There’s something wonderfully modern yet classic about Violent Flowers #2, with story, art and lettering by Maria Llovet. Reading this issue (as well as last issue), I kept feeling like the books reminded me of something. The elegant art and the overwhelming atmosphere of dread throughout as the dread vampire Erzsébet always lurks in the background, obsessed with revenge on the other members of her eternal brood. The sensuality between the characters that’s nearly operatic at times – especially the final pages of last issue.
Then it hit me: Jean Rollin. Violent Flowers feels very much like the literary version of a Jean Rollin film. Anyone who has enjoyed the director’s work, such as the magnificent film The Shiver of the Vampires, with their mist-shrouded gothic locations, eccentric bloodthirsty vampires, heavy atmosphere and smoldering sexuality, will find much to love in this miniseries.
This issue, vampire and main character Carnelia continues her quest to find Erzsébet and dispatch her before she strikes again. At her side is Anna, the human the Vampire Queen stuck her with. Anna longs to be “turned” – made into a vampire – but she has to serve as an assistant/slave/food source for the other vampires first before she’s allowed to become part of their brood. The last thing Carnelia wants is Anna around and she doesn’t hide her feelings about it.
I love Carnelia. She and Erzsébet are both beautifully tragic characters, but where Erzsébet took her tragedy and turned it towards murder and destruction, Carnelia just wants to restore order so she can go back to living a peaceful solitary life. She’s fiercely independent and at odds with the Vampire Queen and I wonder if she might not strike back at the Queen once Erzsébet is dealt with.
Image Comics
As for Anna, she seems like the typical goth/emo girl on the surface. In any other book, she’d be the comic relief, stumbling around and constantly having to be rescued. But thankfully, she’s written far more complex than that. She doesn’t fully understand the supernatural world of vampires, witches and other assorted creatures, but she desperately wants to be part of it. We get more insights into her character this issue, her background filled with loss and heartache, and you start to understand why she wants to join the brood. She just wants to be part of something and it doesn’t hurt that Setka, one of the other vampires, is a high-profile fashion designer. Throughout the issue, Anna proudly wears a leather jacket with “SETKA” bedazzled on the back of it, more proof that the brood owns her heart, mind and soul.
Visually, this issue is a feast. I’ve always loved Maria Llovet’s unique art style, but this book feels transcendent, especially once Carnelia and Anna attend a supernatural party in Barcelona, Spain. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen The Triplets, a trio of occult sisters with dark elvish features and tentacles who are constantly aroused. They wear knockout dresses and look like they routinely danced to “Disco Inferno” in Studio 54 back in 1977. There’s also a nightmarish creature with a huge gelatinous tongue that looks like it walked out of some forbidden ancient tome of black magic.
One panel is especially stark and disturbing, a flashback to Erzsébet, her hands and mouth soaked with blood and an upside-down crucifix emblazoned on her forehead, standing with her palms extended outward in a pose that’s simultaneously Christ-like and Satanic. The panel really drives home how terrifying she is.
The issue also includes a page with information on Minoan Art, Ithaka, and other references made throughout the book and it’s both enlightening and entertaining in its own right.
Violent Flowers is one of the best vampire-themed books to be released in years and I’m enjoying it thoroughly so far. It sounds like when this miniseries ends, more are in the works, so hopefully we’ll get more of these characters for many years to come.
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