BITE CLUB #1

[COREMARK]

BITE CLUB #1
Published by Vertigo

Writer(s): Howard Chaykin & David Tischman
Artist: David Hahn

I always feel a little hesitant about buying a vampire book, there are so many stories coming out each year featuring vamps that I always fear that it will lack any originality at all. Thankfully great books like Blood and Water and 30 Days of night have proven that you can write a great vampire book and not have it read like the other one million other vampire books out there. That being said I really enjoyed Bite Club #1, this book has as much to do with The Sopranos as it does with any other vampire books out there. The story takes place in Miami and vampires are known by everyone to exist and seem to be treated like any other minority out there. This story centers on the Del Toro family, who are some kind of vampire mafia. The father of the family has been killed so the extremely dysfunctional Del Toro family have to reunite to bury their father and figure out who gets what.

This is a very entertaining first issue and you really get a good sense of everyones personalities thanks to the great writing of Chaykin and Tischman. I don't know if I've ever seen Hahn's work before but I was really impressed by his pencils on this issue. This book also sports a smokin' cover by Frank Quitely, which is also a bonus.

BOOK GRADE: A

[GhettoRebel]

Loved it.

Vampranos is great. I see alot of potential here.

Some things that struck me as original (At least I've never seen it done)

Vampire Mafia
Catholic Vampire
Vampires are a part of everyday society

Instead of making them a special breed of Vampires who can walk around during the day they have a high SPF sunburn lotion.

No link's to Draula or Vampires being a race of people. They were originall bitten by Vampire Bats. I haven't seen anyone use this theory in awhile.

Overall I think it is a great read. Will be getting it regularly.

Anyone remember if it is a mini or an ongoing?

[Christian Otte]

Originally posted by GhettoRebel
Loved it.

Vampranos is great. I see alot of potential here.

Some things that struck me as original (At least I've never seen it done)

Vampire Mafia
Catholic Vampire
Vampires are a part of everyday society

Instead of making them a special breed of Vampires who can walk around during the day they have a high SPF sunburn lotion.

No link's to Draula or Vampires being a race of people. They were originall bitten by Vampire Bats. I haven't seen anyone use this theory in awhile.

Overall I think it is a great read. Will be getting it regularly.

Anyone remember if it is a mini or an ongoing? I think it's a mini.

Damn, I hope they'll publish this as a trade!

[GhettoRebel]

Originally posted by Christian Otte
I think it's a mini.

Damn, I hope they'll publish this as a trade!

Thats sucks. How come all the good books are only mini's???

[JK Parkin]

I think I read they made it a mini first to see how people would react to it. I'd like to see it become a regular; I enjoy Chaykin's stuff.

[ajrobles51]

The Vampiric Rennaisance continues!

I absolutely loved this book. (I doesn;t hurt that I share a cultural identtity with the Del Toro family, and I'm always intersted when the main character of a book are of Latin descent, especially Nicaraguan....:))

I'm looking forwards to the next chapter.

I hope this goes the way of Noble Causes. Following chapters of the family's lives. I think this books lends itself very well tothat structure.

Who else thinks this would make a kick ass HBO series?

:D

[CountD]

I liked it, but I give it a: B, b/c I don't know how well this will hold together.

To be honest, I may not get #2. How many are in this mini?

[Skyldt]

6 issues.

[GhettoRebel]

Originally posted by ajrobles51
Who else thinks this would make a kick ass HBO series?

:D

It's already on HBO.......just without the blodd sucking part.....

[Mott]

Reason's to buy this comic:

- a phenomenal and sexy cover by Frank Quietly

- Interesting mob whodunnit story with a bloodsucking spin

- good art from an unknown to me David Hahn

- great last couple of panels

I cannot wait for the next Quietly cover and to see how the priest is going to lead the mob

On the Matt Brady grading system, this comic gets an A

[Randy A]

I thought it was pretty good, although the art, while not being bad, wasn't great either.
Overall I would give it a B+ because i dont like the art that much.

[Nerby727]

It was interesting, I will be keeping an eye out on this book. A very strange and new look at Vampires. Move over Anne Rice.

[drdash]

this was a very engrossing read. it reminded me alot of another vertigo mini-series from about 10 years ago, it was called mobfire and it dealt with witches and the mob. that was another series i really enjoyed.
A

ciao
drdash

[Michael Eidson]

Bite Club gets an F because I was indeed wondering "Oh God, why did I buy this?" (to quote Matt's guidelines/review system). I don't know why I thought I would like this: I've never enjoyed anything by Chaykin and/or Tischman before. But I thought I'd give 'em another chance. Another chance to suck (Back off, it's a pun. You can get away with that when it's a vampire story.). The story was awful. Not just the plot, but the way it was told, with an omniscient narrator who likes cheesy one-liners, awkward character introductions and disruptive panel-to-panel flow.

But I really didn't like any of the characters either. They fell into three categories: tired sterotypes, uninteresting to begin with, or the selfish, nasty kind that you just don't want to know about -- the necrophilia joke was just out of place, although not many writers can make that funny to begin with. I had to force myself to finish reading the first issue and by the end of all the horrible dialogue I just wanted to scream.

The only saving grace was David Hahn's artwork, which seemed too tasteful for such a sleazy story. I checked out two Private Beach trades (which he is the writer/artist of) at my shop and I plan on eventually buying and reading one of 'em. He is definitely a talented artist, whose efforts seemed wasted on this.

So no, I wasn't thrilled that this weakest link of the formerly flawless Vertigo line saw the light of day. Now I am no longer a completist (although The Witching and Books of Magick don't look like my cup of tea either). And that's the way it is.

[sketchykg]

There might be some spoilers below....




I think I was sold on the title alone. Bite Club . To a fan of horror and vampire fiction and the book/movie Fight Club the title had a hell of a ring to it. I'm pretty sure that Chaykin and/or Tischman came up with the title for the series first, rather than what it would be about.

I thought the book would be about an underground vampire fight club or a group of young disfranchised vampires in the current vampire society.

But apparently, Bite Club will be about a family of vampires who are also a large crime family. So it's a gangster story, in which the gangsters happen to be vampires too. So far from the first issue, the only significance to the main characters being vampires is that it's justification for necrophilia. That's all I can figure.

So why are they vampires? To present some neat ideas? Such as vampires being essentially a minority group and accepted into society. As well, a vampire Catholic priest who's also the son of the vampire crime boss. Interesting take on a vampire again. Oh, and it's about vampires because of the title of course. It will remain to be seen whether the fact all the characters are vampires has any real significance of the story.

And how does the story hold up? Well, the comic is pretty much a series of vignettes to introduce each of the characters. So while we get to meet everyone in the series pretty quickly and get a sense of who they are, there is not much flow to the story and it very little happens. The characters themselves are a despicable and rotten group. Aside from the priest vampire, none of the characters have redeeming qualities, except for perhaps the one who is killed early.

However, the comic does have a terrific cover by Frank Quietly... almost worth the price of admission alone. The interior art is also pretty good. Nice and clean. And it has a very "Vertigo" look to it as well.

Overall, if I hadn't already bought #2 I would probably be finished with the series. There was nothing in #1 that made me want to come back and read more of the story. I'll give it a D