The first issue of Blood Commandment introduced us to Ezra, a single father and widow raising his teenage son, Wil, in a remote cabin out in the woods. He teaches Wil how to hunt and be self sufficient, and whilst they occasionally visit the nearby mountain town they keep to themselves. We learned that this is due to Ezra being a vampire, and that he's using the valley forest where he lives to stay out of the direct sunlight, a perfect little home in which to raise his son in peace. However, an evil from his past has caught up with him.
This issue really starts to move the story forward in quick and exciting ways. Last issue I mentioned how writer and artist Szymon Kudranski creates a very slow, cinematic style to the book, where we have long lingering scenes where the art directs the flow in a way that I've rarely seen. This is still present here, and this issue has some fantastic moments of visual presentation, but now that we've been introduced to these characters and the set-up for the plot scenes more a little bit quicker, and we start to get into the meat of things.
Half the book is spent with the sheriff, who finds a mutilated wolf on his way in to work (just a head and spine left laying in the middle of the road). Soon after, he's informed of the disappearance of local store owner, Dewey, who we saw being taken by a mystery figure last issue. He goes around the two, investigating the shop, talking to Dewey's wife, and eventually decides to head out to speak to Ezra. These parts of the book have a slower pace to them, with the sheriff's introductory scene being a series of panels of him getting up, shaving, buttoning his shirt, grabbing his gun. It's slow, it shows the monotony of his routine.
In contrast, Ezra's scenes have more energy to them, in part because he knows that there's another vampire coming for him and Wil. He's preparing to fight, he's on edge, and because of that his scenes have a similar tightly wound energy to them. We spend a little time with the antagonistic vampire too, seeing him close in on the family. It's in these moments that the narration gives us some insight into the vampires of this story, how they work, what they're capable of. Considering vampire rules can vary from project to project it's nice that we're being given important information before things really kick off. And kick-off they do.
Once the action begins we get some fantastic moments of visual flair. Kudranski creates some fantastic panels that take up huge portions of the page that showcase the speed and strength of the vampire, and there are a couple of splash pages and double page spreads that look absolutely stunning. If this is what the rest of the series is going to be, this violent, beautifully presented fight to survive, then this series is going to be a stunning book to look at once it's done.
Kudranski's art has two distinct looks in this issue, created through use of colour. The daytime segments are brown and sepia in tone, with very muted other colours seeping through. It creates an almost black and white look to it, whilst the nighttime segments of the book is done in blues and greys. You can tell exactly what time of the day you're in as soon as you see the page, and the two different looks also help to make each part of the story feel distinct. The daytime stuff of the sheriff looking into the disappearance have a different feel to the fight against the vampire at night, and when these two parts of the story eventually crash together the moving of the sheriff from the daytime visuals to those of the night are going to feel jarring and different in a wonderful way; a visual representation of him entering a world he shouldn't be in.
Blood Commandment is a series that I thought was going to be good after reading the first issue, but now I'm starting to think it might end up being one of those indie books that people are going to recommending and sharing around in the future. If the rest off the series can keep up this style and quality it's going to be a must read.
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