Things Get Ugly

Revival #18

All kinds of stuff going on in this issue — Dana Cypress is trying to hide the fact that she took a shotgun blast in the back during her secret investigation. Her son Cooper is being stalked by a ghost. Dana’s dad, the sheriff, is heading toward a major confrontation with the local anti-government nut. Her sister Em, a reviver, is starting to have serious trouble keeping her blood inside her body. Lester Majak loses his dog. And we learn a bit more about the mysterious disfigured assassin of the last few issues.

Verdict: Thumbs up. An outstanding story, fantastic artwork, some really excellent stretches of dialogue, and a constant increase in the tension. This is such a glorious series — I hope y’all sre enjoying it as much as I am.

Day Men #3

David Reid is a day man — a mortal tasked with serving the needs of the Virgos, a family of vampires, during the day when they can’t leave their coffins. The Virgos have found themselves at war with a rival clan of vamps called the Ramses, and David was tasked to protect Calista, one of the Virgos in charge of a facility in Vermont. But things don’t go well — a squad of vampires assault the house, led by the Ramses’ day man, Jacob the Burner, and David is narrowly pulled to safety by a girl named Lera, one of Calista’s off-the-books staff — who’s been assisting her boss in a particularly unsavory activity called the Fang Trade, which appears to involve pulling the fangs from large numbers of other vampires.

Word gets out that the Virgos are involved in the Fang Trade, and the rest of vampire society cuts them off. David helps Lera escape the vampires’ wrath before he goes to warn the Virgos about what’s going on. They’re not real happy to see him — and they’d be even less happy if they knew they had enemies working against them they don’t even suspect…

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s a good action-packed story with lots of great art. But I do wish they’d define some of their terms. What exactly is the Fang Trade? What’s an unregistered I.T.K.? I don’t think these have been defined previously — and even if they had, this series only comes out every few months, and I can’t necessarily remember all the little minutiae of issues that came out six months ago or more…