The comic series Baltimore: The Plague Ships takes place sometime during the events in the novel Baltimore: or, the Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden. The graphic novel seems to depend on the reader being at least somewhat familiar with the novel, on which more later.
It’s some months after World War I, The Great War, is ended by a widespread plague, and Europe is now under assault by hordes of vampires. Lord Henry Baltimore as a young infantry captain had seen his men, after being cut down by German bullets, become a feast for flesh-eating bats, a fate he narrowly escapes himself after fighting off a particularly large and fierce bat — who, we eventually learn, is the vampire Haigus. Haigus is as unhappy with Baltimore as Baltimore is with him — Haigus lost an eye in their encounter, while Baltimore lost a leg. But after Haigus kills Baltimore’s wife and child, Lord Henry’s course is set: revenge is the sweetener on his quest to rid Europe of the vampires.
It will probably be helpful if one has read the novel — characterizations are somewhat rudimentary, even for comics, and the sketches of backstory provided don’t really flesh anyone out very much. Baltimore is little more than an obsession, with a nod to the hard-bitten heroes of noir detective fiction, while Haigus is nothing more than a sinister presence, albeit not as personable as Bela Lugosi. Baltimore’s companion, Vanessa, does show some depth, but not enough to elevate her from stereotype to archetype.
Ben Stenbeck’s drawing is rough-hewn enough to fit the script almost perfectly, and yet somehow it’s predictable: I’m not sure who came up with the rule that as soon as someone becomes undead, their teeth get all pointy and their eyes lose their pupils, but it does seem to be pretty much inviolable. That does not mean, however, that these creatures are particularly scary. The palette is suitably murky, seemingly evenly split between grays and blood red. There’s not a lot of liveliness in the graphic work, but then, it’s not a particularly lively story.
It’s the first installment of an ongoing series, and one of those rare instances where I have no idea whether I want to continue with it or not. I’m not sure whether it’s the uninflected script or the drawing featuring what seems like page after page of rotting corpses (I know that can’t be the case, but it seems like it), but I can’t find a lot of tension in the story, not to mention any sort of frisson.
(Dark Horse Books, 2010)
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