B.P.R.D.: Vampire #1 is the latest effort from Mike Mignola, Dave Stewart, Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba (Oxford comma purposefully omitted on account of them actually being twin brothers, which is really quite cool when you think about it). It’s another of the flashback stories that the team has been known to do from time to time, allowing them to explore the history of the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense without interfering with the ongoing series. The first issue presented here carries all the artistic weight one would expect from this creative team (remind me to tell you all the reasons Casanova is awesome later), but the story cooks at the slowest boil imaginable, for better and for worse.
Full disclosure: While I’ve read quite a bit of Mignola’s Hellboy books and have a firm grasp on what this universe holds, I haven’t actually read any books from the BPRD series, neither the ongoing nor the flashback series. I did some background research into the main character, but the best I could find was a stub page on the Hellboy wiki. That said, like the rest of Mignola’s books, there appears to have been a conscious effort to make the book new reader friendly, so I don’t think it’s an issue as I review this book.
For once, I’d like to start with the artwork of this book. It’s incredible. If you can’t already tell from the image of the cover, this book has some of the most startlingly beautiful dark imagery you’re going to find in comics today. It’s dark and unsettling, placing you in the perfect mood to read a comic like this, but I also found myself fixated on pages long after I would have usually moved on just to take in everything that was happening. Nearly six full pages are dedicated to the vampire imagery before a word of dialogue is uttered, and with good reason. The art is spot on from beginning to end, and it’s probably worth the price of admission alone.
As far as the story goes…well, there’s just not as much to talk about. As you can guess from a series entitled BPRD: Vampire, there are vampires and agents, and the latter aren’t really big fans of the former. Okay, that’s not being entirely fair. A newly formed vampire is welcomed into the vampire brotherhood by some other vampires that just so happen to already be wearing matching outfits and hairdos (not quite sure how she got the outfit coordination message before finding out who made her a vampire, but that’s admittedly a nitpick). The queen of the vampires is Hecate, whose role matches that of her original mythology as a goddess of necromancy and the undead, though she doesn’t make an appearance in this comic. Also, Agent Anders is having nightmares after the events of BPRD 1948, and decides the only way to make things right is to get revenge on as many vampires as he can kill.
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| Taken from http://www.darkhorse.com |
That’s really it. It’s a ton of set-up that will likely pay off, but there’s not much present in this issue alone. Usually, one would expect an introductory issue to have some big moment that sucks you into the story, then take a breather in issue #2 before diving into the chaos for the rest of the series, but this issue is definitely a slow boil. Don’t get me wrong: it’s a slow boil executed quite well, but I did find myself wishing I had something more to sink my teeth into than what’s been presented. When you get right down to it, there really isn’t much to talk about here. When you buy this comic, you’re buying into what it can (and given the creative team, likely will) be.
If this was any other writer, this would be a conditional recommendation, as fantastic art alone is not enough for everybody, but Mike Mignola and company do the slow set-up better than just about anybody. Yes, there could have been more in this issue, but the art and well executed background information is more than enough to justify the $3.50 price tag. Don’t let the slow boil keep you from buying into this book; you’ll get your money’s worth here.
Chase Wassenar is the Lead Editor and Founder of the Red Shirt Crew. He’s read enough Hellboy to know where this is going, and that alone is quite exciting. You can read his other articles at ToyTMA, follow him on Twitter at @RedShirtCrew, or email him at theredshirtcrew@gmail.com.
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