“The future sure looks a lot like the 1970s.” That was my first thought while reading the futuristic vampire comic Noctua. My second thought wasn’t so much a thought as it was an eye-roll and a disappointed sigh.
“The year is 2051. A new strain of virus has mutated 5% of the Earth’s population into creatures of the night. “Vampires,” as they’re called by their detractors, tentatively co-exist alongside humans thanks to Aeternus Eternus, a synthetic form of sustenance created by Biotech giant Imago Labs. But for some, nothing can truly replace the taste of fresh blood…fresh human blood. As the illegal blood trade rises, a new predator takes to the streets. One which even the Vampires themselves fear. Those who have seen him and lived to tell about it can only utter one word to describe the winged avenger, hell-bent on ridding the world of their people. ‘NOCTUA.’”
The description sounds decent, right? Unfortunately, this good idea was not executed well.
A big issue for me was the writing by Andrew Henderson. It was sloppy, it didn’t flow well, and the story turned into mush. But what really annoyed me was the cussing. Yes, I spice up the occasional sentence with a good ol’ fashioned “fuck” but this comic goes overboard, it’s virtually every other word. People who curse that frequently are people who have terrible vocabularies and are incapable of intelligent conversations because they’re limited. At least that’s how I see it. Writers should have amazing vocabularies – this one obviously does not. If he did, then I am pretty sure he could come up with something other than “fuck” for every little speech bubble.
I also wasn’t too impressed with Orlando Baez’s artwork. It came off as half-assed. Looked like the artist (or maybe the colorist) had something good going, but was like “meh, don’t feel like finishing.” Who knows, maybe that’s how he intended for it to look and I am simply being overly critical. Either way, I didn’t care for it.
All in all, don’t waste your money on this comic. Maybe if they edited it some more, polished it a bit, then I would give it a higher rating. But as it stands it’s just bleh.
– Moonlight
Are they wearing bell bottoms too? That was so annoying when that style was reinvented – Very pathetic and the 70s was so lame esp the music. Then again the only good music recently was the 80’s – 90’s but not much impressed e from 2000 and after 2010 music has just died as you can only do so much with sound anymore…
The clothing was pretty 70s. It was the 70s-style suits – blegh.
Hmmm…I guess you’ve never seen a Tarentino film?
I have, I don’t like his films. Something you need to realize is that not everyone is going to like your work. Some will love it and some will hate it. I hated it. Get over it. An author sending crabby emails and comments is unprofessional and childish. Learn to deal with criticism, you will get a lot of it through life.