By Dustin Cabeal

I was late in checking out Blood & Dust. I wish I weren't because it’s one of two vampire stories worth reading in comics from 2016. You’ll see tomorrow, there’s a lot of reasons not to read a vampire story in comics, but Blood & Dust stands out because it’s a no bullshit look at country vampires. Yeah, we’re talking deep south vampires.

The story, of course, follows Judd Glenny, a tired ass old vampire that just wants to rock on the porch and be left alone with his family. His family is fucked up, but we’re not here to find out 100% why that is. After Judd saved a kid from the swamp, the kid’s father comes to thank him, and we learn that the town has an unspoken rule of leaving Judd alone and keeping a lid on the “v” word. But there’s something in the swamp that Judd’s been fighting for a long time, and now it looks like he’ll have to put the fucker to rest finally.

This book kept me guessing; it presented a vampire story that was neither glamorous nor fantastic. Instead, it was a look at an average man that was a vampire and how he just wanted to live a simple life. Great art accompanies this story so check out the first volume and look for the next volume hopefully in 2017.