American Vampire by Scott Snyder and Stephen King (writers) and Rafael Albuquerque (art) (Vertigo)
I hadn't caught up with this Vertigo title until its recent five-issue collection from Vertigo. Those a bit weary of "lovelorn Southern gentlemen, anorexic teenage girls (and) boy-toys with big dewy eyes" in their vampire books (and shows) might enjoy this parallel tale set in both the Old West and silent-movie era Los Angeles, as Snyder (with a scripting assist from King in the "western" parts) seek to create a uniquely "American" take on the vampire. Which they do in the form of gunslinger Skinner Sweet, who -- in finest American fashion -- is both bloodthirsty and psychotic, in both living an undead incarnations. Though there's also a certain method to his madness as he takes on a cartel of "ruling class" vampires, themselves from "Old Europe," who see perfect bloodsucking opportunities (literal and otherwise) in America's nascent corporate plutocracy. And hey, the Hollywood parts -- with its tales of "B-girls gone bad" -- almost get you thinking that Nathanael West must've written a vampire tale right before he tackled Day of the Locust. The traffic in the denouement(s) gets a tad cluttered, but it's a compelling ride all the way through, leaving you with a nice set-up for the next arc (and the next American decade in the cycle!)

YUMMY The Last Days of a Southside Shorty by G. Neri (writer) and Randy DuBurke (art) (Lee & Low Books)
Multicultural kid-lit publisher Lee & Low jump in to the graphic novel arena with a haunting tale about death and desertion on Chicago's South Side -- haunting, because it's all true. 11 year-old Robert "Yummy" Sandifer -- so nicknamed because of his sweet tooth -- is a wanna-be gangbanger, looking for street cred in the eyes of his older brother's gang. So he starts shooting at people and winds up killing an innocent teenage girl. And, in being a "baby" killing another one, becomes a media sensation and a liability to the gang that appeared to "befriend" him. Neri constructs a fictional investigator -- à la Citizen Kane! -- to look in to Yummy's story (and provide a narrative for us), and in reading it, you want to somehow head off the inevitable outcome. But you can't. Neri and DuBurke have complementary, documentary-like styles, and if the language is unrealistically "toned down," that's because Lee & Low want the book to be available to any future "Yummies" through their local libraries (or maybe even school book fairs) -- anyone of an age where they still secretly take a teddy bear when going to a sleepover, yet still naïvely imagine guns, and violence, to be "cool."

The Broadcast by Eric Hobbs (writer) and Noel Tauzon (art) (NBM)
Just in time for Halloween comes this tale set against the famed Oct. 30th "broadcast" of War of the Worlds, by Orson Welles and his Mercury Theater players. Here, in rural Indiana, in the midst of 1938's still-tenacious depression, a clash of class and race unfolds in a night of panic, as a handful of people -- convinced the end is near (or using everyone else's conviction to their own ends) -- fall out over who gets into a particular shelter, who has a gun, who doesn't, and who might know something about those charred bodies outside. The first half is pretty gripping stuff, and uses the counterpoint with Welles' broadcast (and troubles at CBS) well. Orson & co. kind of disappear in the second half, and Hobbs is fond enough of his characters that the grimmest outcomes are averted. Tauzon deploys a sketchy style, reminiscent of the lines in a William Hamilton cartoon, so we're never quite "in" 1938, but rather viewing people as if we'd just stepped out of a rainstorm, and still had water in our eyes. It's a curious choice for a visual medium, but perhaps suggests the storminess that comes with dark nights of the soul. Or while listening to iconic radio broadcasts.