Anita Blake Vampire Hunter: The Laughing Corpse is my first introduction to Laurell K. Hamilton’s world of vampires, werewolves and monsters. This issue definitely has piqued my interest in the series. My first impression of the character of Anita Blake is that she seems to be your typical hard-as-nails female cop (even though she’s not a cop) that you would see on tv except for a few small quirks, such as getting queasy at the sight of blood, that I found kinda funny considering her profession. This issue doesn’t give us much of a look at what her career exactly is, and since this is the first time I’ve read anything from this series, that is something I would have liked to have seen just a little bit more of. However, what we do learn from the story has me really interested to check out the rest of this series. From this first issue, I’m kinda getting a Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets CSI vibe, which is certainly not a bad thing.
Series creator Laurell K. Hamilton and adapter Jess Ruffner deliver a fairly solid story. I enjoyed the interaction between each of the characters and thought the dialog was well written. I would have liked to at least gotten a little glimpse of a vampire, werewolf or zombie since that is what got me interested in this book in the first place, but that is just a personal preference and didn’t take away any from the story. I thoroughly enjoyed the art form the team of Ron Lim and June Chung. I thought each page was beautifully rendered and the great colors from June Chung were really impressive.
In conclusion, I’m looking forward to checking out the rest of this story. These are the type of stories I usually really enjoy, so I’m hoping this one doesn’t let me down. I’m going to have to check out the first Anita Blake trade to learn a little bit more about this character.
COVER BY: RON LIM
WRITERS: JESSICA RUFFNER and LAURELL K. HAMILTON
PENCILS: RON LIM
COLORED BY: JUNE CHUNG
LETTERED BY: BILL TORTOLINI
EDITOR: MARK PANICCIA
Mature …$3.99