Little Monsters Volume 1 Review: A Engaging Take on Vampires and the Apocalypse

Little Monsters Volume 1 Review: A Engaging Take on Vampires and the Apocalypse

Creative wizards Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen cast a dark spell sure to leave slivers in the minds of comic readers in this spine-tingling tale of children harboring a dark nature within the pages of Image Comics‘ Little Monsters Vol. 1. It should come as no surprise that this award-winning team is able to thread together a razor-sharp narrative with spell-binding art that left me with an insatiable hunger for more just like the characters in this story.

A mostly monochromatic color palette sets a somber haunting scene with shocks of red to enhance the ambiance. Each of the characters is introduced each occupying themselves in a way normal children would.  They play games, strum a guitar, draw, read and feed on the blood of rats they find throughout the abandoned city. You know normal kid stuff, right?

These “Little Monsters” have been living in an abandoned city awaiting the return of the Old Ones. Mysterious figures offered each of the children an escape from the pain of their childhood tragedies.  Something that seems to link all the children together. They live as a family eagerly awaiting the return of their elders while looking out for each other, but as the book emphasizes everything changes.

Romie the child who likes to draw doesn’t return one night and the children let Billy go find him. Romie stumbles across a human the first one he’s seen since he was turned. The man gets trapped and injured as the time-worn building he was in collapses. At the sight of blood, Romie flees. Billy finds the man and makes quite a different choice; he decides to feed. 

Something awakens in Billy an elevated feeling a hunger pang for more. Billy leaves the man alive and convinces some of the other children to come to partake in the feast he has found thus begins a divide and an irreversible change is set in motion.  Romie comes across the man’s daughter, and he holds her back to keep her safe as the two of them must watch the other children drain him of blood.

This issue takes some other gut-wrenching twists as the plot unfolds. Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen deliver no less than you would expect from the powerhouse duo. a stunning elevation of graphic storytelling.  A chilling unapologetic exploration of childhood with a dastardly vampiric twist. Issue two cannot come out soon enough. I’m curious to see if they continue the powerful minimal use of color throughout the series and are quite invested in how this story will play out. I highly recommend you get your hands on this series as soon as possible.

Source: Image Comics