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The first volume of American Vampire is divided between the stories of Skinner Sweet, an outlaw in the Old West who becomes the "first" American Vampire (a Native American woman is revealed laters in the series to have been around first), and Pearl, an aspiring actress in the 1920s who becomes the "second".
I may come back to Skinner's story later, but for now I'll focus on Pearl, as I find her the more interesting of the two...
The story begins thirty miles outside of Los Angeles in 1925, where a hooded figure with a lantern is driving a sinister cargo out into the desert to bury. Said cargo being the bodies of some half dozen women, drained of blood and covered in bitemarks.
The figure begins to bury them, not hearing one of them, a young woman named Pearl, desperately try to say she's still alive as the dirt is piled on top of her...
We cut to three days previously, where Pearl and her friend Hattie, are discussing the first films that they'd seen. The pair are aspiring actresses, hoping to make it big, but at the moment only just scraping by on rent at the moment.

Later, Pearl is just finishing her shift at one of her aforementioned three jobs when she bumps into someone who'll make a big impression on the rest of her life.


At their work as extras later on, a big shot movie star invites Pearl and Hattie to come to a party of one of the major producers in town, implying that if they make a good impression then they might get some big roles for themselves along the line. Being kind of naive, Peal doesn't see anything sinister with this, and later than night heads off to the party, despite the weird cowboy man by their pool warning them against it.




Next issue, Hattie and the guy with the guitar who kept asking Pearl out (his name's Henry) come across Pearl in the desert, she having dug herself out of the grave she and the other victim of the vampires were unceremoniously dumped. She's rushed to hospital, but the amount of blood she's lost has caused irreversible damage to her heart, lungs, brain and kidneys, effectively leaving her braindead, to her friends' dismay.
Later that evening, the man with the cowboy hat breaks into her hospital room, and since it's the fourth of July and all, he jokes that it would be "downright unpatriotic" of him to let Pearl miss America's 149th birthday...
Pearl then wakes up, apparently none the worse for wear... considering she wakes up in the morgue. She steals a coat, and heads home, finding the cowboy man, Skinner Sweet, waiting for her...
<






Pearl's venom slowly paralyses Hamiliton, who she then interrogates about the vampires that killed her. Then she eats him and dumps his corpse in his dressing room.
I may come back to Skinner's story later, but for now I'll focus on Pearl, as I find her the more interesting of the two...
The story begins thirty miles outside of Los Angeles in 1925, where a hooded figure with a lantern is driving a sinister cargo out into the desert to bury. Said cargo being the bodies of some half dozen women, drained of blood and covered in bitemarks.
The figure begins to bury them, not hearing one of them, a young woman named Pearl, desperately try to say she's still alive as the dirt is piled on top of her...
We cut to three days previously, where Pearl and her friend Hattie, are discussing the first films that they'd seen. The pair are aspiring actresses, hoping to make it big, but at the moment only just scraping by on rent at the moment.

Later, Pearl is just finishing her shift at one of her aforementioned three jobs when she bumps into someone who'll make a big impression on the rest of her life.


At their work as extras later on, a big shot movie star invites Pearl and Hattie to come to a party of one of the major producers in town, implying that if they make a good impression then they might get some big roles for themselves along the line. Being kind of naive, Peal doesn't see anything sinister with this, and later than night heads off to the party, despite the weird cowboy man by their pool warning them against it.




Next issue, Hattie and the guy with the guitar who kept asking Pearl out (his name's Henry) come across Pearl in the desert, she having dug herself out of the grave she and the other victim of the vampires were unceremoniously dumped. She's rushed to hospital, but the amount of blood she's lost has caused irreversible damage to her heart, lungs, brain and kidneys, effectively leaving her braindead, to her friends' dismay.
Later that evening, the man with the cowboy hat breaks into her hospital room, and since it's the fourth of July and all, he jokes that it would be "downright unpatriotic" of him to let Pearl miss America's 149th birthday...
Pearl then wakes up, apparently none the worse for wear... considering she wakes up in the morgue. She steals a coat, and heads home, finding the cowboy man, Skinner Sweet, waiting for her...
<







Pearl's venom slowly paralyses Hamiliton, who she then interrogates about the vampires that killed her. Then she eats him and dumps his corpse in his dressing room.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-03 02:00 pm (UTC)You don't mind if I consider posting from Long Road to Hell, don't you, espanolbot? I'd like to close the circle before someone posts from Second Cycle.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-03 02:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-03 05:03 pm (UTC)I like the relflection being distorted, not absent.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-03 06:42 pm (UTC)And Pearl is certainly the ideal kind of lead for a story like this, so I like that you're focusing more on her and less on Skinner, who is easily a more Joker-esque 'look at me doing this awesome terrible thing' character.
EDIT: Also, given the car-based analogy Skinner makes, I'm curious as to whether Snyder will continue that as an in-joke and basically have the American breed of vampire be absolutely screwed by about the 90's. Their lack of real numbers alone don't make it particularly promising.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-04 01:48 am (UTC)The one thing I'm concerned about is moving the series forward too fast. I wish they'd stayed close to the pre-post WW2 years. Else it might just end up just another 'vampire in modern times' story.
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Date: 2014-04-04 04:46 am (UTC)I do agree it's maybe moving too fast, but at the same time, I feel Snyder's doing a great job of keeping the characterisation consistent, but adding a few more wrinkles as each decade passes; Pearl and Henry's relationship is utterly heartbreaking, in that respect.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-04 07:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-04 12:33 pm (UTC)You know, Henry Preston's last letter is one of my favorite things Snyder ever wrote, next to Dick Grayson's everything in Black Mirror.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-03 07:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-03 08:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-03 08:59 pm (UTC)Which makes you wonder if the makers of the movie inserted that detail into the movie on purpose in this continuity, and the near successful attempt to destroy all copies of the movie was less due to the royalties issue but more due to the Carpathian breed (the most populous vampire breed, who are also the antagonists in this story) being pissed at their main weaknes being made public..