Comic Book Resources

Robot 666: Van Jensen reluctantly rides the vampire wave

Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer

Editor's Note: With Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer from SLG Publishing hitting comic shops this week, we asked writer Van Jensen to share his thoughts on vampires in this guest post for Robot 666 week.

by Van Jensen

This past weekend, I was a guest at the Vampire Film Festival in New Orleans, a fitting enough setting with my first book -- Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer -- coming out this week. With vampires in books (Twilight), TV (True Blood and Vampire Diaries) and movies (Twilight and The Vampire's Apprentice) exhibiting unrivaled pop cultural dominance at the moment, it's a good time to be aboard the bloodsucker bandwagon.

But I have to confide a secret: I don't like vampires.

It's not that the concept is a bad one. Immortal, undead, shape-shifting, bloodsucking monsters of the night? I can get behind that. But the execution almost always leaves so much to be desired. Twilight is the obvious punching bag, with its ridiculous additions to the mythology (sparkle, anyone?), disturbing sexual commentary and milquetoast vampires. Grady Hendrix already perfectly explained the disappointment of these sissified vampires whose chief concern is how not to bite anyone, so I don't need to elaborate.

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What are you reading?

Labor Days Vol. 2

Welcome once again to What are you reading?, the weekly column where the Robot 6 team runs through what comics and other stuff they've been checking out lately. As Chris is in Bethesda this weekend, I'm filling in for him as your host.

Our special guests this time are Philip Gelatt and Rick Lacy, creators of the Labor Days graphic novels published by Oni Press. Volume two, Just Another Damn Day, is now available in finer retail establishments everywhere. (You can check out a preview here).

See what they've been reading, as well as the rest of the Robot 6 crew, after the jump ...

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Straight for the Art: The return of 8-Opus

The Myth of 8 Opus: The Labrynth

Before he was deliniating Joe Casey's fevered imaginings in Godland, artist Tom Scioli was writing and illustrating his own take on late-70s Kirby mythos with his Myth of 8-Opus series of comics. Now he restarting the series with a new graphic novel, The Labrynth, which will be coming out in August, and he's got a 28-page pdf preview of the book here. You can also see a few sample panels on his Web site.

Tan's 'Tales' previewed

Sample page from Tan's 'Tales'

Vulture, after taking a brief haitus (or what seemed to me like a brief hiatus anyway) is back to posting previews of new and interesting graphic novels up on their Web site again. This time they're offering a sampling of Shaun Tan's latest book Tales from Outer Suburbia.

The five most criminally ignored books of 2008: No. 1, Optical Allusions

Optical Allusions

I sometimes think that because his books have an "educational" bent, Jay Hosler tends to get short shrift in the comics community. Sure, his books are filled with interesting facts and figures and are largely aimed at a younger audience, but they often have a wider emotional resonance that move them beyond mere textbook value. Beyond providing bon mots about the lives of honeybees, Clan Apis offered some bittersweet truths about the cycle of life and death. Beyond providing a 101 lesson in evolution, The Sandwalk Adventures offered a rather pointed rejoinder to the Creationist movement as well as a meditation on how new ideas can upset culture and tradition.

Optical Allusions, Hosler's newest work, isn't quite as good as those two books -- it leans a bit more toward the educational side of things -- but it's smart, imaginative, hilarious and in terms of plot and structure, his tightest book yet.

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