American Vampire #10

"The Way Out," Part One
written by Scott Snyder
art by Mateus Santolouco

Their past has come back to Pearl and Henry.  Hattie, erroneously presumed dead after Pearl's revenge on the back-stabbing starlet, makes her escape from a basement prison.  Little Feet Beale, a bootlegging music man from Henry's time traveling the country, sets up a Jazz bar not far out of town from the couple.

The circumstances that brought Hattie to her prison are extremely confusing.  By failing to destroy her head or heart, Pearl may have unwittingly allowed Hattie to live in a kind of suspended stasis before she was reclaimed by a rival vampire faction, but just how Hattie became an American vampire—like Pearl and Sweet—is entirely unclear.  She was, at least originally, transformed by Pearl's original attackers, one of their brood of European vampires.  Now, she's being held captive by seemingly the same group, subjected to rounds of experiments each new moon to determine her weaknesses, and thereby the weaknesses of Pearl and Sweet as well.  Upon securing her escape and her revenge on her tormentor, Hattie sets out to find Pearl.

If possible, Henry's discovery in the back room of his old buddy's bar, ironically named The Way Out, is even more chilling.  A bootlegger during the 20s and early 30s, Little Feet Beale apparently needed to find alternative income after the repeal of Prohibition.  He put his previous knowledge to use in a similar, illegal and significantly more ghoulish profession:  bootleg blood.  He siphons blood out of hapless patrons into jars and bottles for later consumption.  And the pile of dessicated bodies in the corner suggest he's quite liberal in his victims.

Santolouco, previously tasked with Cashel McCogan's flashbacks in the "Devil in the Sand" arc, is solid here.  His inks are much darker, his figures less delicate, and the overall impression of his illustrations much heavier and more cumbersome, but its got enough continuity with Albuquerque's style without attempting outright mimicry that it works well within its own confines.

[February 2011]

As collected in American Vampire, Volume 2 (ISBN 978-1401230692)