A lot of people have been hating on the writing in this book while praising the artwork, so I’m going to start by agreeing that the art by Michael and Laura Allred is fantastic and the strongest selling point for the book. That said, I am mainly here to defend Chris Roberson.
The story in these first few issues has been criticized for being heavy on concept and light on character and plot. Too many characters/subplots is another common complaint.
Are these criticisms valid? Sure. There are a lot of characters – some only tangentially connected – being introduced all at once. And deliberately quirky concepts like were-terriers and paintball-playing vampire chicks are, perhaps, a little self-indulgent.
But whatever Roberson’s doing here is officially working for me. The weird high concept stuff is executed so well by the Allreds that, for me, it’s a lot of fun. There may be too many characters to give any of them a lot of pages, but
Roberson manages to imbue them with engaging, distinct voices. For whatever its perceived problems, this book is pure pleasure.
Who am I to question that? POTW.