2 out of 5

The unfairness of this review: I’m not a Vampirella fan, or a reader of this series. I’m jumping in a 6 of 6 issue solely to support cover artist Chris Piers, of the excellent youtube channel Comic Tropes. It is ironic that his amusing cover lambastes tropes, and the contents of the book are… below the standard, from my perspective, of even a trope-filled book, but nonetheless, that’s the preamble about how this shouldn’t be the source for your review, unless you’re coming into this cold, like me, and without much care for Vampy.

Christopher Priest writes, Ergun Gunduz arts and colors, excepting an epilogue (unconnected from the story, as far as I can tell, and presumably just a hook for the next Vampy miniseries) with art/color by Giovanni Timpano and Flavio Dispenza, respectively.

Now, I usually have something to say about any given issue needing to be readable, to a certain degree, as a standalone, but I’ll allow more leeway on that “rule” given this is the last issue of an arc. The preceding book probably had a cliffhanger that needs resolving, and then you’ve got whatever other plotlines to deal with, so shame on me for not having that context – I can’t expect handholding at this point.

…Still, I feel like I should be able to follow along, understanding that I need to read what came before to understand the meaning of certain resolves, but this book feels so choppy (and inconsequential?) that it’s hard to even comprehend whether or not it’s a linear story. The same characters just kind of appear from one scene to the next, with sometimes a mention how they got there, but often not, and if the main MacGuffin is a book that several spiritual monster types seem to be after – Vampy, fire lady Nyx, Panther lady Pantha – due to that lack of transitioning, there’s no immediacy to that quest, setting aside that everyone gets their hands on it and one point or another, and it isn’t handled like a hot potato. Similar to the “oh, I guess we’re here now” settings, this item of power, sought by a god of chaos who holds Vampy hostage toward story’s start, elicits a “oh, I guess I have the book now” response from each person who temporarily handles it. There’s something about how its contents sort of change per owner, which is interesting, but the writing is often so cluttered – Priest kind of pointlessly rephrases things, as though unsure what he wants to say – I can’t really tell you if that’s actually what’s what. I will say his dialogue isn’t cheesy, at least – setting aside the repetition, there is a natural patter to it.

Artist Gunduz’s character acting throughout is really solid, with crisp, clear linework and emotive faces and body languages (including on a panther – animal acting is tough!), but there are practically zero backgrounds, save digital colors splashes which don’t do much to clear up the pacing or settings.

Again, very possible this pacing and some of the unknowns are earned / cleared up in the other issues, and maybe there’s some other non-linear aspect to this that’s totally flying over my hand. I’m glad I supported Chris, but doubt I will be rereading this – and certainly I am not encouraged to explore the series further.