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Boy vampiro #1-4
Vampire Boy
Left nameless by his father and sentenced to eternal life by a trick of fate and fortune, the protagonist of Carlos Trillo and Eduardo Risso's Vampire Boy has spent fifty centuries in a body that never ages, locked in an eternal struggle with a rival as immortal as he. Acclaimed writer Carlos Trillo teams with legendary artist Eduardo Risso (100 Bullets) to produce a poignantly engrossing twist on the classic vampire mythos, now collected in English for the first time.
474 pages, Paperback
First published November 13, 2001
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About the author
Carlos Trillo
374 books84 followersCarlos Trillo was an Argentine comic book writer. Trillo began a prolific career as writer already at the age of 20, writing his first story for Patoruzú magazine. Trillo created, together with Horacio Altuna, the strip El Loco Chávez, which appeared every day at the back of the newspaper Clarín from July 26, 1975 to November 10, 1987. After that, the strip was replaced by El Negro Blanco, which he wrote for the artist Ernesto García Seijas until September 1993. He married writer Ema Wolf and had two children. He participated on the creation of several comics including Cybersix in 1992, with Carlos Meglia, and the Clara de noche and Cicca Dum Dum series with Jordi Bernet. He has also collaborated with Alberto Breccia and Alejandro Dolina. In 1999, his work La grande arnaque won the Prize for Scenario at the Angoulême International Comics Festival. He died in London on May 8, 2011, while on holiday with his wife.
(Source: Wikipedia)
(Source: Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
September 15, 2011
This is sad. What started out as a great idea - an immortal 5000 year old vampire in the body of a 10 year old boy wants to die - resulted in a rather disappointing comic book with some great art, but terrible storytelling.
Everything that happens seems to be forced so hard that it's become quite impossible to indulge in the story. The dialogue is extremely explanatory, as if every character needs to tell the reader what he's doing, while he is doing it. Most characters are so flat you want to cry. While reading, I intended to give this book two stars because of Risso's artwork, but the numerous plot holes make me believe the book isn't even worth one star.
I hear Carlos Trillo is an acclaimed writer, but I don't see why. I must admit I haven't read any of his other works, but I don't let it bother me: I don't intend to. He's lost me.
Everything that happens seems to be forced so hard that it's become quite impossible to indulge in the story. The dialogue is extremely explanatory, as if every character needs to tell the reader what he's doing, while he is doing it. Most characters are so flat you want to cry. While reading, I intended to give this book two stars because of Risso's artwork, but the numerous plot holes make me believe the book isn't even worth one star.
I hear Carlos Trillo is an acclaimed writer, but I don't see why. I must admit I haven't read any of his other works, but I don't let it bother me: I don't intend to. He's lost me.
November 23, 2011
This book collects the four volumes of Vampire Boy into English for the first time. It is one of a number of collaborations between the Argentinean creators - writer Carlos Trillo, who died earlier this year, and artist Eduardo Risso. This is a fairly early work for Risso from the early nineties and features some wonderful black & white art.
The book comes in at nearly 500 pages and while that gives us lots of lovely Risso art work to look at, it does mean that the story does drag slightly at times. But mostly it is great as we come to sympathise with the nameless boy and his heartbreaking existence. Unusually for a vampire tale, the sun, as previously mentioned, regenerates the vampires and while they can feed on blood the boy tends not to and can survive on normal food - but has to eat an awful lot of it. The book has a wide ranging canvas taking us from modern New York to New Orleans and London as well as flashbacks throughout history as the nature of the relationship between the boy and Ahmasi is explored. The boy comes across as a tired gentle soul who makes friends easily but not usually for long as Ahmasi will stop at nothing to reach him.
As I said previously, Risso's art is great and the use of shade and silhouette reminds me of the work of Frank Miller on Sin City round about the same time. There is a noirish element to the story too as Ahmasi works as a prostitute, is followed around by a lovestruck detective who she uses to track down the boy and generally seems to attract the seedier side of life. A welcome change of pace from the costumed antics of the American superheroes.
The book comes in at nearly 500 pages and while that gives us lots of lovely Risso art work to look at, it does mean that the story does drag slightly at times. But mostly it is great as we come to sympathise with the nameless boy and his heartbreaking existence. Unusually for a vampire tale, the sun, as previously mentioned, regenerates the vampires and while they can feed on blood the boy tends not to and can survive on normal food - but has to eat an awful lot of it. The book has a wide ranging canvas taking us from modern New York to New Orleans and London as well as flashbacks throughout history as the nature of the relationship between the boy and Ahmasi is explored. The boy comes across as a tired gentle soul who makes friends easily but not usually for long as Ahmasi will stop at nothing to reach him.
As I said previously, Risso's art is great and the use of shade and silhouette reminds me of the work of Frank Miller on Sin City round about the same time. There is a noirish element to the story too as Ahmasi works as a prostitute, is followed around by a lovestruck detective who she uses to track down the boy and generally seems to attract the seedier side of life. A welcome change of pace from the costumed antics of the American superheroes.
November 29, 2010
While this was the most unusual take on the vampire concept I've seen in quite a while, there were numerous plot holes, mostly having to do with the running battle between the central character and his nemesis. The primary story was really great, but the back story and the epilogue just didn't work for me.
Inverting some of the typical vampire tropes was very interesting, but at first it makes the story a tiny bit confusing. The "vampires" are not vampires in the traditional sense at all, but do drink blood upon occasion, especially under stress. The difficulty with this method of telling a story is that the reader doesn't know what to expect, a bit too much of the time. This matters most during the historic section and the ending, as the reader has to take elements of the story entirely on faith. We just don't know what these pseudo-vampires really can and cannot do.
Another problem I had with the book was the artist's tendency to use offensive racial "shortcuts" in his art, caricatures of a kind not common in American comics for many years, for the simple reason that many people do find them offensive. For example, every African or African American character in the book who was not described as a "mulatto" was shown as having pale lips so large that they could be used as a pigeon roost. "Mulatto" (i.e., half-Caucasian, for those who are unfamiliar with this archaic racial term) characters were allowed to have more "human" features. This kind of artwork was common in, say, 1940, but so were segregated drinking fountains.
Inverting some of the typical vampire tropes was very interesting, but at first it makes the story a tiny bit confusing. The "vampires" are not vampires in the traditional sense at all, but do drink blood upon occasion, especially under stress. The difficulty with this method of telling a story is that the reader doesn't know what to expect, a bit too much of the time. This matters most during the historic section and the ending, as the reader has to take elements of the story entirely on faith. We just don't know what these pseudo-vampires really can and cannot do.
Another problem I had with the book was the artist's tendency to use offensive racial "shortcuts" in his art, caricatures of a kind not common in American comics for many years, for the simple reason that many people do find them offensive. For example, every African or African American character in the book who was not described as a "mulatto" was shown as having pale lips so large that they could be used as a pigeon roost. "Mulatto" (i.e., half-Caucasian, for those who are unfamiliar with this archaic racial term) characters were allowed to have more "human" features. This kind of artwork was common in, say, 1940, but so were segregated drinking fountains.
July 12, 2018
The fantastic art by Risso is not enough to keep this story from feeling bloated by a couple hundred pages. The narrative is bogged down by thought bubble exposition, and by the end, it feels like the same events have transpired multiple times. Some of the ideas are quite good, but then Trillo ignores the rules he sets up, creating storytelling problems that simply didn't need to exist. Although it is a decent comic, it feels needlessly padded at almost 500 pages, and a good editor would have combined some of the redundant scenes and significantly condensed the work down to a more manageable length.
May 19, 2021
An interesting story with a realistic take on immortality, also liked a majority of Risso’s art however I had issue with how he drew the black characters. The take on a millennia long blood feud is interesting and did like how clever the antagonist was from time to time.
May 26, 2017
An eternal struggle between two vampires and the people that get caught up in their maelstrom of violence. I enjoyed it, a bit lengthy but the art and plot was riveting.
June 10, 2017
Fed oplevelse både visuelt og litterært - skønt gensyn med min gamle lidenskab for tegneserier - nu opgraderet til graphic novels ❤️
July 26, 2022
I liked the artwork and characters designs but the story was a mess and the characters were very flat
August 5, 2019
Prima che i vampiri diventassero una moda, agli inizi degli anni ’90 i 2 argentini se ne escono con la visione più inusuale su questi affascinanti esseri delle tenebre che probabilmente leggerete.
Un bambino senza nome di 10 anni, figlio del faraone Cheope, in seguito ad una peste diventa misteriosamente immortale insieme a quella che poi sarà la sua eterna rivale: Ahmasi. Entrambi hanno la tipica forza e velocità sovraumana, sono immortali e indistruttibili, si rigenerano, anzi, alla luce del sole. Dunque abbiamo a che fare con una rivalità che va avanti da 5000 anni e i due personaggi sono decisamente agli antipodi in quanto il protagonista ha tutte le caratteristiche di un bambino ma è saggio e pieno di cultura, praticamente è egli stesso già in perenne contrasto, mentre Ahmasi è una 25enne prostituta, sanguinaria e manipolatrice, con deliri di onnipotenza tipicamente egiziani. Infatti è proprio lei vuole morto(per sempre) il bambino per essere l’unica immortale ed assurgere allo status divino, come i faraoni.
Essenzialmente sono più vicini agli highlander che ai vampiri, d’altronde non hanno bisogno di succhiare il sangue. Dopo 5000 anni lei è sempre convinta che il dono ricevuto sia una manna dal cielo, il bambino invece lo crede una maledizione, ma entrambi hanno lo stesso scopo: trovare il modo per far fuori un immortale e la raison d’être del bambino è simile a quella di Manji.
La narrazione ricorre frequentemente ai flashback su periodi storici più disparati e soprattutto sull’antico Egitto, mostrandoci non solo tutte le volte in cui sono morti e risorti ma anche i misteri che ruotano attorno a questa immortalità; subentrerà ad un certo punto anche una setta di custodi del sapere à la Codice da Vinci. Molto spesso si mostrano i pensieri di entrambi, ma sono quelli del bambino a costituire uno spunto per tematiche più complesse come la vita e la morte, l’eterna fanciullezza, il valore della storia.
Ahmasi invece apporta quella vena sexy, erotica, con sesso a volontà e nudi che non possono mancare in un fumetto di Trillo. Inoltre è davvero spietato e crudo a modo suo, soprattutto nei confronti del lettore che inevitabilmente si ritroverà a provare compassione per la storia del bambino e dei suoi compagni che si susseguono e puntualmente verranno brutalmente uccisi.
Eros e Thanatos, topoi inflazionati ma sempre affascinanti e ancora di più quando c’è la mano di Trillo dato che le sue storie non si prendono mai sul serio e sono perennemente in bilico tra il grottesco e il surreale con frequenti cambi di registro.
Una storia che di base avrebbe tutte le carte in tavola per essere pesante e morbosa ma invece è incalzante e divertente.
Un’altra straordinaria dote di questo fumetto è la capacità di riscrivere la storia e il sincretismo mistico-storico che si viene a creare.
Ovviamente senza Risso tutto ciò non avrebbe la benché minima forza espressiva, il suo solito b/n tagliato si sposa perfettamente alla storia e, anzi, conferisce il giusto mood con un disegno cartoonesco, minimalista, dai connotati noir e dark. Lo storytelling è molto cinematografico e basti pensare al capitolo “Distruzione” in cui Ahmasi non si vede mai di faccia. Le ombre poi fanno da padrone, nonostante il tratto non sia tanto stilizzato ed espressionista come in Borderline(che tra l’altro preferisco). In pratica molto più disegnato di Borderline e, dato che uno farà il paragone inevitabilmente con Miller di Sin City, ancora di più rispetto a quest’ultimo. Infine la costruzione della tavola è abbastanza classica e le inquadrature ardite non sono tante quante il dinamicissimo 100 Bullets, ma in ogni caso Vampire Boy non abbisogna di tutto ciò parlando d’altro.
Mi sento in dovere di sottolineare che gli scontri non sono epici ma per lo più brevi e distaccati e il bambino non fa altro che difendersi o fuggire da Ahmasi per quasi tutta la durata, infatti servono solo per creare tensione.
In fin dei conti si tratta di una lettura trascinante, portata avanti da ottimi personaggi, che – con le giuste precauzioni – potrebbe essere effettuata da tutti.
8/10
Un bambino senza nome di 10 anni, figlio del faraone Cheope, in seguito ad una peste diventa misteriosamente immortale insieme a quella che poi sarà la sua eterna rivale: Ahmasi. Entrambi hanno la tipica forza e velocità sovraumana, sono immortali e indistruttibili, si rigenerano, anzi, alla luce del sole. Dunque abbiamo a che fare con una rivalità che va avanti da 5000 anni e i due personaggi sono decisamente agli antipodi in quanto il protagonista ha tutte le caratteristiche di un bambino ma è saggio e pieno di cultura, praticamente è egli stesso già in perenne contrasto, mentre Ahmasi è una 25enne prostituta, sanguinaria e manipolatrice, con deliri di onnipotenza tipicamente egiziani. Infatti è proprio lei vuole morto(per sempre) il bambino per essere l’unica immortale ed assurgere allo status divino, come i faraoni.
Essenzialmente sono più vicini agli highlander che ai vampiri, d’altronde non hanno bisogno di succhiare il sangue. Dopo 5000 anni lei è sempre convinta che il dono ricevuto sia una manna dal cielo, il bambino invece lo crede una maledizione, ma entrambi hanno lo stesso scopo: trovare il modo per far fuori un immortale e la raison d’être del bambino è simile a quella di Manji.
La narrazione ricorre frequentemente ai flashback su periodi storici più disparati e soprattutto sull’antico Egitto, mostrandoci non solo tutte le volte in cui sono morti e risorti ma anche i misteri che ruotano attorno a questa immortalità; subentrerà ad un certo punto anche una setta di custodi del sapere à la Codice da Vinci. Molto spesso si mostrano i pensieri di entrambi, ma sono quelli del bambino a costituire uno spunto per tematiche più complesse come la vita e la morte, l’eterna fanciullezza, il valore della storia.
Ahmasi invece apporta quella vena sexy, erotica, con sesso a volontà e nudi che non possono mancare in un fumetto di Trillo. Inoltre è davvero spietato e crudo a modo suo, soprattutto nei confronti del lettore che inevitabilmente si ritroverà a provare compassione per la storia del bambino e dei suoi compagni che si susseguono e puntualmente verranno brutalmente uccisi.
Eros e Thanatos, topoi inflazionati ma sempre affascinanti e ancora di più quando c’è la mano di Trillo dato che le sue storie non si prendono mai sul serio e sono perennemente in bilico tra il grottesco e il surreale con frequenti cambi di registro.
Una storia che di base avrebbe tutte le carte in tavola per essere pesante e morbosa ma invece è incalzante e divertente.
Un’altra straordinaria dote di questo fumetto è la capacità di riscrivere la storia e il sincretismo mistico-storico che si viene a creare.
Ovviamente senza Risso tutto ciò non avrebbe la benché minima forza espressiva, il suo solito b/n tagliato si sposa perfettamente alla storia e, anzi, conferisce il giusto mood con un disegno cartoonesco, minimalista, dai connotati noir e dark. Lo storytelling è molto cinematografico e basti pensare al capitolo “Distruzione” in cui Ahmasi non si vede mai di faccia. Le ombre poi fanno da padrone, nonostante il tratto non sia tanto stilizzato ed espressionista come in Borderline(che tra l’altro preferisco). In pratica molto più disegnato di Borderline e, dato che uno farà il paragone inevitabilmente con Miller di Sin City, ancora di più rispetto a quest’ultimo. Infine la costruzione della tavola è abbastanza classica e le inquadrature ardite non sono tante quante il dinamicissimo 100 Bullets, ma in ogni caso Vampire Boy non abbisogna di tutto ciò parlando d’altro.
Mi sento in dovere di sottolineare che gli scontri non sono epici ma per lo più brevi e distaccati e il bambino non fa altro che difendersi o fuggire da Ahmasi per quasi tutta la durata, infatti servono solo per creare tensione.
In fin dei conti si tratta di una lettura trascinante, portata avanti da ottimi personaggi, che – con le giuste precauzioni – potrebbe essere effettuata da tutti.
8/10
November 28, 2011
Quite a tome for a graphic novel, this hefty book chronicled the life and times of 'unnamed boy' and his adventures throughout time as he fought with a similarly long-lived and completely psychotic foe. I would immediately note that although it is called vampire boy, and the kid is immortal and has fangs and drains blood, the 'vampires' represented here are not your classic coffin dwelling undead, but more like a cross between vamps/highlander and the mummy.
Although the story mainly takes place in modern (or relatively modern) times, there are many flash-backs to previous eras where the two endless foes battle each other, but never successfully. Now, however, the boy is tired of fighting and watching those he loves die. He's ready to find out the secret of ending both of their immortality curse.
His foe, a crazy priestess, is a total psycho. Her one desire is to destroy the boy so that she will be the only immortal, and become a goddess. There is absolutely nothing likeable about her character at all. In fact, I really detested her. She used her very well-endowed body to seduce every man she met and no man was a match for that (except one gay guy). It was very insulting.
However, there were other likeable female characters in the story which somewhat redeemed it. There was also a lot of death. I wouldn't really recommend this book to anyone, there were some interesting aspects to it, but mainly it was gratuitous violence and sex.
The boy was opposite to his psycho stalker in nearly every way. Being 10 when he became immortal he would never reach puberty and therefore love (and sex) remained somewhat a mystery to him. He often became frustrated when characters showed love, as it was something he was and would always be denied. He was also, unlike the snake goddess, not completely sure of his identity or goal in life, he had not even a name to form an identity around.
Overall, some interesting thoughts, but mainly wouldn't recommend to book-clubs or casual fans of vampires or comic books.
Although the story mainly takes place in modern (or relatively modern) times, there are many flash-backs to previous eras where the two endless foes battle each other, but never successfully. Now, however, the boy is tired of fighting and watching those he loves die. He's ready to find out the secret of ending both of their immortality curse.
His foe, a crazy priestess, is a total psycho. Her one desire is to destroy the boy so that she will be the only immortal, and become a goddess. There is absolutely nothing likeable about her character at all. In fact, I really detested her. She used her very well-endowed body to seduce every man she met and no man was a match for that (except one gay guy). It was very insulting.
However, there were other likeable female characters in the story which somewhat redeemed it. There was also a lot of death. I wouldn't really recommend this book to anyone, there were some interesting aspects to it, but mainly it was gratuitous violence and sex.
The boy was opposite to his psycho stalker in nearly every way. Being 10 when he became immortal he would never reach puberty and therefore love (and sex) remained somewhat a mystery to him. He often became frustrated when characters showed love, as it was something he was and would always be denied. He was also, unlike the snake goddess, not completely sure of his identity or goal in life, he had not even a name to form an identity around.
Overall, some interesting thoughts, but mainly wouldn't recommend to book-clubs or casual fans of vampires or comic books.
February 2, 2011
Best known in the United States for co-creating (with Brian Azzarello) the popular crime series 100 Bullets, the Argentinian Risso previously established a reputation during the 80s and 90s in his native country and throughout Europe. Vampire Boy (Boy Vampiro) first appeared in 1992 and features the culmination of the many millennia confrontation between the unnamed son of Pharaoh Khufu (Cheops) and the Pharaoh's favorite concubine Ahmasi. Not traditional vampires, the immortals only occasionally require blood and the sun actually replenishes them. The Prince, physically trapped at the age of ten since the time of his transformation, reawakens after 50 years buried under the streets of New York to challenge his eternal nemesis. Risso's moody, graphic work and Trillo's nuanced characters elevate this unusual horror tale beyond the typical vampire story, collected here for the first time in English.
March 10, 2017
Carlos Trillon ja Eduardo Risson "Vampire Boy" (Dark Horse / SAF Comics, 2010) kertoo egyptiläisen faaraon pojasta ja häntä syvästi vihaavasta papittaresta Ahmasista, joiden harteille on langennut ikuisen elämän kirous. Nyt kaksikko on ajautunut vuosisatojen halki etenevään leikkiin, jossa ensiksimainittu yrittää löytää paikan jossa voisi elää rauhassa ja jälkimmäinen yrittää päästä hänestä eroon mitä brutaaleimmilla tavoilla. Nyt sitten valmistaudutaan lopulliseen välienselvittelyyn.
Sarjakuva esittelee verenimijät hieman erilaisessa valossa; valkosipulit ja sen sellaiset on unohdettu kokonaan, auringonvalolla on tyystin päinvastainen vaikutus kuin vampyyrimyyteissä yleensä ja vertakin hörpätään aika satunnaisesti.
Mustavalkoinen kuvitus toi paikoitellen mieleen Frank Millerin ja "Sin Cityn". Käsikirjoituksensa puolesta "Vampire Boy" olisi voinut kaivata pientä tiivistämistä, etenkin kun loppupuolella homma alkoi menettää hieman vetoaan ja toisti aikaisempia kuvioita, mutta ihan mainio kauhusarjakuva tämä silti oli.
Sarjakuva esittelee verenimijät hieman erilaisessa valossa; valkosipulit ja sen sellaiset on unohdettu kokonaan, auringonvalolla on tyystin päinvastainen vaikutus kuin vampyyrimyyteissä yleensä ja vertakin hörpätään aika satunnaisesti.
Mustavalkoinen kuvitus toi paikoitellen mieleen Frank Millerin ja "Sin Cityn". Käsikirjoituksensa puolesta "Vampire Boy" olisi voinut kaivata pientä tiivistämistä, etenkin kun loppupuolella homma alkoi menettää hieman vetoaan ja toisti aikaisempia kuvioita, mutta ihan mainio kauhusarjakuva tämä silti oli.
January 28, 2013
Meh. I like Risso's art. Too bad that's nearly all this book has going for it. The setup is interesting. I'll give it points for that. But only that. I still have no idea why vampire anything got thrown into this mix. It has absolutely nothing to do with the story and rarely comes into play. Even when it does, it serves no purpose to the plot. The same can be said for more than half of the pages and even more of the dialog. If the point was to show what the characters tell you so often -- that being immortal is boring (and repetitive) -- then pop that achievement. Otherwise, you spend a lot of time covering the same ground with no real progress, and what progress there is seems undone by the ending. Kept reading, hoping it would get better. Ah, well.
July 7, 2013
Never before has a graphic novel with this much sex bored me so much. How many times does the main character complain because he can't die? Or enjoy the pleasure of sex because he has been in a 10 year old body for 5000 years? It doesn't matter, because most sane readers will no longer care about the story by the time they get a third of the way through. The art is nice, very stylized, with some interesting design and creative uses of black. I'm sure Trillo has written better stuff, as this story could have been done in 30 pages instead of 500. In a way I'm thankful for having read this. It teaches me that I shouldn't buy a graphic novel online just because it's cheap and has a high page count.
August 5, 2014
Amazing artwork by Eduardo Risso. But the story was one of the most inane things I've ever read and kept circling around and around and around and around, making the same points over and over and over and over and over...Risso's artwork throughout is on a level with that of Frank Miller, but it's too bad he couldn't be paired with a writer more deserving of this level of craft. The two stars are ONLY for the artwork. If the story had been just a bit less juvenile, maybe the whole thing might have been worth more than that.
April 27, 2011
The chase was better than the resolution in this title featuring great art and a compelling story. The graphic violence, prostitution, and stripping means that we will place it in our adult graphic novel collection rather than teen.
February 19, 2011
Honestly, it wasn't that bad. But I couldn't bring myself to finish it. Just felt like I was wasting my time.
March 16, 2011
Having read and loved other Trillo/Risso books, I'm very excited to embark on this massive tome. Argentine comics REPRESENT!
October 25, 2011
Fantastic art by Ed Risso and a story that is sad, sexy, and scary.
July 29, 2016
Argentina at his best comic story !!!!!!
December 8, 2010
Russo's art is great. story is ok.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews