off!
the bloody story about vampires is pretty good but the book feels like one part (or prequel) of a big story. it ends without warning just when the plot start building. as much is i could find there is no sequel... it makes this book just a fracture of a bigger (and non existent) story. it feeels like watching 10 minutes of an interesting movie you like.
buy it only if you want to be angry (like me).
too bad there is not a no star option.

and btw... there is even no city (of others).

I actually won all 4 issues from a Dark Horse Halloween give away. (Thanks Dark Horse!)

Wrightson can draw anything and draw it well, especially a horror book like this one. The story is decent, however you can tell it's a 4 issue mini written to set up a series. The main issue I had were the terribly cliched names. I mean Blud, really? Outside of that, Blud is a bit of a sociopath and he's kind of hard to route for. There is plenty of action and potential in the book.

Basically if you want to check out a decent horror comic with good art, that sets up a series that doesn't exist, then pick this up.

When I heard about this book, I was excited because of what Del Toro had done for movies like Hellboy (I'm a huge fan), The Orphanage, a little place with a big bomb, and so on. Still, this with cinema we were talking about and I was of two minds here. The first said that Hellboy was a thing that had to be pulled from pages and made into something that Mignola would love (and i know he helped here and I know he has had experience as well), and I saw what he was able to do. He literally took a book that would be hard as hell to translate, took the dragon and Rasputin (I really wish Baba could have gotten into the action), and took Abe and the others and made something grand out of it. He did so with the second as well, making it a thing that golden and Mignola could take home and hang on their DVD players. While there are many naysayers that say that this is only taking words and making them into film, how many movies come from good books? A few - only a few.
So when I saw a book coming from this mind, my heart was pumping. It should have been, too, because it was a great thing to behold.
Killing without remorse, that should be the trait of a good hitman. Our main character has that, too, and he has this factor that makes people not want to mess with him. In one part of the book he's talking about where he lives and says that he once found two crackheads living in his lobby, wanting to rob the place. A few deaths later, word got out that he was something of a monster and not even the police would come and saw "howdy." Along the way in his killing, he runs across two guys that are worth 50grand each and goes after them. The only problem is that they slice and dice and still come on a'kissin (and he finds that gross). So, what's he do? He goes to find out what is up? And what is up? War, baby - lots of pretty, sexy war.

This book had the potential of being amazing. It started out good, had a great character, had some art that my eyes liked, and it had a really weird story. A head coming out of a woman that airport security that was smuggling coke? Yeah. It talks? Yeah. It doesn't surprise specific people? What the heck? That stuff got me going and got me reading, but it and some blood sucking later, it simply ended. It didn't finish or come to a great place. It ended. Imagine how ugly that was.

If you want to have a book just stop and not give you a kiss goodnight or anything, play here. If you want more, however, get more. And while you are at it, get something that will reward your time. I was mad at first, sad later, and simply glad I paid a little less that less at the end. Not a good thing to have unless you can be happy with a few pages, a plot that doesn't explain why a man (still that) can jump out of a moving train and not get cut, and so on.
Sad to see good ideas lost.

I ordered this on a recommendation from Amazon. I have no idea why they suggested it to me. I had never heard of the author and have never read, looked at, a graphic novel. Actually I used to read comic books when I was a kid. The illustrations were dark and discusting. I returned the book.