Vampire Loves - Mobile Edition

European Comics
Vampire Loves
By Hervé St-Louis
July 5, 2006 - 19:22

First Second Books, Delcourt
Writer(s): Joann Sfar
Penciller(s): Joann Sfar
Inker(s): Joann Sfar
Cover Artist(s): Joann Sfar

Vampire Loves
Originally Published as Grand Vampire Tome 1: Cupidon s’en fout, Grand Vampire Tome 2: Mortelles en tête, Grand Vampire Tome 3: Transatlantique en solitaire, Grand Vampire Tome 4: Quai des brunes

Ferdinand is a vampire that seeks love. He dates a plant girl, but she’s so complicated, they keep on breaking up and reuniting. Then frail Ferdinand seeks women of all creed, creatures or not. When it’s not his good guy genes that get in the way and stop him from getting the girl, it’s an impossible love or lust. Ferdinand’s quest is so simple. He just wants to get a date. Will he finally find love?

Looking at the cover of this book made me put off reading it for over a month. I should have known better from the guy who draws Dungeon. Here, characters’ dialogue are so level headed and insightful, you’ll forget that these are netherworld creatures seeking love, that is until Sfar reminds you. He does. There are situations that only vampire could go through. Yet the characters feel so real and the way they express their emotions, so clear, that you will relate to them completely and understand their failure at love.

Sfar is an acquired taste. His little scribbles will not win you over right away. They're affective at telling Ferdinand’s story and I could not imagine another style to express the zany world they all live in. Sfar, like Picasso, is one of those artist that can really draw, but chooses to draw like an amateur to get the point of his story appoint. You are no longer mesmerized or distracted by grand brushstrokes. Instead, you follow a story avidly.

9/10