Tales... of the VAMPIRES!!!

Normally I stay away from novelisations, and especially from graphic novelisations, of TV shows I like. All those Babylon5 and Dr Who books scream 'for 14 year olds only'. For some reason though, the authoritative voice of Joss Whedon convinced me to buy the one off graphic novel 'Tales of the Slayers' some months ago, and it was OK. The first story was great and the others various degrees of mediocre to all right. And that motherfucking dog next door is barking again, goddammit. OK, now I'm back. But now on Nip/Tuck they're playing some weird arse techno version of Ravel's 'Bolero' and it's not only annoying me but making me want to go and find an mp3 of the original. Jesus' must be sending me distractions because he doesn't want me to write this post or something.

OK, on to 'Tales of the Vampires'. 'Tales of the Slayers' was a series of short stories about various vampire slayers throughout history, and as you'd expect, tales of the vampires is a series of short stories about various vampires throughout history, along with a lame framing device.

I rate it a lot higher than 'Slayers', as there are several very good stories here. 'Father', 'Taking Care of Business' and 'Dames' are all cool quirky tales with a twist. 'Spot the Vampire' and 'Some Like it Hot' are just funny. My favorite however is 'Antique', which starts out as an eye-rollingly predictable re-hash of the Buffy ep 'Buffy vs. Dracula', but ends up in a completely different place, thematically speaking. The common thread through all the stories being the vulnerability of the demonic protagonists, exposing their human sides. There's a few average ones in there too, most notably a snoozer starring Angel and the uninteresting framing story, but by and large it's a thoroughly enjoyable read.