My Pretty Vampire is a bloody, sexy book.It focuses on the tale of Clover, a gorgeous vampire who is easy to take for an ingenue. On the onset of the book she is struggling for freedom from the machinations of her brother, who seems controlling and obsessed with her in an incestuous manner.
Soon afterward, however, her powers of manipulation and murder come to
bear as she orchestrates her escape and leaves a trail of bodies in her
wake.What follows is a series of plot twists and turns as well as seductions, and if I had one criticism of the book it's that it is too short. I loved reading it and wallowing in the horrors its pages contain. I feel it is a wonderful choice for a horror fan who is into comics.
This book is the creation of Katie Skelly whose prior comics works include Operation Margarine, Nurse Nurse, and various Agent webcomics (NSFW) that were recently collected into hard copy. My Pretty Vampire is striking in her works because it is so much larger than her digest-sized books I have read in the past. The album-sized pages here feature the artwork quite nicely, and it is striking just how much they pop off the page. I hope to see more of Clover's (mis)adventures sometime in the future.
Most of the reviews I have read for this book have been positive. Publishers Weekly offered a mixed review, writing, "When the tension between Clover’s beauty and the violence that fuels her
actions is the focus, the book is at its best. That said, it often
feels like a first draft: certain page and panel transitions are clumsy,
angles are often awkward, and the simplicity of Skelly’s visuals
sometimes makes it difficult to discern what’s going on." Rob Clough called it "a book that matches up her exquisite color sense, delightfully lurid
sense of humor, eye for style and aesthetics and acidly satirical,
feminist take on gothic/horror tropes." Andy Oliver noted that it was "her most accomplished work to date."
My Pretty Vampire was published by Fantagraphics, and they offer a preview and more here. It features horror, violence, profanity, and sexual situations and is suggested for readers mature enough to handle those things.
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