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A review by easolinas
Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter: The Laughing Corpse Ultimate Collection by Laurell K. Hamilton, Jessica Ruffner, Ron Lim
1.0
Here's an interesting question: how can a series that has zombies, vampires, werewolves and all manner of supernatural threats be so BORING?
While "Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter: The Laughing Corpse" has a few cool moments floating around, 95% of it an endless stream of boring conversations, whining, and Anita pretending to be tough even as people save her from the bad guys. Laurell K. Hamilton's urban fantasy is poorly translated with too much rambling dialogue and Anita pouting and posing.
The story juggles two major storylines -- on one hand, Anita is being pursued by an evil rich guy who wants her to raise an ancestor of his, but it requires a human sacrifice. She turns him down. Around the same time, zombie attacks on random humans lead Anita to investigate the Evilly Mexican voodoo (what, no Santeria?) priestess Dominga Salvador. And it turns out the two cases may be connected -- and Anita may need the hilariously attired Jean-Claude for help.
You can cram a lot of action, exposition and character development into even a slender graphic novel, especially when it's a part of a larger story. But "Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter: The Laughing Corpse" doesn't take advantage of that -- it just sort of oozes along, leaving a sticky trail of bickering and endless conversation, with the occasional spurt of action or zombie attacks... none of which last long enough.
In fact, the endless dialogue slows everything to a crawl -- long dribbling pointless conversations that lead nowhere and accomplish nothing. Everybody has long, drawn-out conversations full of stilted dialogue"Are you afraid of zombies?" "No." "You're afraid of zombies. You're phobic"), and the entire plot is overshadowed by Anita's boring internal musings ("I like this shirt. It hides the gun").
And it has a lot of unintentionally hilarious moments -- if a guy who looked like Jean-Claude (including poet shirt and thigh-high pirate boots) turned up in a red light district, he'd be handed motel keys from half a dozen dudes.
Occasionally something DOES happen, like a zombie attack or a fight with a bad guy. But they never last. I mean, after being attacked by zombies (and rescued by the cops), our heroine spends half that chapter laundering her stuffed penguins and jogging with her far more attractive friend. And there's a racist tinge to her depiction of Mexicans, who are portrayed as sinister evil people who inexplicably practice voudon instead of Santeria.
Additonally, it's pretty obvious that Hamilton hasn't caught on to how graphic novels work. If there's a picture of a tall thin blonde in a micromini, why do we have to hear that "the tall leggy blonde wore a dress made to cover what decency demanded, but not a stitch more"? We can see it. Why tell?
It doesn't help that Hamilton seems to think that being rude, antisocial and not very bright equal being strong. While there are a few moments of humanity for Anita (her fear of Dominga), too often she's busy sneering at others and telling cops how to do their jobs. And of course, there's her insistence that she's "one of the boys" and has a big phallic gun to prove it -- despite having to be saved by Big Strong Men whenever something really bad happens.
"Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter: The Laughing Corpse Ultimate Collection" is a fail as a comic book -- slow, sludgy and illuminated with only brief flashes of STUFF HAPPENING.
While "Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter: The Laughing Corpse" has a few cool moments floating around, 95% of it an endless stream of boring conversations, whining, and Anita pretending to be tough even as people save her from the bad guys. Laurell K. Hamilton's urban fantasy is poorly translated with too much rambling dialogue and Anita pouting and posing.
The story juggles two major storylines -- on one hand, Anita is being pursued by an evil rich guy who wants her to raise an ancestor of his, but it requires a human sacrifice. She turns him down. Around the same time, zombie attacks on random humans lead Anita to investigate the Evilly Mexican voodoo (what, no Santeria?) priestess Dominga Salvador. And it turns out the two cases may be connected -- and Anita may need the hilariously attired Jean-Claude for help.
You can cram a lot of action, exposition and character development into even a slender graphic novel, especially when it's a part of a larger story. But "Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter: The Laughing Corpse" doesn't take advantage of that -- it just sort of oozes along, leaving a sticky trail of bickering and endless conversation, with the occasional spurt of action or zombie attacks... none of which last long enough.
In fact, the endless dialogue slows everything to a crawl -- long dribbling pointless conversations that lead nowhere and accomplish nothing. Everybody has long, drawn-out conversations full of stilted dialogue"Are you afraid of zombies?" "No." "You're afraid of zombies. You're phobic"), and the entire plot is overshadowed by Anita's boring internal musings ("I like this shirt. It hides the gun").
And it has a lot of unintentionally hilarious moments -- if a guy who looked like Jean-Claude (including poet shirt and thigh-high pirate boots) turned up in a red light district, he'd be handed motel keys from half a dozen dudes.
Occasionally something DOES happen, like a zombie attack or a fight with a bad guy. But they never last. I mean, after being attacked by zombies (and rescued by the cops), our heroine spends half that chapter laundering her stuffed penguins and jogging with her far more attractive friend. And there's a racist tinge to her depiction of Mexicans, who are portrayed as sinister evil people who inexplicably practice voudon instead of Santeria.
Additonally, it's pretty obvious that Hamilton hasn't caught on to how graphic novels work. If there's a picture of a tall thin blonde in a micromini, why do we have to hear that "the tall leggy blonde wore a dress made to cover what decency demanded, but not a stitch more"? We can see it. Why tell?
It doesn't help that Hamilton seems to think that being rude, antisocial and not very bright equal being strong. While there are a few moments of humanity for Anita (her fear of Dominga), too often she's busy sneering at others and telling cops how to do their jobs. And of course, there's her insistence that she's "one of the boys" and has a big phallic gun to prove it -- despite having to be saved by Big Strong Men whenever something really bad happens.
"Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter: The Laughing Corpse Ultimate Collection" is a fail as a comic book -- slow, sludgy and illuminated with only brief flashes of STUFF HAPPENING.