Vampire the Mas☥uerade #9

Vampire the Mas☥uerade #9

Vault Comics 2020

Written by Tim Seeley, Tini Howard & Blake Howard

Illustrated by Stephen Molnar & Nathan Gooden

Coloured by Addison Duke

Lettered by Andworld Design

Cecily is in the lobby of a high rise tower filled with a horde of vampire hunters. The Camarilla Court is trapped on the top floor. There are only minutes until dawn. Even if she makes it to Calder, she might find truths there that are harder to face than final death itself. Meanwhile, King Rat realises the time has come to reforge old alliances, if any of them intend to make it through another night.

Oh what an amazing issue this is. While the hunters finally get the all clear to launch a full on assault the court is caught up in its own drama as they try to survive the onslaught. I have to admit that there is a lot more going on here than I would have thought possible and it just goes to show how magnificent of a writer Tim is. Calder and how own machinations hadn’t foreseen an attack of this magnitude and the court itself with all their spies and intelligence didn’t even have something like this on their radar and that to me is more surprising than anything else.

I am very much enjoying the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. The character development that we see through the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances that they encounter say a lot about them as individuals and is extremely well rendered. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing more and more of the story it manages to pull us deeper and deeper in.

I greatly appreciate the way that this is structured and how the layers within the story continue to grow, evolve and strengthen. It is in these layers we see some twists & turns happen and some of the more incredible bits of characterisation and whether or not they work with the main arc or simply swirl around it they add depth and complexity to the story. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is achieved exceptionally well.

The interiors here are stunning. The linework is superb and with the varying weights and techniques that we see being utilised to create the detail work we get to see this beautifully crafted story in visuals. Just enough red and death but skipping the real gore it is something amazing to see. The way that we see backgrounds utilised and how they work within the composition of the panels to bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story is magnificently rendered. The creativity and imagination is phenomenal! The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show some amazingly talented eyes for storytelling. The colour work is brilliantly rendered. The various hues and tones within the colour, the reds alone Phew!, being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is gorgeous. The colour work shows a master colourist playing in favourite playground and it’s just wondrous to behold.

​

The way this book seamlessly transitions from one story to the next makes you feel as if it were all done by the same person and different writers and illustrators, the colours all done by one amazing individual. It flows and blends and you see the professionalism here in ways that you don’t immediately comprehend. With this level of writing and characterisation alongside these brilliant interiors this comes across as a better version than Die Hard!