Blood Stained Teeth, Volume 1: Bite Me
Christian Ward, writer/art/colors; Patric Reynolds, art; Heather Moore, colors; Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou, letters
Image Comics, 2022
This series offers a slightly off-kilter version of the vampire story. The protagonist is Atticus Sloane: a misanthropic criminal, avid vinyl collector, and member of the aristocratic Vampire cabal the First Borns. The First Borns are the only vampires who can create new vampires. For many years Sloane has offered to turn mortals into vampires, for a (very high) price. These vampires do not have the ability to turn others into vampires by biting them, and are known by the unfortunate name "Sips" (it's too bad that someone did not talk Ward out of that much too on the nose name). Aside from that, the writing is fine; Ward is mainly known as an artist, but proves to have a good ear for dialog. The First Borns' First Council considers the Sips to be a problem, because they are prone to doing flamboyant things like blogging about being a vampire, which threatens them all. The last thing they want is for humans to believe in the existence of vampires: they prefer to be regarded as a superstitious legend. They give Sloane a deadline to permanently kill all of the Sips he has created over the years. He is accompanied on the task by the ghost of his recently departed familiar. His wild adventure is accented with a garish, almost psychedelic color scheme. The story is complicated at the end by the revelation that a Sip doctor is using First Born blood to develop a cure for cancer. The next instalment should be very interesting.
Replies
I really liked this series, Mark. I actually liked the name "Sips". Really great cast of characters. I didn't know Chrstian Ward is also an artist, so kudos to him creating an interesting world with vampires.
In the "What Comic's Have You Read Today?" I actually called out the coloring on the series as I thought it was great, and really added a lot to the series. The weird thing was when I was reading this, I was reading another series with a vampire talking to a ghost. The name scapes me, and I'm not at home right now to look it up.