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American Vampire by Scott Snyder: Vampires in Old Timey Times


American Vampire by Scott Snyder is a 19th/20th century American graphic novel/comic book series I-can't-quite-distinguish-between-those-two-yet about vampires. Scary vampires. Not terrifying vampires, but not your Anne Rice, Stephenie Meyer, whoever else was making vampires the sexiest versions of themselves.




American Vampire distinguishes between the Old World vampires, which are more of the Bram Stoker, how-we-know-them type, and the New World vampire, which has some convenient and fun traits and also very scarily long fingers. WHY ARE LONG FINGERS SO SCARY. WHAT IN OUR EVOLUTION MADE US THINK THAT WAS A SCARY THING. You know how squirrels and rabbits and whatever just know to stay away from certain shit? I feel like we have some instinct that's like "oh, long skinny limbs and/or fingers? Get the fuck away from that." But GOOD LORD, why. 

 Snyder's story starts with 2 Hollywood girls in 1925, then flips back and forth between then and the 1880s/'90s and early 1900s, which is fan-damn-tastic. I read it on my lunch break at Starbucks and it was riveting. Are there a couple of dumb plot points? YEP. But there's also a lot of fun stuff moving the story forward, and some issues are written by Stephen King, so if he floats your boat, there's some bonus info for you.

 Would've been 4/5 until the dumber plot points happened, which made it a Goodreads 3/5. But I'm still totally checking out the next volumes, OF WHICH THERE ARE MANY, because The Past + vampires is almost always a winning combination. This was Twilight's main fault. Aside from the heroine having no personality and the hero stalking and emotionally abusing her. ASIDE FROM THAT. Just the fact it was set now. What's she wearing? Jeans and a hoodie. Great. Riveting. Sign me up for more.

 AMERICAN VAMPIRE HAS FLAPPER DRESSES. And also Old West hats. Read it if you like those things.
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