Graphic Novel Review: Vampire Loves

Review: Vampire Loves by Joann Sfar. First Second. First American Edition, June 2006.

Ferdinand the vampire is a sensitive soul from the realm of the undead who is preoccupied with the same tangled relationship issues as the living. He can’t quite make up his mind to get back together with his cheating girlfriend, the mandragora Liana, but his romantic encounters with a lithe Goth vampire and her zaftig witchy sister don’t seem to be going too well, either.

Vampire Loves is the recent paperback release from Joann Sfar, creator of The Rabbi’s Cat and the Little Vampire Series. A collection of four books originally published in France, Vampire Loves packs a lot of plot, imaginative details and a whole array of engaging characters into a small package.

In "Mortal Maidens on My Mind," Ferdinand has a fling with a Japanese tourist during a trip to Paris. They meet when she hides out in the Louvre overnight, where Ferdinand goes to experience paintings of the sun: they make him feel "as if he can feel the warmth on his skin." Back in Vilna, he tries to make the scene at the Copacadaver nightclub, but that doesn’t turn out much better. Even a cruise (in "Lonely Hearts Crossing") where the wolfman tries to give him advice on how to score, doesn’t help. But a great sub-plot develops when Ferdinand and a phantom girlfriend form two creatures out of "Monster Putty" that evolve different theological philosophies based on their disparate views of the Creator.

OK, I admit it, I’m kind of in love with Ferdinand, who one of his girlfriends describes as "kind of square and Nosferatu." He reads Proust (but is fed up with him) keeps a cheese-loving cat, and bites his victims with one fang so it seems like a mosquito bite. He knows the difference between romance and sex and is a gentle enough lover that he can make out with a phantom without slipping through. I can even forgive him for being a bit fickle. After all, he hasn’t found his soulmate yet. And that’s a quest that seems to transcend the barrier between life and death.

If there’s anything negative to say, it’s that the format of the text is a bit small, so you can’t enjoy the subtleties of Sfar’s drawings as well as you can in The Rabbi’s Cat. But that’s the fault of the edition, not the author. I wish we could read more of his work in English sooner. In the meantime, his website is a painless refresher’s course in French. Enjoy!

(Thanks to Joann Sfar for permission to post images from his book and website.)

Joann Sfar's website: http://www.pastis.org/joann/