Vampire of all trends
By RazzaTazz 15 Comments
Popularity in terms of fiction tends to go with trends, and often times with comics these incorporate in trends which are popular in pop culture at the moment. At times this means comics might be more science fiction oriented and at other times more mystically oriented (or occult oriented.) There is no real defining point of this change, though as with anything it is usually dependent on the innovation of one or two individuals. That having been said, vampires have had a fairly common presence in pop culture well before Bram Stoker wrote what many consider to be the masterpiece of the genre. In recent years though the genre of vampire literature has branched off in many directions, and instead of ruthless murderers they can now serve as the protagonist of a story. Of course for anyone ever exposed to the works of Stephenie Meyer or Anne Rice, this should not come as any surprise. In fact vampires run the gamut of characters in comics from villain to background character to hero.
I am not much of a vampire fan personally, I can understand why it is appealing but the genre doesn’t get my attention. Despite this I have been reading the vampire series of the new 52 “I, Vampire.” What really resonates with me in this series thus far is that it incorporates in so many different aspects of vampires. Certainly the Twilight series has a certain amount of action and supernatural suspense, but it is not really the driving force of the series. Here though the supernatural gore is ramped out to a high level as the protagonist Andrew Bennett seeks to win the battle of the good vampires against the bad ones. In doing so he also acts as a tragic romantic character. The leader of the other vampires is his greatest love Mary, Queen of Blood, and he is thus forced to both love her and try to destroy her. His war against a faction of vampires highlights another aspect of the genre, that especially recently vampires can take on any attribute as is deemed necessary to the plot. In some cases holy water acts like acid, in others only as a deterrent. Similarly with the stake through the heart, some require that this is the only way to truly kill a vampire, other regard it as one of only a multitude of ways. Despite all of this the series I, Vampire is not that bad. It has taken three issue to get on its feet, but now there seems at least creatively sound, if not necessarily financially. Vampire fans can probably find what they are looking for here too, seeing as most aspects of the vampire genre are here.
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