EDITOR's NOTE: FVZA #1 will be in stores October 28th.

Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency is an alternate history story in which vampires and zombies are as endemic in the United States, as being true creatures, as cowboys and the Wild West.

That being said I want to like FVZA more than I did. There’s nothing wrong with the comic, except that it feels like I’ve read bits and pieces of it before, or seen similar things on TV, or in the movies. Other than the historical aspect of the story there isn’t much that feels original.  Think of a cross between Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Blade movies, the Resident Evil games/movies and the book World War Z.

The interesting part is the effort put into the historical aspect of the story.  Zombies in the Wild West?  Awesome!  Vampire and zombie Nazi’s?  I’m pretty sure there are games about that and I’m pretty sure I’ve spent many evenings with friends mowing them down in successive waves, having a blast in doing so. 

The writing itself isn’t bad, though some of the dialogue is a bit wooden.  The trouble is that the story doesn’t come off the page strongly.  I wasn’t drawn into the drama of the character’s lives, there didn’t feel to be any real hooks in the story to pull me in.  There wasn’t enough characterization to make any of the main players feel three dimensional, just everyone put in their place and playing their roles. 

As with seemingly every other vampire-based story in the past 10 or so years, there’s internal conflict within the vampire group, with one group wanting to remain hidden while another wants nothing more than to conquer the USA. Why the USA?  Probably the same reason aliens never land anywhere else.  I suddenly had a flashback to the first Blade movie, or even the first Underworld.

The highlight of this comic, for me, was the art. While not perfect, is was close, capturing the mood, giving each character a sense of gravity, and making the action easy to follow.  Roy Martinez gives the characters the texture their writing lacks.  You can almost feel the mountains in the background, hear the creaking of leather as the main character tries to hold her gun on her target. 

With the advent of Halloween there seems to be a marked increase in vampire and zombie media hitting our society, which is only natural.  Unfortunately, most of this media seems to be cheapening the mysticism surrounding these creatures of the night.  What happened to the magical resonance vampires once had?  Why has any sort of mysticism in vampire lore been replaced by viruses and science? 

Twilight, The Vampire’s Assistant, The Vampire Diaries all watered down and polished to attract a rabid “tween” audience.  I remember when vampires were powerful, frightening creatures, mysterious and alluring.  Now they’re preppy kids who drive Volvos.  I remember when vampires burst into flame when the sun hit them.  Now they sparkle like pretty diamonds.  I remember when a vampire got its fangs into you it would drink you dry.  Now they just make a couple of little cuts and have a few sips. I remember reading through my history texts with a type of morbid fascination about Vlad the Impaler, the original inspiration for Dracula, and how he would enjoy his lunches amid the dripping, impaled bodies of the defeated warriors who stood against his army.  Now that’s a vampire.  Some blood dripping onto his meal?  Just a bit of extra sauce is all.

I miss the vampires who lurked in the shadows and hunted their prey - us! - and enjoyed our hysterical cries as they methodically terrorized us.  The vamps here are alluring in the right way, seductive and secretive, but they still lack the quiet power vampires once had.  The brief episode of the zombie virus held more weight than the vampires in this story.

Bottom Line: The story lacks strength, though the art makes up for it.  It feels as though there’s a great deal of backstory that we didn’t get with this first issue, meaning there’s plenty of opportunity to make up for it in subsequent issues. 

It’s been a long time since I’ve come across a vampire story that touched me in a way movies like Interview with a Vampire, or the Buffy and Angel television series did, ranging from dark and moody to light hearted and fun.  This story didn’t do it for me. Even John Carpenter’s Vampires had more impact than this comic. At least in that movie the single vampire felt like more of a threat than these vampires do. 

If you haven’t been vampired out by the super-saturation of the undead this Halloween season, pick it up, if for nothing else but the art.  Just please don’t forget the days when vampires still had their fangs.

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