Anita Blake Vampire Hunter

I enjoyed reading Anita Blake’s Vampire Hunter and would recommended anyone that is a fan of vampire literature to check out the comic book. Originally the story was the novel and later converted into the comic book form. This allows the author to broaden the audience to comic book fans that would not normally read the novel. However, converting the text of a novel to a comic book can be problematic. One reason is the in order to fit the text into the comic book the speech bubbles of characters tend to be very long. Since this is one of the first comic books I have read I sometimes had trouble reading without getting lost in the pictures. This confusion may not occur if you are familiar with the style of comic books. Another reason the conversion from novel to comic book could be problematic because the artist doesn’t correlates the text and pictures very well. Often the text describes Anita as an extremely tough and strong individual, on the other hand the artist illustrates Anita as sad and sober in the same picture. An example of this is when she is telling Theresa to get out of her way and in the picture she has he arms crossed and looks like she is going to cry. The artist depiction doesn’t fit the scene and should have been altered. One criticism of the comic book is that the text and illustration don’t always lineup correctly. However, the artist does come up with some really amazing drawings such as the guy’s arm attempting to grab Anita in the first few pages of volume one. This shows the speed and agility of Anita Blake’s character. Also I noticed that the artwork displayed in the story is aimed at the male gaze. The body of Anita Blake is drawn by the artist as the stereotypical attractive female. Certain characteristics of Anita Blake are exaggerated in order to enhance the stories male gaze factor such as her large breasts and skinny waist. Another example of the male gaze in this book is shower scene in volume two. During this scene the whole page is just Anita Blake taking a shower. This seems unnecessary and doesn’t pertain to the story at all and most likely is there to increase the stories male gaze. I also noticed during volume one that Anita Blake is sometimes were a penguin shirt. She wears several different penguin shirts throughout the book. Without reading the actually novel the reader may be confused by the reoccurring theme, however in the book it describes how she is in love with penguins. I thought it may represent how she is cold blooded because she is a vampire hunter. This is another example of how some of the storyline from the novel is not converted well into the comic book series.