Anita Blake Vampire Hunter: Guilty Pleasures #1
Writer: Stacie M. Ritchie
Artist: Brett Booth
Company: Marvel Comics
Sex, vampires and violence. A trio of things that people just can’t seem to get enough of. With the adaptation of Laurell K. Hamilton’s best selling novel, Guilty Pleasures, a person pulls a hat trick and manages to get all three. Should be great then, right? A home-run of a book that leaves you foaming at the mouth for the next issue? As it happens, Anita Blake might have been better off if she had continued to call the rough and dense pages of her novels home instead of venturing out into the flashy and slick realm of comics.
Now, while I’ve read the bulk of Laurell K. Hamilton’s books (12 of them in fact) and actually call myself a fan of them, I have to ask a question that really bugged me ever since I heard that such a project was in the works: Why bother with an adaptation of a book that’s been around for so long already? It’s a harsh question, but I think it’s one that’s worth asking. Wouldn’t it have been a better idea (or at least a more marketable one) to do something original? Maybe a secret files type arc or another idea that hasn’t already been published? Wishful thinking, but it would have made for a more interesting comic.
As it is, the plot, if you’re not one of the millions of people who’ve already devoured Hamilton’s original novel Guilty Pleasures, is a fairly simple one. Vampire hunter gets seduced by the dark side when her most hated enemies call on her to protect them. It seemed much more original in 1993 than it does now, but it was still nice to see Anita Blake, the driving force and main character of the story, as she originally was before her life became an utter wreck. Stacie M. Ritchie does a decent job of adapting the first chapter or two of the book, going out of her way to capture the overt sexual escapades and the nuances of the grim and vampire-ridden city of St. Louis. All the main elements are still here. Not only that but many of the little things aren’t left out either, which should make fans happy.
Handling the artistic side of Guity Pleasures is Brett Booth (Backlash/X-Men), and he does that in a very J. Scott Campbell meets Michael Turner type manner. It’s a style that may have worked in the early ’90s, but these days it feels tired and completely uninteresting. The characters on the page all have a distinct lankiness and a uniformity to them that really doesn’t make sense, almost as if Booth’s channeling of Michael Turner goes a bit too far and he loses his own style somewhere along the way. This was one of the book’s biggest draws really, for me at least, to actually see a physical representation of a character that has only lived in a person’s mind. Like always, though, the image that you’ve made in your head can’t be outdone, and Booth’s versions don’t even come close. That being said, I do have to compliment him on his very detailed background work. I found myself inspecting most every panel and finding all these little items that were much more entertaining than the male strippers strutting their stuff, or the dead vampire bodies lying in ghoulish cemeteries.
What it boils down to, really, is that the book feels like a re-run of a television show I liked. There were moments of entertainment and enjoyment, but with nothing new to sink my teeth into, I found myself more than a little bored by it. Long time Hamilton readers should take a cautionary glance at it, but for newcomers, you might actually enjoy the novel a bit more.
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Thanks for the review. I was actually thinking of picking this book up but may now simply get the novel instead. From the screenshots provided, I would have to agree with your opinion on the art. It’s not really up my alley. The story stills seems like it would appeal to my taste though. First post by the way. Great site. I think I’ve been Pantsed.
20 Oct 2006 at 1:01 pm
QuoteRandomize, glad that you’re enjoying the site!
20 Oct 2006 at 6:01 pm
QuoteMuch as I was a big, big fan of the earlier books in the series (up to, say, Blue Moon) Hamilton’s drift into major league Mary-Jane Skankmeister territory quickly drained me of all the love I once had for the world of Anita Blake. What started off as a funky, gritty noir-lite story crossing Raymond Chandler with Anne Rice turned into icky wish-fulfillment
23 Oct 2006 at 5:40 am
QuoteSorry - I twitched and hit send too early.
Much as I was a big, big fan of the earlier books in the series (up to, say, Blue Moon) Hamilton’s drift into major league Mary-Jane Skankmeister territory quickly drained me of all the love I once had for the world of Anita Blake. What started off as a funky, gritty noir-lite story crossing Raymond Chandler with Anne Rice turned into icky wish-fulfillment, with Anita miraculously developing convenient super-powers at just the right time, every single male (and many of the female) character, ragardless of their personality or tastes, finding Anita totally irresistible, and then Anita - the strict no-sex-before-marriage-monogamy-or-the-highway-I’ve-got-a-gun-and-that’s-that! character - morphing into what is, basically, a dirty little ‘ho banging absolutely everyone and everything with a preternatural schlong.
Bearing that in mind, you can see this project having good stories to tell for six or seven story-arcs, but after that it’s going to turn into a slightly more embarassing version of Hustler. Not for me, sorry.
23 Oct 2006 at 6:01 am
QuoteYeah, my wife used to be a big fan of Anita Blake, and I had it on my “should read eventually” list, but she turned on it in later years, finding it less and less readable. And as a result, I never got into it.
Maybe a cautionary tale there for stewards of franchises. If you poison it too much for the long-time fans, it may put newer fans off from even trying it. If you see someone who once loved something who now absolutely hates it, it’s not likely you’re going to want to repeat that cycle yourself. Solid endings, or at least a good continuation, are crucial to the long-term health of any story.
24 Oct 2006 at 12:01 pm
QuoteThe only reason that I continued to read these books was because I was still interested by the characters and what exactly was happening to them. Action and a real cohesive story kind of stepped to the side of the sex and the continuous talking and guilt-ridden angst.
These things work for a novel, or at least in theory they do. They have much more room to work than they will on a comic book page, and whether Marvel really plans to do the bulk of Hamilton’s work, I’m not sure. I sort of hope that they don’t, because it’ll turn into another Bendis clone where we have twenty whole pages of faces talking and only one or two with any action. And I for one, can do without that.
24 Oct 2006 at 12:13 pm
Quotewhere can I buy this comic is it even out yet?
12 Nov 2007 at 5:53 pm
QuoteI actually rather enjoy all the Anita Blake series. Yes, it is true that Laurell K. Hamilton could of laid of some of the sex scences and put more information and fighting into it; never-the-less, they are still really excellent series. The latest one, Blood Noir, was a little off compared to what I thought it was going to be. Blood Noir was more about Jason through the whole series, oh, sorry, I forgot the sex scene in the very begining… But other than that, it was ok. I would recommend her books, just not to a younger audience.
13 Jun 2008 at 7:36 am
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