El Santo vs. The Vampire Women: Annyseed

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Getting tired of all these reviews of chibi-vampires? Too bad. El Santo cares not about your weariness over comics where the girls have eyes as big as saucers and dress like they only shop at Hot Topic … or designed to appear at at shirt in Hot Topic. Chibi-vampires are gold. Chibi-vampires are boffo. When it comes to vampire women, there is only one dominant strain … the otaku strain … and its examples are legion. There’s Annyseed, for example, a webcomic written by U.K. artist Stuart J. Brown.

In fact, Annyseed is so otaku that it even comes with its own kanji subtitle. How hardcore is that? I will admit, though, that this is a slightly incongruous detail since the story takes place in The Isle of Skye … which looks, more or less, like the British Isles. Celtic runes would’ve been more appropriate.

Although she looks like she’s a pre-teen, Annyseed, our title character, is much older. She became a vampire at an early age, which permanently stunted her physical maturity at the age of 15. We join her in the modern day. Trust me: despite presence of decrepit buildings and characters wearing clothes straight out of Oliver Twist, her diary entry, as well as the bare midriffs on teenager girls, places this comic in 2009. This makes Annyseed 70 years old and eligible for social security if she were a human.

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El Santo vs. The Vampire Women: School Bites

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Names carry with them the heavy weight of expectations. Say your name is Charlotte Webb, like the heroine of School Bites. Surely you should be spending your days hanging around in the rafters of some barnyard and spinning words like “radiant” or “some pig.” Not so with Charlotte. Perhaps that was her destiny, but it all changed that fateful day she she found out she was a vampire.

This may be why she changes her name to Cherri Creeper. Sure, it still sounds like she should be a rollergirl with the Yakima Valley Vixens instead, but it can passably be a vampire’s name, too. Plus she’s got a cherry embroidered in her t-shirt. That counts for something.

Speaking of names, School Bites is written by Holly Golightly, who by all rights should be a Bond Girl rather than a comic book creator. I was delighted to find out that Ms. Golightly already had a few comics in print, most with gothic overtones: Nightmare Theatre, Archie Comics’ Sabrina, and Vampfire. When not drawing comic books, she’s apparently living the life and dressing up in skull tees like a real life Abby Scuito (and I think I just might get my ass kicked with that last comment). According to her site, Ms. Golightly also likes to be referred to as “Holly G”, which I won’t be using in this review unless it’s preceded with “The Divine.”

Personal preferences.

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El Santo vs. The Vampire Women: Eerie Cuties

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We open Eerie Cuties with a segment called “EC Intro.” I had hoped would be an homage to EC Comics but instead turns out to just mean “Eerie Cutie Intro.” Quelle dommage. A kid, who sorta looks like a young Duke from GI Joe, gets chased around by two cute vampire teenagers in jailbait miniskirts who look like they should be at a convention for magical girl manga cosplayers.

The taller, raven-haired girl is named Layla. She also wears an exasperated look 24-7, to the point that I think a permanent giant sweat drop should be attached to her head next to her living skull barrette. Before you can say you’ve got a natural, natural, natural desire to meet an actual, actual, actual vampire, Layla digs her fangs into young Duke for a morning snack.

Of course, the bite is not fatal. (It’s tough to sympathize with vampires when they’re being emotionally manipulative mass murderers.) Bites only induce a temporary coma and a bout of memory loss. However, Nina, her purple-haired sister and the star of Eerie Cuties, still plays the part of the noble vampire: she never sups on human blood, only cherry filled chocolates. So while Nina is at low risk of contracting trichinellosis, she does run a high risk of Type 2 Diabetes.

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