Would you raise the dead for one million dollars?
Would you do it if you had to kill someone in the process?
These are two of the fundamental questions Anita Blake must negotiate at the beginning of The Laughing Corpse–Animator.
Her ruminations are set against a cascade of disturbing image after disturbing image–a child’s bloody hand print, a zombified sex slave, half-eaten corpses. And what the story lacks in finality (the ending is not so much an ending but a beginning), it more than makes up for with top-notch writing, sharp visuals, and the undeniable sense that there is a profound, immediate danger lurking behind every panel, behind every page.
Danger, in fact, might be far too subtle a word for the transgressions that manifest throughout: Sheer, undeniable malevolence is the order of the day–families are ripped apart (literally and figuratively), and even moments of supposed repose are predicated by an intense discomfiture, one that leaves the reader at once thoroughly perplexed and breathless with anticipation.
But the real conflict, the real source of dynamic tension, is Anita Blake herself. This is a truly literary creation–she is the epitome of irony, struggling to maintain some semblance of a Christian soul, of a “normal” Christian life, while at the same time battling hordes of the undead and reconciling some truly dark practices–necromancy, reanimation, human sacrifice.
Blake’s fundamental crisis of existence is exacerbated by a number of supporting characters, namely Manny Rodriguez, a longtime friend who Anita comes to learn has murdered human beings in the pursuit of the dark arts, and Jean-Claude, the newly crowned Master Vampire of St. Louis (yes, St. Louis), with whom Blake shares an uneasy truce and an even uneasier attraction.
Manny’s admission is devastating for Blake–she must now question how she will judge her friend and mentor. Can she remain close to him? Should she tell his wife? Should she exact some measure of revenge?
Her relationship with, and reluctant rejection of, Jean-Claude is indicative of the larger problems Blake faces day in and day out–to reject Jean-Claude, in a sense, is to reject the world of the undead, to reject the world in which she is perhaps more comfortable and for which she is better suited. Truly, Blake struggles to find not only her place in the world of the living, but also her place among the walking deceased.
Blake’s complications become almost comical as the story unfolds: She struggles to find answers as to why an undead creature is walking the streets of St. Louis, devouring people seemingly at will and without a meaningful end. She seems to fight an increasingly unwinnable fight–whom can she trust? How then to measure friend from foe? And how far will she allow herself to go to save the life of a child who may already be dead?
As a first-time reader of the Marvel adaptations of Laurell K. Hamilton’s novels, I was quickly and efficiently brought up to speed, thanks in large part to Jessica Ruffner’s excellent narration. The spirit of the thing is certainly Hamilton’s, but Ruffner does a masterly job of translating Hamilton’s florid prose into ruthlessly economical dialog and exposition.
Penciler Ron Lim, one of the old gods of the Marvel Universe, reaffirms his creative potency, his ability to flawlessly execute a coherent sequence of breathtaking (and unsettling!) images. Lim certainly has come a long way from drawing space opera in the Silver Surfer…
So what are we readers to make of this series? As I said, it does not end well–at least, not in a traditional sense. The last panel launches us and Anita headlong (and, in Anita’s case, out of ammo) into the next arc, into Blake’s next set of trials. So we don’t get closure, and we don’t know precisely how things will go for Anita Blake.
But we do survive the story.
We, like Blake, survive to fight the good fight, to wake up tomorrow and begin the process of self-discovery, the internal and external battles for a sense of self and the right to live, to thrive, to flourish.
I highly recommend this series to anyone who is willing to take a very darksome, difficult journey. Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, is there to protect you, but not always; sometimes, or perhaps more often than you’d like, you WILL have to fend for yourself, and that, I think, is part of the overwhelming appeal both of Hamilton’s novels and of Marvels adaptations.
