Saturday, March 23, 2013

Vampire Tales Vol 3 – review

Author: Various

Artist: Various

First Published: 2010 (this format)

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Prepare to be horrified by all the blood, bats, fangs and coffins you can hanle!

Witness Morbius the Living Vampire desperate for blood, unleashed upon the Old West and in the clutches of the mysterious Morgana! See Blade the Vampire Slayer in action against the legions of the unliving dead! Experience the tragic tale of Barnado Latta and the impossible quest of Zarathon! Including a surprise appearance by Jack the Ripper!

The review: Sadly, and despite the proliferation of exclamation marks (once again) in the blurb, I was less enthused by this third collection of Vampire Tales (including parts of #8-11) than I was by the first or second volumes. That isn’t to say that there was anything wrong with the stories or the artwork. Hell we even got an appearance by Blade.

The problem was encapsulated by me saying “parts of”. Whereas we got fairly straight facsimiles of the originals in vol 1 and 2, including articles, this was lacking articles and, apparently, lacking some of the comic strips. So the “in the next issue” of # 9 mentions Blade, the # 10 cover, as reproduced in the volume, mentions Blade (wanted for murder) but there is no Blade comic strip reproduced in the # 10 section of the volume (or in the #11 section, ironic given the cover for the volume).

There is a lot of Morbius so perhaps the editor decided to follow the Morbius story in this volume, forgoing other stories but, frankly, the joy of these volumes was the full reproduction. A shame. What is there is great, what isn't reduces the score; 6 out of 10.

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