Review: Transfusion Vol. 1 (TPB)

Robots vs. Vampires! That’s pretty much what grabbed me into checking this comic out. I was interested in seeing just why these two factions of sorts would be fighting each other and just how the story would be pulled off. And well, pretty much what I expected, nothing all that special really.

In the future, robots are fuelled by human blood and so they kill us to keep themselves powered up and running. Thing is, this upsets the vampires as their food source is pretty much extinct and they are becoming too weak to fight the robots head on. The main vampire, William takes it upon himself to find more humans and he does. But they say they may be the last two on earth, so he instead teams up with them and some other vampires to try and assault one of the robots' bases.

Steve Niles is the writer of this series. Right from the beginning I just have to say that so far I'm not really sold on this story. The pacing felt choppy and I felt no sympathy for the weight upon William's shoulders or the possible extinction of humans or vampires. This could be for his lack of narrative, it felt he relied a little too much on the art to tell the story and so it felt unbalanced.

Art was done by Menton3 with Tony Moy helping out on the third chapter. I don't really know what to make of his style. The sketching looks quick and messy and there generally isn't much detail. The robots come off almost photo realistic and cold, these were some of the best looking things in these comics. Menton3's art is definitely stylistic and wouldn't work with a lot of things but what he's done here works in some cases. Other times though it’s the messiness that irritated me, but again, art is really a taste.

One of the biggest things that annoyed me with this comic was the wording. I get it's a stylistic choice but to me it came across messy and a distraction from the art, it looked a little unprofessional. This volume collects the first three issues. It has done enough in making me want to give it a little more to see what may happen to William and the struggles, but I don't have a lot of hope.

Score: 3/5

Writer: Steve Niles

Artist: Menton3 and Tony Moy

Publisher: IDW Publishing

Price: $17.99

Release Date: 4/17/13