Stephen King brings vampires to America’s Old West in a newly published comic book. Unfortunately, probably the most prolific author working today displays a penchant for clichéd dialog and a theme near and dear to Michael Moore. Stephen King’s properties have been adapted to comics before with The Gunslinger Born, The Long Road Home, The Stand Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 and others. American Vampire, however, is the first time King produces his own comic book script. In an interview with King, The Daily Beast reports that the American Vampire’s arc will trace the origins of the first American vampire, Skinner Sweet, as he goes fang-to-fang with even nastier vamps, a group out to get rich by damming up a river to create a new town. If you’re still uncertain about the approach he’ll take, King make the book’s ideology perfectly clear: “It’s really the vampire as American capitalist gone totally wild.” And it takes “a real, undomesticated animal,” as King refers to his main character, to stop them. Not only is the theme a cliché in comics, but sadly so is King’s writing. That, however, should not be a surprise. In his Commentary magazine review of King’s latest doorstop

Read more »