What in tarnation is this? One of them comic books about redneck vampires? Well, I’ll be! I… can’t keep this intro up because I’m worried about offended every American reading this.
This is “Redneck” #1, a comic from Donny Cates, Lisandro Estherren, Dee Cunniffe and Joe Sabino about, you guessed it, Texan vampires.
Read on below for our full spoiler free review to find out why you need to sink your teeth into this one.
Written by Donny CatesCover by Lisandro Estherren & Dee Cunniffe
Illustrated by Lisandro Estherren
Coloured by Dee Cunniffe
Lettered by Joe Sabino
The Bowmans are VAMPIRES who have quietly run the local barbecue joint in their small town for years, living off cow’s blood. Their peaceful coexistence ends as generations of hate, fear, and bad blood bubble to the surface–making it impossible to separate man from monster! Critically acclaimed writer DONNY CATES (GOD COUNTRY) and artist LISANDRO ESTHERREN serve up the tale of a DIFFERENT kind of family just trying to get by, deep in the heart of Texas.
Family is a complicated thing. For many people, it’s a collective of people you’re born into and are morally and societally obligated to love and stay with for pretty much the rest of your life. It’s kind of a bum deal unless you lucked out on a family of genuinely good people. What happens, though, when you’re linked to those by people by blood in a bit of a different sense? “Redneck” #1 written by Donny Cates and illustrated by Lisandro Estherren and Dee Cunniffe explores the ties between a family of vampires in south Texas, the Bowmans, and the rivalry between the Bowmans, who want to live out their days on a farm, and the family of a God-fearing pastor who wants to wipe them out.
What makes “Redneck” a refreshing take on a vampire story is more than just the setting. Sure, the southern gothic influences that shape the tone of the book are compelling, but there’s something deeper than that in Cates’s writing. The issue is narrated by the uncle of the Bowman family, Bartlett, who exists as both a part of the family and something of an outsider. When his brother’s sons get into trouble, he feels obligated to sort it out, but when shit hits the fan he feels ostracised from those he was trying to help. Cates’s writing presents this as a family drama first and a vampire story second. In a lot of ways, the fact that the Bowmans are vampires becomes flavour text to explain why they are perceived as different. This isn’t an exploration of vampire mythology so much as it is an exploration of family feuds in southern Texas in which one side is a family of vampires.
If “Redneck” #1 isn’t an exploration of vampire mythology, then, it allows Cates to really delve into the characters in the writing of this first issue. This issue serves as an introduction to the Bowmans more than anything and we see that family through Bartlett’s eyes. While this is his family, his role as uncle keeps him to the side. We see the rest of the family from a distance through his perspective, a disconnected intimacy that ends with Bartlett’s place in the family put into question. It’s an interesting place to tell the story from as it’s at once a story about family while also having something of a bitter loner for a protagonist.
It’s not just Donny Cates’s writing that shines here, though. Artist Lisandro Estherren and colourist Dee Cunniffe completely embrace the melancholy tones of the blue-hued Southern Gothic style of “Redneck.” Estherren’s linework has a gnarly quality to the inked shading. There’s a tactile quality to the way he builds depth in the pages through thick inks and cross-shading. That, combined with the colours by Dee Cunniffe that has the issue awash in blue hues with highlights of muted warmth for contrast brings a different flavour to the kind of vampire story you might be expecting. That is other than the one page scene in a strip bar that swaps the palette in order to cast the room in garish red lights and pick out Bartlett in blue for contrast.
Continued belowIt almost speaks to the Bowman’s nature as isolated vampires who live off the land and don’t harm humans. “Redneck” #1 isn’t vampires as horror, but vampires as family drama and Estherren and Cunniffe casts the story in a muted, melancholy style. Estherren’s pages are fairly simple in terms of layout, bringing a focus into each panel where he emphasises character expressions and body language offset by the shadow-y environment around them. For a family of vampires, these characters are alive under Estherren’s pen.
This all comes to a head, mind you, in the final pages of the issue as the scene cuts to morning as Cunniffe changes gear for a warmer palette of oranges and browns. It’s here that the classic, rustic visual aesthetic of the Southern Gothic style comes into play and Estherren and Cunniffe uses that to play off Cates’s writing in a scene that draws back the curtain to the reveal the horror hiding in “Redneck” #1. It’s an amazing switch in style, going from a slow, somber tone to establish the characters and their environment only to kick the legs out from under the reader with a gutpunch of an ending. Estherren’s opts for a number of full page panels in these pages, creating horrific tableaus that remind the reader of just how gnarly this book can get.
All in all, “Redneck” #1 is a hell of a debut issue. It’s almost entirely unlike the kind of story you would expect if someone describes it as about Texan vampires, but it’s for the better. This feels fresh. This feels like the kind of story by creators taking the tried and true concept of vampires to infuse it with something different, something with an entirely different energy. For most of the issue, it’s melancholic tone lets the reader work their way into the family dynamics only for the final pages to pull the rug out for under them and leave them wanting more.
Final Verdict: 9.0 – Hot darn, this is a hell of a read. I’m expecting great things from this comic.
