I know UNDYING LOVE has two strikes against it. One, it has love in the title. Not a word that generally resonates within this high octane testosterone-driven hobby. Two, UNDYING LOVE is about vampires--a topic that has gushed across our collective consciousness over the past few years much like the copious amounts of blood they spill in each tale.
I’ll admit I groaned when the PR push for issue one hit my hands almost a year ago. But then I took a second and saw who the creators were behind this book. OK, Image--that’s a good start. Anyone who still calls Image an indie publisher is fooling themselves. From a quality perspective indies are much grittier than the pamphlets that get corporate dollars backing them. We truly need a middle tier these days, because works like UNDYING LOVE are a bar above the books that are self-published off some Guttenberg press in Canada. I also read past all of the introductory fluff that makes PR people feel like they are actual writers to glean the creative names behind these books: Tomm Coker and Daniel Freedman. Both guys have spent years in the Marvel and DC bullpens and UNDYINGLOVE proves it.
So I dove into issue one and was immediately blown away. I’ve always dug Freedman’s work in books like WOLVERINE, but his sketchy yet ever so detailed renderings are truly made for the shadow world of UNDYING LOVE. When I looked past the art and dove into the story, two things struck me. First was the setting of Hong Kong. It’s one thing to simply place a book wherever you want; it’s another to truly inject the culture into the book. Not only does UNDYING LOVE leverage vampire lore, it’s clear that Coker and Freedman did their due diligence on the ancient orient and their specters that go bump in the night. This is better Asian fusion than the entire PF Chang’s menu. Second, Coker and Freedman made damn sure that being a vampire is no walk in the park. These are not people you would want as your prom dates and even though the hero of the book loves a vampire, he also knows that this is a love that will be an endless fight. Sure this is about vampires and it is about love, but it is also far from derivative. When talking about the love of a mortal and a vampire, UNDYING LOVE is the gritty blood-soaked antithesis to the vampires that sparkle and merely look at the camera with vapid moon eyes.
So I read issue one about ex-soldier John Sargent and his fanged lady love Mei. I delighted as they set up shack in a Hong Kong ghetto looking for an ancient vampire that might be able to cure Mei’s condition. I reveled in delight when that wizened vampire was a child that spoke with the soul of an ancient. And my hands started to sweat when that sage wunderkind told john that the only way to cure Mei would be to kill one of the oldest vampires in existence (yes, the old vampire rule of the older they are the stronger they are applies) and burn his heart so Mei can consume it.
And then nothing…I’m horrible at submitting Previews orders to my shop and sadly they don’t just naturally order every book out there. All I can say is, thank God for the graphic novel. While I curse the trade pacing that has blanketed our monthlies, there’s still no place better to play catch-up when a book falls off my radar.
Thankfully, the other four chapters collected in this OGN did not disappoint. As John Sargent looks for Mei’s maker Coker and Freedman’s research on the strange foreign customs of the Far East shine through on every page; quite frankly, this is unlike any vampire tale I have ever read before. Vampires usually just suck blood and occasionally transform into a bat; in UNDYING LOVE magic and vampirism combine to make these creatures of the night master elementals. On Mei and John’s side are a slew of other elementals, which help and hinder this most noble cause.
UNDYING LOVE also moves at a break-neck pace. I tend to take a long time with books. I first read art and story together and then go back to focus in on the finer points of both. It’s a testament when I can say I read a book twice and it felt like no time had passed. I wanted more after every chapter and I definitely wanted more when the last chapter closed. But alas, this is comics, and a comic without a cliffhanger is a book. By the close of UNDYING LOVE, John and Mei have just made it onto the sonar of her maker and if he’s half as bad ass as his underlings, Volume II promises to move even faster than on if that’s possible.
This might sound rather mean of me to say, but I hope Coker and Freedman have to spend a little more time shopping UNDYING LOVE around Hollywood. I want a resolution to the John and Mei story; so often these days once a book is bought as intellectual property from a studio it spells the death of the comic.
Yes, UNDYING LOVE would make a great movie, but it makes a fantastic comic, which we desperately need more of these days.
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