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Bite Club
5[of 6]/OCT/2004
Publisher: Vertigo/DC Comics
Writer: Howard Chaykin & David Tischman
Artist: David Hahn
Colors: Brian Miller
Letters: Jared K. Fletcher
Price: $2.95 US/R29.50 SA
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Howard Chaykin and David Tischman
team-up with Vertigo Comics [DC] to bring us an originally flavored
mini-series focused around the world of vampires and organized
crime. What happens to Leto Del Toro, a young priest who
just happens to be of vampiric decent, when his father the mob boss
gets killed and Leto is forced to take over the family business
and give up the priesthood?
Leto has found out who is responsible for his father’s untimely
death and he decides to take care of it himself as he slowly accepts
his headship role in the Del Toro empire. Danny finally cracks and
shoots a student at his school, Carrie shows her true ‘blood’
as she sets up Leto’s downfall in a triple-cross involving
Victor, Leto and the Police. Arabella, Leto’s mother, shows
that she is not to be trifled with when she threatens a local store
owner’s family.
This series had a great premise, one which stood out from
the rest and led me to pre-order it months in advance.
The possible outcomes of a rogue vampire who had joined the ministry
ending up as the head of a major crime syndicate had me totally
hooked. This series is an entertaining read but I feel it has fallen
short of what it could have been.
The first four issues were pulled down into a mire of set-up and
dangling plotlines. There is a distinct lack of a central
storyline and it gives off an overall air of a soap-opera that is
rushing headlong into a never-ending circle of illogical and unsatisfying
conclusions. Although Chaykin [Challengers
of the Unknown, American Flagg] and Tischman
go into great detail when telling the stories of the large cast
which makes up the Del Toro family, I get the feeling that a strong
central storyline/focus could have helped this story along and helped
to step up the pace a bit. For all their crossover storylines and
sub-plots it’s amazing that the writers fail to fully delve
into and thoroughly explain the reasoning as to how Leto finds out
who ordered the hit on his father. In this issue we see the consequences
of Monsignor Kelly’s actions but no real concrete explanation
of how Leto found him out. Its rough explanations like these that
dull the potentially great moments in this book.
David Hahn [Private Beach] and
his soft almost animated style of artwork seem like a strange choice
for such dark subjects as vampires and organized crime, however
his work has slowly grown on me. The choice of colorist, Brian
Miller, quickly lead me to get annoyed with the art all
over again. Miller manages to ‘soften’ Hahn’s
already soft art even more by employing horrible ‘blurry’
airbrush shading to his colours that leave Hahn’s characters
faces ‘puffy’ and ‘babyface’ like. In an
organized crime family largely constituted of vampires that’s
not really a good thing. This strange mix of coloring styles
in conjunction with Hahn and his quirks, one of which is his super
stylized ‘spiral’ ear design, leaves the art lacking
when confronted with the subject matter at hand. The huge
saving grace for this art team can be broken down into three words,
Frank Quitely’s covers. Oh my gosh…these
have to be some of the best covers of the year, Quitely [WE3,
New X-Men] stuns me month after month with his
great ideas and his graphic design layout is just top-notch.
With the first four and half books in this series being one big
soap opera of a set-up, lets hope that the big finale in
the last issue can be a gigantic payoff. Somehow I don’t
see how it can unless there is a huge twist coming that I missed
somewhere in its developing stages. Chaykin and Tischman leave me
wondering what this story is really about, perhaps it’s the
maturation of a wayward son slowly falling into his fathers footsteps?
Or perhaps it’s the struggle between the Church and oorganised
crime for power and a statement on how all facets of modern society
are after the same thing…absolute power? Hopefully these questions
will be brought to light and many more answers will be given in
the final issue of this series, or maybe this was just the ‘Little
Vampire Mobster Book that couldn’t'
quite make it up that last big hill on the railway to a successful
comic series.
Score 4/10
Reviewed By:Iain Duncan
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Comic Reviews
