Reviewing something like American Vampire Anthology seems like a complete waste of time. It’s not a singular story (though each of the installments is united under one universe), so I would likely have to break it down into multiple short reviews, and that gets… messy. Scoring it would be a disaster, though I guess I will leave a score at the bottom. I haven’t decided yet. Maybe an editor will add one.
Anyways, the reason that I don’t think a review of this book would do it justice is the exact same reason that I loved it so much. For the past five years, the American Vampire mythos has been among my favorites, not just in the world of comics, but in the broader world of fiction. Scott Snyder and Rafael Albuquerque have done an incredible job developing the world, and the characters that inhabit it.
Unfortunately, its release schedule has been a little on the spotty side of late. That’s understandable – both Snyder and Albuquerque are hot shots in the industry right now, doing higher profile work. And while that’s been great, it’s been a bummer to not consistently have American Vampire around. It’s a world that I find myself longing to sink my teeth into (get it? It’s a vampire pun), and don’t always have that option.
The second installment of the anthology (the first of which came out… two summers ago now?) is the perfect opportunity to dive back into the world I love so dearly. Of course, it doesn’t all come from Snyder and Albuquerque, but that’s fine. The three stories that one, or both, of them work on are phenomenal. That being said, they’re not the most exciting part of the book.
The stories that I found myself looking forward to, and enjoying, the most, are the ones that play around with the universe. Of course, all the creators have to play by previously established rules, but there are plenty of ways to work within those parameters and tell untold and different stories.
In the case of Joelle Jones and Christopher Mitten’s Teahouse, this is done by exploring a new region. We’ve been to Japan before in American Vampire, but Teahouse is completely divorced from that. It’s a tantalizing look at Japanese vampires in the 18th century – one that I hope to see more of in the future. It hints at broadening the mythology of the world, as if it needed to be broadened any further.
Kieron Gillen and Leila Del Luca do something similar with England’s Dreaming, in terms of switching up the locale. Getting a different perspective on the universe of American Vampire is the entire point of this anthology, and it’s valuable. It helps bring the universe to life, and makes it feel a lot larger.
There are all these little stories that have unfolded in the universe that are really cool – Marguerite Bennett and Mirka Andolfo’s Bride is a really good example of this. It isn’t a huge, universe threatening story like that of Pearl Jones. That’s not meant to undersell its importance of course, but it just isn’t on the same scale. And that’s a neat thing to have in this universe, because the main story hints at the existence of other stories but doesn’t quite have the time to build on them.
The anthologies are actually something I wish they would do more of. World building is one of the strengths of American Vampire, and these one shots fill out the world even further. It’s fun to get additional perspectives, and to read different creative teams taking a stab at the universe.
