Author: Ram V
Artist: Sumit Kumar
First published: 2019 (TPB)
Contains spoilers
The Blurb: Two centuries after the first European ship sailed to the Malabar Coast and made landfall at Calicut, the East India Company seeks to secure its future along the lucrative Silk Route, in the year 1766.
An old evil now sails aboard a company ship, hoping to make a home in this new found land. But he will soon find that the ground along the Indus is an ancient one with daemons and legends far older than himself.
Along These Savage Shores, where the days are scorched and the nights are full of teeth.
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The review: A beautifully drawn tragedy, I guess one could call it, focused on the exploitation of India by the East India Company and the British, this starts in England (after we very briefly meet the characters Bishan and Kori in India) with vampire Alain Pierrefont caught in toothsome activity by vampire hunter Zachariah Sturn. Though he escapes, he is badly burnt and his secret exposed and so his maker has no choice but to exile him to India.
What Alain doesn’t realise is that there are creatures older and more deadly in India and the masked advisor of the boy Prince of Calicut, and the paramour of Kori, is no mere man but a raakshas (an alternate version of rakshasa, I guess). When asked by Kori how he came to be made, Bishan tells a tale highlighting an all-consuming hunger. Taking the form of a man, mostly, he can also become a horned creature.
What happens with Alain, and subsequently the political and warfare machinations, will impact them all, and draw in Alain’s creator Count Jurre Grano (I assume an allusion to Jure Grando, promoted to Count). Whilst characters in the novel wonder at who is truly the monster, it is fair to say that the true vampire of the tale is British colonialism and the greed (which is, of course, a capitalist greed) which threatens to consume all and, as one character alludes to, “put a price on its soul”.
This was a really good graphic, the art suited it perfectly and the story was interesting and kept you hooked. I’d like to say there is an adventure there but, as I said at the head, it is more a tragedy. That said, there are some great action sequences – especially standout was an epic battle of primordial supernatural forces at the end of the book. Really worthwhile – 8 out of 10. My thanks to Sarah who got me this for Christmas.
In Paperback @ Amazon US
In Paperback @ Amazon UK
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