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Rare Flavours, the next miniseries Ram V and Filipe Andrade debuted in August. Kind of. BOOM! released an ashcan (black and white only comic, with lettering from Andworld Design) called Rare Flavours #1 Tasting Menu Ashcan.
Posted in: Comics, Dark Horse Comics, Review | Tagged: Amy Chu, Carmilla, dark horse, Soo Lee, vampire
Carmilla Review: Ancient But Not Decrepit
Largely, Carmilla moves briskly. It’s roughly 100 pages, and never overstays its welcome...Carmilla deftly hits all the suspenseful notes.
Carmilla is a fine vampire story set in New York City's Chinatown 30 years ago. It's similar in some concerns to Image's The Good Asian in that it's also about diaspora and identity, but that's roughly as far as it goes.
Largely, Carmilla moves briskly. It's roughly 100 pages and never overstays its welcome. Amy Chu only puts one foot wrong, and that's for a superfluous reveal that left me groaning. Other than that, Carmilla deftly hits all the suspenseful notes. The characters and setting (most of the characters are LGBTQ, and Lunar New Year in Chinatown is new to me) elevate the OGN and breathe life into the tropes.
It was my first time reading artist Soo Lee's work, and it impressed me. Her lines are thin but feel instantly familiar. Her pages are clear, and it feels like they have just the right amount of detail to suggest plausibility without detracting from the foreground.
A gripe: The story Carmilla is based on "Carmilla" by Irish author Sheridan Le Fanu must be in the public domain by now and would've added to the package of the OGN. Sadly, Berger Books doesn't include it, but that could be for any reason. Regardless, you can read the original here, thanks to Project Gutenberg.
It's only the second week of January, so it's much too soon to say best of the year, but Chu and Lee set the bar high. Bottom line: Carmilla is yet another strong entry in Dark Horse's catalog of vampire stories and shouldn't be overlooked.
Carmilla Summary
Before Dracula, before Nosferatu, there was . . . CARMILLA.
At the height of the Lunar New Year, an idealistic social worker turns detective when she discovers young, homeless LGBTQ+ women are being murdered, and no one, especially the police, seems to care. A series of clues points her to Carmilla's, a mysterious nightclub in the heart of her neighborhood, Chinatown. There she falls for the next likely target, landing her at the center of a real-life horror story–and face-to-face with illusions about herself, her life, and her hidden past.
Inspired by the gothic novel that started a genre, this queer vampire murder mystery is a mesmerizing tale of identity, obsession, and fateful family secrets by fan-favorite writer Amy Chu (Red Sonja, Netflix's DOTA: Dragon's Blood and fine-line illustrator Soo Lee (Ash and Thorn).
Carmilla
8/10
Largely, Carmilla moves briskly. It’s roughly 100 pages, and never overstays its welcome. Amy Chu only puts one foot wrong, and that’s for a superfluous reveal that left me groaning. Other than that, Carmilla deftly hits all the suspenseful notes.
Credits
Writer
Amy Chu
Artist
Soo Lee
Letterer
Sal Cirpriano
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