Fistful of Blood

I very rarely delve into a comic book these days as I find a lot of originality as fell from a lot of books. Yet the comic industry is still an economical juggernaut with the churning out of Marvel and DC films yearly. For me though it's like they've pumped out that much material it all gets very boring. Especially the Marvel product which does have some good books in it's library; I suppose they have to hit a button with all the different audiences in order to stay in business. Yet if you like me you'll often veer away from the Marvel and DC stuff in order to find something different. I found myself looking at the work of one of the Ninja Turtle creators Kevin Eastman as he does some terrific artwork. For those of you who don't know, the Ninja Turtles were originally a comic book series released in 1984.

The original comic book was aimed at a more mature audience and the artwork was definitely original compared to the style of other books. Yet Kevin didn't just do the Ninja Turtles and actually tried his hand at a few other original stories. To my surprise they haven't been more heavily publicized which I don't quite understand. Back in 2002 Kevin collaborated with Simon Bisley to do a story for the comic 'Heavy Metal.'

It was a 'one shot' story title 'Fistful of Blood' which combined the genres of action, horror and sci-fi. It also had some elements from the 'Western' film genre and was definitely aimed towards a mature audience. The story tells the tale of a blonde gunfighter who stumbles into an old Western town during the modern times. She's completely naked, exhausted and presumably hurt as she collapses at the entrance of the town. It's here where she is taken inside by 3 men who intentions aren't honorable towards her. Luckily she regains consciousness just in time and shoots her attackers with one of their guns just before they are about to rape her. It appears all is not as it seems though as the gunshots don't seem to do any harm to the men. The nameless blonde continues to fire at them until she works out that she needs numerous headshots to take them down. It appears that they are some sort of 'walking dead' but with full consciousness of what they are doing (untypical to zombie types.)

The blonde gunfighter walks over to the local hotel where she is aided by the owner there. He explains the situation in this remote town where nothing is as it seems. There's a truce between a faction of zombies and a faction of vampires. They share the profits of the town and any visitors who happen to stumble on into town they feed on. It's a 50/50 trade; the zombies get the flesh and the vampires get the blood. It's a unique concept for a comic book and it's appeal is only doubled by the adult tone of the story. This really isn't one for kids as there are a lot of victims in this story and plenty of nudity.

There's also a lot of likeable characters in the tales as the hotel owner comes across as a real good Samaritan. His story really does him credit as a character and it's good to see such a kind soul in what is predominantly a dark tale. The action is excellent as there's plenty of violence and gun fights to keep you amused. The nameless blonde gunfighter gets naked in a lot of panels and even when she isn't naked she might as well be. Apparently Kevin Eastman was inspired by the movie a 'Fistful of Dollars.'

The blonde gunfighter is nameless because it's inspired by Clint Eastwood's nameless character in his Western movies. As the story goes on it appears the nameless blonde has some type of objective here as she goes through the motions of finding out what's going on. A lot of the drama comes from tourists visiting the town as it was the shooting location for a lot of old Western movies apparently. Readers will cringe as a nerdy, naïve family visit the town about to be the helpless victims of the animalistic residents. The tragedy only helps the believability of the tale and makes for interesting reading although sad at times. I personally quite like the style of the zombie clan but the villains here are predominantly interesting. The truce between the vampire and their undead counterparts is very fragile. It creates the non-stop violence through the comic book panels allowing for some good action set pieces. One of the draw backs for modern readers is that the tale is in black and white. Yet if you can get past this, it's definitely a comic book you'll want to talk about with your friends.

Publisher IDW did a color version back in 2015 of this story but really did tone down the nudity, violence and maturity of the tale. If you want the full 'Fistful of Blood' experience read the 'Heavy Metal' version which is just excellent. It's available in PDF form from Kevin Eastman's official website for $6. For people reading this article in the UK that's £4.31 which is pretty much a bargain. If you want a hard copy of the book you'll have to pay top dollar for it as I've seen it priced as high as $110.

The best price I've seen for it on Ebay was a hefty $80 so you'll have to save up your pennies if you want to own a copy. I give this book 5 out of 5; better than half the Marvel stuff out there and you'll get a unique story for your coin.

5 out of 5.