Vampirella #9 // Review
It was years ago. Her mother told her to get a life. So she decided to head off to a pkace called Club Xtatik to engage in a little speed dating. It was entirely possible that she simply wasn't giving people a chance. And maybe over the course of the evening she began to realize that she wasn't giving the right people of the chance. And in a year to come, she would come to realize so much more in Vampirella #9. Writer Christopher Priest continues a largely satisfying run with one of the most destroyed characters in all of Indie comics. The story makes it to the page courtesy of.artist Davis Goetten and colorist Adriano Augusto.
The next morning, Vampirella is waking-up in bed with an old friend named Victory. They’re having something of a serious conversation about people. Victory poses a question: what percentage of the population are assholes? Every asshole out there was once a baby. And maybe babies are just...assholes in waiting. The conversation runs its course and both women head out to meet a guy named Benny who identifies as a witch. And maybe...just maybe he’s one of the good ones. And maybe puts him in position to be of interest...
Priest has fun with some casual conversation between vampires and other issues who may be adjacent to them. It's fun to see this sort of thing play out prior to the more serious magical drama that which plays out of the course of the bulk of the issue. Priest does a good job of establishing the personalities of everyone involved so that there can be some kind of an emotional connection with the characters before things get weird. This is another one of those issues that would be perfectly fine for a first time reader. It's all pretty easy to follow. And that's not something that often comes along for a writer like priest in a title like Vampirella.
Goetten mixes the mundane with the fantastic. There's an earthbound sense of emotional reality about the images that he's bringing to the page over the course of the early going of the issue. This serves as a powerful anchor for the magic and fantastic stuff which happens at the end of the issue. Some of the action feels a little stiff in places. By enlarge, however, it feels very satisfying. The visual reality of the drama and the action and the horror all fit together very well visually on the page.Augusto’s colors do a strikingly good job of rendering depth and texture to the visual.
Priest had been in some pretty deep and murky territory that felt very non-linear throughout much of the past year in this title. It's nice to see something that's a little bit. Easier to follow. It's nice to see something that feels a little bit more coherent. The weird and disjointed nature of the storytelling had been its own kind of pleasure. But it's nice to see things settling down a little bit if only for one issue.
