Saturday 8 February 2014

A Review of FVZA (Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency) by David Hine, Roy Allen Martinez, Kinsun Loh and Jerry Choo

FVZA is written by David Hine, illustrated by Roy Allan Martinez and painted by Kinsun Loh and Jerry Choo. 



FVZA (Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency) is a three-issue miniseries by Radical. Although it’s only three-issues, each issue is about three times the length of a normal comic book. 
The story follows a woman called Landra, who, with her brother, Vidal, is raised by her Grandad. Her Grandad used to be a director at the FVZA before it was disbanded, the threat of zombies and vampires seeming to have vanished. 
Not confident this was the case, the Grandfather trains Landra and Vidal on how to kill zombies and vampires, so if the threat returned they would be ready. 
The inevitable happens and the government calls on the Grandfather’s expertise to deal with the matter. Landra and Vidal follow their grandfather into setting up the FVZA once again. 

I love zombie stories, but vampire tales can leave me dry. I have to say, this book has made me want to read more vampire fiction. Instead of beautiful and pallid goths walking around in long coats, these vampires are fierce monsters. Ruthless and detached killers.
The zombies are also presented with a slight twist. Very early on, I found myself questioning who the real monsters were as I saw what the humans were doing to these creatures. To give zombies personality is quite tricky, and I thought this book did it in a very clever way by showing traces of who they used to be.
The intrigue running through this story and the human relationships kept me going, and even with the first issue delivering a lot of back story, I was fascinated by it and wanted to know more. 

The art is beautiful. It has a painted style, which can sometimes fall flat for me, but the story telling in this book remained dynamic and I could always tell which character was which. My fear was that I would get confused with the vampires and zombies, because they all look similar, but subtle differences between the creatures meant I was never unsure as to who I was looking at. 

The story wraps up well to a satisfying conclusion with a lot of heart. The first issue set me up with an expectation of what was going to happen, but by the end I’d gone on a completely different journey. 

This is a great book for those looking for a solid vampire and zombie story without-okay I have to say it-sparkling skin or teenage angst. 



4 out of 5 stars! 

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