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FVZA #1
by David Hine and Roy Allen Martinez
Published by Radical Comics

WTF happened to love songs? back when I was growing up, love songs were powerful expressions of the passion, guilt, hate, ecstacy, bliss, torment and a bunch of other profound ideals about relationships. There were songs like Foreigner's "I want to know what love is" or "Endless" by Lionel Richie and Diana Ross that were really touching and resounded across generations. What would Top Gun have been without Berlin's "Take my Breah Away"? But now, we have songs like "I'm in love with a stripper". Are we just letting anyone put this stuff out? Why am I listening to my Sirius XM and I hear the lyrics, "I said I love having sex, but I'd rather get [EXPLETIVE DELETED]"? I mean, have we run out of standards for our musical composition? I guess the argument could be made that media being so egalitarian, anyone can produce and distribute their own albums (see: Tay Zonday), but record companies should be using that to find something of better lyrical quality. I can't put on the blame on them, though, as they will pretty much respond to consumer demand.

I don't want to sound like the old guy here who's complaining about the "music the kids listen to these days", but I can't be the only one here. Is it just me? It seems like you can't find a really good love song anymore. There's still great tunes out there about angst and frustration and the woes of life and the joys of success, but any good love songs are nowhere to be found. At least not getting radio play on modern stations. If you can point me in the right direction, I'd love to hear it. For now, you can just catch me singing in my car while I play my cassette deck - "... I know you can SHOW-OW me!"

Another thing that isn't like it used to be is vampires. Back in the day, vampires were badass, frightening creatures. They would give people nightmares and pretty much dominated all other creatures of the night. Somehow, they're now something to aspire to. It's easy to lay the blame on Twilight, but they're not alone. Yes, Twilight dramatically reduced the fright factor of the Nosferatu. But there have been other things like Angel and True Blood that just paint them as "misunderstood". Now you got a bunch of kids running around with makeup on to look super pale. When I was growing up, that sort of thing was reserved only for the outcasts who played RPGs from White Wolf. Don't get me wrong, though, I've watched every episode of True Blood and I think Angel had the best series finale of all time.

But I'm about ready to get back to some old-fashioned, no-frills, slash-your-throat-out vampires. Enter FVZA - Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency.

When I first heard the title of this book, I was expecting a delightfully campy romp. I mean, a covert government agency set up to fight against vampires and zombies? It's hard to take a premise like that seriously, especially when it's sort of been done before. IDW has a series called CVO: Covert Vampiric Operations. Sort of the same thing, except the vampires work for the government. I bet even now, you're assuming that this book can't be any good. But then you call in David Hine. Hine first came to my attention when he was writing District X, an X-Men spinoff book, for Marvel. He further gained my appreciation when Todd McFarlane hand-picked him to take over the reigns on Spawn. Image recently re-released an early work of his called Strange Embrace. Reading any one of those titles would tell you that a new book from David Hine is not to be missed. He really has a way with telling grim stories and exploring the darker side of human nature.

He does a great job here, and in particular returns vampires to their proper place. As he mentions in the interview included at the end of this issue, "We've completely de-romanticized the vampire genre by making our vampires twisted and ugly and impotent." Not only that, they kind of twist the zombies a little further. He says, "... our zombies retain some degree of awareness of their humanity. Those moans are expressions of despair and self-pity." Hine takes those characteristics and builds a pretty intricate alternate history around it. Throw in a few leading characters who have their own personal baggage, and you have a really solid read, especially with 44 pages for $4.99. Most of the other publishers are charging $3.99 for a 22-page book these days, so that's a bargain.

I want to add a few words about the art from Roy Allen Martinez, painted by Kinsun Loh and Jerry Choo. I think it's gorgeous here. With a lot of these guys who go with the painted style, the backgrounds often leave so much to be desired, so you don't get a sense of location. This book doesn't suffer from that. In fact, there's a really gruesome fire scene, the details of which I'll leave out, that just looks really awesome on paper. There are times that it starts looking Clayton Crane-ish (Ghost Rider, X-Force), but I say that's a good thing since I dig his stuff anyway.

Who should read this book:
People who hate Twilight.
People who love zombies and badass vampires.
People who budget more for video games than for food and clothing.

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