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The
Fanboy Planet Preview Spotlight 05/24/06
brought to you by Brian's Books of Santa
Clara
Each
week we look through the upcoming releases to offer our two
cents as to what's hot and what's not. You can agree with
us or not, but spend your money wisely. Loaded
Bible: Jesus vs. Vampires
writer: Tim Seeley
artists: Nate Bellegarde and Mark Englert
It would have
been so easy to write this book off as a high concept potshot,
especially coming out on the heels of The Da Vinci Code.
For the first couple of pages, it looks like Loaded Bible
will just play out as an easy parody of current events taken
to a bizarre extreme.
By throwing
in the presence of vampires, however, Tim Seeley just follows
a natural conclusion with his political commentary. The
rest of his set-up doesn't feel like parody so much as sad
observation.
That's not to
say that this book isn't going to offend. It is. But for
less conservative Christians that believe in reading something
before getting worked up about it, Loaded Bible
offers an indictment of man, not God.
If you can get
that far, and like a good post-apocalyptic vampire story,
then Loaded Bible has a lot to offer.
After the religious
right has tightened its grip on the American government,
vampires make their presence a certainty. Either it was
a stupid tactical move on their part or a surveillance-obsessed
government made it impossible to hide anymore; Seeley doesn't
make it clear.
What is clear
(or was clear, as all this is told in flashback from
hundreds of years in the future) is that vampires make incontrovertible
proof of Satan. Even Lilith, the mother of all vampires,
has no quibble with the existence of G*d and the Devil.
The vampires do, however, have a problem with whether or
not their nemesis, a warrior in white claiming to be Jesus,
really is the Second Coming.
So should the
citizens of the last dome of Christianity, dubbed New Vatican
City. This Jesus seems to fit all the criteria for at least
a few hundred years of faith. He's handsome, white (though
Seeley once planned on making him black), can heal with
the laying on of his hands and of course can kick vampire
butt. On the other hand, tellingly never mentioned, almost
everything else about his return seems to be missing from
the story.
Despite the
luridness of its title and its cover, no beliefs should
be harmed in the reading of this comic.
Seeley throws
in a lot of detail to his world, nicely brought to life
by Bellegarde and Englert. As has been fashionable for the
last decade or so, the vampires have several different grades
and even species preying on humanity, some looking more
zombie-like and some looking suspiciously like Bartok from
Anastasia.
Though the artwork
veers into the cartoony, it's still consistent within its
own reality. Filled with grotesques, it's still recognizable
when a character is supposed to be beautiful, as occurs
when the vampires send temptation in the path of Jesus.
A small detail, yet more artists than you'd think get carried
away with design and forget to draw something recognizably
attractive.
The
end hints at a second issue, which actually I hope is forthcoming.
As set up here, the concept has a lot more life to it, but
as it's also a fully satisfying read in and of itself, it's
satisfying to know that Seeley and company remember the
first commandment of comics: thou shalt be entertaining
and economical.
Page
2: The American Way #4, JSA Classified #12, The Last Christmas
#1 and more...
Hey, write to us and
let us know what you think, or talk about it on the
forums!
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