This needs to get much better very quickly.

Even allowing for the introductory nature of this issue, the writing is awkward and voice-less.  Eric and Lafayette don’t sound like themselves, and they have some of the strongest voices in the universe Ball has created.  Bill and Sookie aren’t too bad (at least once the mysterious stranger’s entire back story is explained in 4 frames), but Tara is the only one who sounds consistently like the character. Tara.  Seriously.

And then there’s the art.  The characters change from frame to frame.  At times they look exactly like their live-action counter parts, which is unexpected.  Unfortunately, that makes it all the more jarring when they don’t.  Often, Sookie and Eric look much more like Spike and Buffy.  This isn’t too surprising, given Messina’s pedigree, but it’s cheap.  They aren’t the only ones who suffer from inconsistencies, and when you need to use t-shirt colors to tell the difference between Sam and Jason, something’s wrong.  Eric only gets a free pass on that because his skin is a different color.  Otherwise, unless Messina is clearly using a reference image from the show, all three blonds are interchangeable.

Between the writing and the art, the issue felt a bit rushed, like they were trying to capitalize on the True Blood phenomenon before it burnt out, or wanted to get the story out before Season 3 of the TV show ends and it becomes even more out of sync with the plot of the show.  I think it would have done much better released between seasons, and not in the middle of one.  At that point, fans would have been clamoring for anything instead of already getting a weekly fix.

Since the “point” of this series is to showcase the backbstories of some of the main characters, and this issue was simply the (thin) setup, I’m going to give them another issue to impress me.  Lord help them if they start with Tara.