Night Breed is a taut big story told on three small stages. It is essentially in the ‘vampirism as time-travel’ vein that so appeals to me. The vampires appear to be as much werebeast as vampire and are linked to a primordial mother goddess. The narrative does not attempt to tell too much, but rather offers glimpses of a terrible secret.

My one complaint, as with many comics I have recently read, is a lack of period detail, this time with the art. And again, I wonder, is it by chance or design. The second scene opens with two runaway slaves outside of Lacombe Louisiana in July, 1857. The man and the woman are both dressed like 1950s hipsters from Harlem. Of course perhaps the art editor said to the artist, “Hey man, white people cannot envision clothing on blacks that predates the Cotton Club in Harlem. Don’t even sketch these people in period rags, or they’ll think we’re suggesting two homeless Jamaicans got sucked into a time-bending vortex.

I enjoyed Night Breed quite a lot. To me it makes the most of its brief length by omitting pretentious back story and getting right to it.