Written by Scott Snyder
Illustrated by Sean MurphyFrom the pages of the red-hot Vertigo series comes a five-issue spinoff miniseries!
It’s World War II in Nazi-occupied Romania as vampire hunters Felicia Book and Cash McCogan (last seen in the critically acclaimed AMERICAN VAMPIRE story “Devil in the Sand”) go behind enemy lines with the secret organization known as the Vassals of the Morningstar in search of a rumored vampire cure. But their haunted, twisted past with Skinner Sweet makes the mission more difficult than they imagined.
Superstar artist Sean Murphy (JOE THE BARBARIAN) joins Scott Snyder to tell a story of horror and history, expanding the American Vampire mythology in a way that changes this story forever.
It’s always neat to see miniseries that spinoff from creator-owned comics. It’s even better when the spinoff is written by one of the original creators and the artist is on equal footing with the artist of the artist of the main ongoing. One of my favorite series, written by one of my favorite writers, illustrated by one of my favorite artist? Yeah, I had some high expectations coming into this. Follow the cut to see if they were met.
Only a couple of weeks ago, I gave you the skinny on why Scott Snyder is a great writer and why you should all be reading American Vampire, so I’ll first address the art of Sean Murphy. Murphy has pretty much everything that a good comics artist needs. His style is unique; it’s nearly impossible to mistake him for anyone else. His heavy stylization, though, is not at the expense of anything else – note how, unlike some artists, he can still use his style to his advantage without cheating on the human figure too much. And boy is he a great storyteller. This is one of those comics that could still be “read” without any of the text. Sure, you won’t get the full picture, but it would still tell you a story. Too many comics these days rely on the text to tell the story, ignoring the fact that this is a visual medium. Even the major scene changes would fail to take you by surprise, as Murphy gives visual cues that you’re going somewhere else. The “fills” that he uses to give his images extra depth aren’t as tight as they usually are, but that is honestly the only criticism I have. The man is truly a master of his craft.
But being good at what you do isn’t enough with this sort of thing. Spinoff series can be hurt by a lack of “artistic overlap,” if you will. The art may be great, and the writing as solid as the series it came from, but unless it’s going for a completely different tone, it can be off-putting when the artistic style of the spinoff is radically different from the original series. Luckily, Murphy avoids this common problem. It helps that him and Rafael Albuquerque have relatively – and let me stress the word “relatively” – similar styles; both use similar techniques to achieve different effects. You can also tell that Murphy studied artistic choices that Albuquerque made in the main book, particularly regarding the movement and body language of the vampires. The finished product is something that has a different look to it – I wouldn’t say better or worse, as both Murphy and Albuquerque are brilliant artists – while keeping a similar tone. In other words, it’s exactly what you want a spinoff comic to look like.
So, back to writer Scott Snyder. That opening action scene gets two big, big thumbs up from me. It’s close to perfect in how it’s scripted: the gun is drawn, and the reader is pulled to the edge of their seat. The tension is held just long enough before it explodes into action, but even then it the first move isn’t made in the way that you might expect. The last two pages of the scene in the office represent maybe two minutes of “real time,” yet they contain more excitement than your average cape comic that’s 95% dedicated to action scene upon action scene. Snyder knows that action works best in short bursts, and he knows how to make those bursts count.
Continued belowEven more impressive, though, is the accessibility of this issue. Before it was published, Snyder made it clear that Survival of the Fittest would be completely accessible to new readers. And it certainly is. The expository narrative gives the reader all of the information they need to feel at home in the setting, without forgetting to show where things are going from here. But that’s not what’s so impressive. As someone who has followed American Vampire, all of this information didn’t seem redundant to me. I’ve read plenty of comics in my day where there were a few pages of dialogue telling me stuff that I already knew, which I just would gloss over. In this case, though, Snyder isn’t just good at handing out information without suffocating the plot – he’s able to tell a longtime reader like myself things I already know while keeping me at rapt attention. That ability is one of those things that is going to go under most people’s radar, but it truly is a hallmark of a great writer – and it makes me quite excited for Snyder’s work in the DC relaunch.
I don’t like to give first issues strongly positive or strongly negative reviews. Often times, the end result can be much different: a series that starts off strong can often spiral off into mediocrity, and a series that takes a little while to get off the ground may end up soaring. This being said, I don’t see Survival of the Fittest going anywhere but up. Whether you’ve been reading American Vampire or not, pick this up. You won’t be disappointed.
Total: 8.5 – Buy it!
