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| Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter: The First Death | 
 enlarge | Authors: Laurell K. Hamilton, Jonathon Green, Wellington Alves, Brett Booth
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Category: Book
List Price: $19.99
Buy New: $9.85
You Save: $10.14 (51%)
New (49) Used (16) Collectible (1) from $9.85
Avg. Customer Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 15855
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 128
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 10.4 x 6.9 x 0.5
ISBN: 0785129413
Dewey Decimal Number: 741.5973
EAN: 9780785129417
ASIN: 0785129413
Publication Date: March 12, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Ships immediately! Perfect and New! 2008 Hardcover.
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Product Description
Anita Blake's adventures began with the novel Guilty Pleasures, where the vampires of the St. Louis area tried to recruit the veteran vampire hunter to help them solve a peculiar mystery. But there were many mysteries about Anita Blake's past that were left unanswered...until now. Laurell K. Hamilton and Jonathon Green have finally released the official prequel to the long-running novel series, written exclusively for comics, and featuring the adventures of a younger Anita Blake as she teams up with popular characters Edward and Jean-Claude for a vampire hunt fans will absolutely love sinking their teeth into. It's the perfect story for old and new fans alike! Collecting Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter: The First Death #1-2, Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter: Guilty Pleasures Handbook
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| Customer Reviews: Read 17 more reviews...
 First tedium February 25, 2008
102 out of 120 found this review helpful
Much ado has been made about "The First Death," a graphic novel two-parter chronicling the early work of Laurell K. Hamilton's alter ego, Anita Blake.
Well, it turns out to be much ado about... very little. This prequel is a leaden exercise full of dull police work, vampire-slaying banter, and an empty introduction to a foppish vampire and a rather unmenacing assassin. And it's all rendered in halfhearted, sometimes comically silly artwork and dialogue. Hamilton should quit while she's ahead.
It opens with Anita being called out on a murder scene -- children are being slaughtered by a vampire, and for some reason they need her there even though she fails to tell them anything. The only suspect is a vampire who happens to be nearby, so Sergeant Storr and Anita go to the vampire's place of work, and encounter the flirtatious Jean-Claude, who immediately takes a shine to Anita.
But then another child is killed, and Anita finds that she may be dealing with a gang of vampires. Anita and her partner Manny infiltrate the vampires' base of operations, but find only a recently deceased corpse -- and when Anita returns to her office, she finds the assassin Edward, known absurdly as "Death," sitting in her chair.
Despite her hatred of Edward, Anita finds that she may need his help, since she's not getting any closer to finding the serial-killing vampires. And when she discovers a lead to the case, Anit and Manny head straight into a devastating trap, from which only "Death" himself may be able to rescue them...
A taut, thrilling mystery... "First Death" ain't. Laurell K. Hamilton just sort of halfheartedly slaps together a glacial, pointless plot with minimal detective work. In fact, she doesn't even bother to craft a NEW mystery -- she just embellishes a storyline that was summarized back in her first novel. Whoa, I wonder how this will turn out.
Even worse, Hamilton fritters most of the storyline away -- it's a disjointed string of crime scenes, zombie raisings, inept vampire-hunting, and really bad banter ("Blow a hole in them big enough, it slows them down pretty good"). Our intrepid heroine spends most of the plot sitting in a car, an office, or a strip club, and occasionally tackling a grieving mother to the ground (to show her concern, of course).
By the time we arrive at the climax, it feels like Hamilton realized that she's running out of space, and tried to cram the rest of the plot into the remaining pages. Torture, beatings and murder are glossed over in just a few pages, so it can finish on time.
And all this is just so Anita can meet Jean-Claude and Edward. Jean-Claude has nothing to do with the plot at all, so he just provides ruffled shirts and high-school flirtations -- he's as sexy and dangerous as a bowl of pudding. Edward is far better -- his easygoing-killer attitude seems even more likable besides Anita's humorless tough-grrlness. He tends to get the best lines, not to mention the great scene where he toasts a house.
Anita herself is a joke -- she seems more like a stunted, sulky Hot Topic teenager with too much makeup. Hamilton tries to portray her as a tough and powerful woman, but since Anita is repeatedly rescued by the Big Male Cop and Big Male Assassin, it's hard to see her that way. In fact, the most deadly thing she does in the whole story is stake a vampire who is unconscious and bound. Oooh, scary. I can see why the vampires as so frightened of her.
"The First Death" is a waste of time and paper -- a halfhearted crime story wrapped around an equally halfhearted pair of introductions. Definitely not worth a read.
The first death? Just let it die, already. March 6, 2008
43 out of 45 found this review helpful
This is an extremely poor offering from the Anita Blake series both in terms of narrative and design. 'The First Death' is a prequel to Hamilton's Vampire Hunter series, finally bringing to light one of the murder cases mentioned in several of her later novels, as well as introducing us to a younger Anita and an earlier encounter with RPIT, Dolph, Storr and of course, the first meeting with Jean Claude.
The execution of this introduction is very disappointing; overall there is no information we have not already gleaned from subsequent novels, and more to the point, the character design is sketchy, relying on introductory quips and staple lines which are also lifted from the later books. There is no sense of newness here; the closest we approach to it is a five second scene with the Jean Claude, who as always has some innate sex appeal, but even so is disappointing in his first meeting with Anita. The two both fail to act either as attracted or repulsed as they should.
The paint-by-numbers illustration of an already told narrative aside, the comic book itself is poorly done; artist Brett Booth, who illustrated the first Anita Blake: Guilty Pleasures volume is passed over for another artist who, though imitating his design sketches, fails to achieve either that sense of sex appeal and grotesque which Booth created in the earlier volume. Muscles and sharp angles are rejected in favour of a softer look for all the characters, which in an extremely charitable reading we could say perhaps reflects Anita's state of innocence, more reasonably just makes what should be sexy curves look like a badly-drawn big arse. There is no finnesse in the illustrations and the entire novel fails to produce striking images that can stick with the reader.
If that isn't enough to put you off, I am disheartened by the fact that the cover artwork for this prequel IS done by Brett Booth; extremely misleading for the reader who purchases the text online. Booth is also credited on Amazon, so it is near impossible to predict that his artwork does not take centre stage.
Finally, and worst of all, this hardcover is a poor investment as HALF of the book is taken over by an entirely redundant 'Guide to Guilty Pleasures'. That's right: half of this hardcover is filled with pages and pages of redundant explicating material and character sketches which are completely useless and superfluous for anyone who has read either the first comic volume or the actual Guilty Pleasures novel. I doubt any of us need the confirmation provided in boring biographies of the main characters in a New York Times Bestselling series. They are a waste of pages.
This hardcover version of the comic is definitely not worth its cost. If you want to read the prequel, try getting the single releases.
This is a comic book, not a novel February 25, 2008
18 out of 48 found this review helpful
First, I'll say it's my fault - I didn't read the tiny description tucked below the scroll line when I bought it. I saw a new Anita Blake and dove for it.
It just arrived, and it turns out it's essentially a comic book. I'm not even opening the shrink-wrap - it's going back. While I'm a fan of Laurell K. Hamilton, I'm not a fan of comics. It's disappointing to see this.
I would have thought Amazon might have put (comic book) or something similar, rather than (hardcover), after the title to make it clear what this book is. Yes, it's hardcover, but that doesn't negate what's between those covers.
Ugh February 27, 2008
18 out of 32 found this review helpful
Tat's the last penny I spend on Laurell K Hamilton......truly, truly awful. ANd I liked Devil Dinosaur!
 Not into comix March 18, 2008
16 out of 24 found this review helpful
I'm a big fan of Laurell K Hamilton, but didn't realize this was a "graphic novel". Having read the books (all of them), this wasn't at all interesting. I also wish they'd get that hair out of their faces!
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