Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter: The First Death

My bad. I didn't realize it was a comic book. Graphics are good, but waste of time if you've already read any of the "Anita Blake" series. I was disappointed in this "book."

I am very disappointed... with the reviewers who rated this book with less than a 4 star.

I remember years ago reading comic books that were declared the unsavory UNDERGROUND because they were not published by DC or Marvel. Those whose preferences were outside the superhero in Spandex had little to read. And we were SO bad for wanting something more... Glad those days are long over!

I enjoy reading books, comics, and mangas. They all come with their own sense of cinematography. Adaptations are difficult at best, especially when dealing with a story as loaded as Ms. Hamilton's can be.

The artwork is brilliant. Beautifully gothic without being repulsive. (Does ANYONE remember the undergrounds in which the characters looked like they had acid dumped on them, and it wasn't the LSD type??) I also was very surprised at how accurate the characters were to my own mind's picture of them. It was so comfortable to now finally see what they looked like and how well Ms. Hamilton described them in the prose version. (I would absolutely have hated being the person making the decision on which artist won out and the thumbnails of the various characters... there are just too many of them!!)

It's like reading a book, seeing the musical version, then the movie version. They all will not be the same, nor will they appeal to everyone. As for me, I enjoyed this one immensely, and I am looking forward to Vol 1 and 2 of Guilty Pleasures -- all right, I'm running a little behind in the reading department because I've been working on the writing department...

Reviewers, let's be a little more responsible. Some of these reviews remind me of those in the gourmet section of Amazon screaming at people to not eat goose liver and giving out bad reviews because of philosophical reasons, not because of how good or horrible it tasted.

I'm giving it a 5-Star rating. Excellent quality pressing. Great quality paper -- I like them heavier. The colors were brilliant and dark as they were meant to be. It survived my second library reading room (the bathroom) far better than I had anticipated. And when the husband "accidentally" bumped it off the sink, the corners did not get dinged, and the dust cover held out wonderfully.

So there!

This graphic novel makes the book guilty pleasures so much more enjoyable because you can now put faces completely to the charaters though some like always do not look how you pictured them at all. Amazing all around though, the artistry is something i wish i could even compare to. Love it to death!

The artwork is beautiful, but I was expecting to get some insight into a younger Anita. Nothing new here. Buy it for the art if you are interested in that sort of thing, but not the story.

Minor quibble. Not a fan of graphic novel style books. Still, it is nice to have a new Anita Blake story to fill in the history of this story line.