In Bad City, a hell hole on the edge of an unnamed desert, there’s a vigilante taking care of business with extreme prejudice. An unnamed vampire, walks the city streets at night, taking out human scum and making the City safer for your average, and not so average citizen. It’s the same thing night in night out, the body count is mounting, and there’s no end in sight. Bad City has a guardian angel, a guardian angel from the third ring of hell, and you know what, it’s working for the betterment of everyone who doesn’t come onto the Vamp’s radar. 

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is a two-part black and white comic, that revolves around a vampire lurking in the dark of the aptly named Bad City. We get 60 odd pages over the two issues, though some of those pages are blank for no apparent reason. There are the odd pages that include slashings of red colour to break from the general monochrome presentation, but they are the exception rather than the norm. While I’ll get more into the script later, the abiding take is nothing will be explained and everything is from the vampire’s perspective, which makes for a welcome to change to normal vampire books. 

The first thing I wanted to talk about when it comes to this two-part comic is the main character, an unnamed and unexplained vampire. I was intrigued as to how the creature is dressed, we either have full nun mode or full Islam mode, which has the reader wondering as to the origin of the blood sucker. Like everything else in this book that isn’t explained, it’s almost a slice of life thing going down, and I guess the intention here is to present a situation rather than tell something approaching a story.

There is no motivation given to the vampire, besides an innate blood lust and insatiable requirement for live victims, but for sure she is thinning the herd by removing the viler and violent members of the local community. There is a feeling she is playing judge, jury, and executioner and has found her niche. The comic isn’t long enough to introduce secondary characters such as police etc., so I have no idea if our gal’s late night escapades are going unnoticed or the victims simply are not being missed. By the time of our comics she sure has managed to mass a sizeable number of victims, and strangely collectives their jewellery as mementos as if she is some sort of psycho.

We get further exploration of the vampire via two scenes that help to define her vigilante stance. Firstly, she runs across a cat during one of her nightly jaunts. I was expecting the worse here, having spent some time watching Mike Flanagan’s Midnight Mass, but our vamper picks up the critter, pets it, and then lets it go on its way. Guess both are night time hunters, but this aspect isn’t explored. Secondly she spies a young boy in a window, but rather than stopping for a snack, she notes the kid and remarks that she will watch his progression to see how he might turn out. That would be about the extent of the character exploration for the book, but do we really require anything more?

Michael DeWeese’s artwork is simplistic yet infinitely stylish. It perfectly matches the script which isn’t really a straight forward narrative, but rather is a stream of consciousness. We’re talking swooping black and white panels, with no real angles to focus on with the characters, and simplistic presentation of buildings and other background details. Any number of panels would make good wall posters or tee designs, yes the art is that effective and is truly memorable. There’s nothing wasted in the artwork, everything works to capture the atmosphere of the script, and the general gothic feel of the book.

I should point out that while the book flows over two comics it isn’t a straight forward narrative that flows in any linear fashion. The first comic introduces us to the vampire, what she is up to, and her stance as the guardian angel of Bad City. Yes, I find the naming here slightly cring, perhaps more attention to detail would help, though I guess Amipour is trying to say the City could be any City, location isn’t important to the story. The second comic explains how the vampire comes to Bad City, and explicitly indicates she was seeking her death prior to finding her new purpose in life .. well undeath at least. 

Been waiting a while to read the comic, yes I know there was a movie made from the script, and I wasn’t disappointed when I finally sat down to get my read on. This is a fairly unique take on the vampire subgenre, no not just talking the viewpoint here, and kept my attention from first page to last. So naturally I am giving the comics a full recommendation, this is well worth checking out if you are into horror that is slightly off the beaten path. Guess the pertinent lesson we can derive here is, be careful how you deal with others, someone just might be watching and judging. Hey a theme and a lesson, comics are rocking folks, go get a copy today.