Tuesday, January 8, 2013

365 Comics...8: I, Vampire #15 (2013)

I'm going to miss Andrea Sorrentino's work on this series as he moves over to Green Arrow with Jeff Lemire next month, but Dennis Calero is a more than acceptable fill in, at least for the next three issues (Andy Clarke steps in on issue 18).  I understand the need to move Sorrentino to a higher profile book, his scratchy, ink-heavy style (more than reminiscent of Jae Lee) only got better and more impressive as well as distinctly his own as the series went on.  It's just that he was such a great fit for this book, his panache with darkness and shadows so right for a supernatural vampire/horror action-adventure comic.  Calero has a similar sensibility but it's not quite as tight.  However, I've seen Calero do some more solid work on X-Factor and X-Men Noir, which leads me to believe he was a bit rushed on this effort.  Andy Clarke has been fluttering about the DCU and 2000AD for the past few years, but I don't recall his work at all (at first I thought he was Matt Clark from the last Doom Patrol series but I was mistaken).  He did a 3-issue stint on the first volume of Batman and Robin with Morrison, but I really don't remember it off the top of my head.  I'm curious to see if he's going to retain the shadowy vibe of Sorrentino/Calero or if he's going to switch it up into cleaner, tighter, brighter, detail-oriented territory.  As key to the visual aesthetic as Sorrentino was, colorist Marcelo Maiolo still continues on the book with Calero, providing an even stronger sense of consistency.  Looking at his palette, which tends to be gradiently duochromatic (not in the strictest sense but leaning heavily on one or two colours shades in each panel) with a lot of ambient lighting and general haze.  It's a very "I, Vampire" look at this point.  I wonder if Maiolo will still be around with Clarke on board as well.  All this artistic upheaval... I hope it doesn't mean the book's in trouble.  It's one of the most enjoyable at DC right now.

I really dislike that cover from Guillem March.  It's ugly and hard to discern what's happening.

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