Reviewed by Sidra Roman

I have to say when I was handed this comic after Wizard World Dallas, I was leery. I don't mind self published/printed comics, but I have to admit that I have never seen one that was actually stapled 8 by 11 pieces of paper before. Typically when someone is self publishing, I see folded legal or ledger sized paper with the staples down the middle. This was different and to be honest the publishing quality made me delay on reading it, which is a shame because Dusk isn't a bad comic. It has a lot of potential to be something really good. The story is fairly solid, though the explanation of what type of blood is in the vials and its implications would have been better at the beginning of the comic instead of at the end. Plus, it would have given some better insight into the main character, Eve. Eve is a human enforcer for Ash, the head of the local vampire coven/masters. In this story Eve is to track down a rouge young vampire who turned an unsuspecting human so that she can find said human and offer him the coven's assistance in controlling his new found power/curse. Perhaps I'm too optimistic, or perhaps I've simply read too much fiction at this point, but I find the story as a whole a bit unfulfilling. I can only hope that this has some long term effects for Eve to justify the body count. While, yes, in real life death can be brutal and pointless, it makes no sense to just kill people in fiction without there being some point to it. It leaves the reader in a quandary as to how they're supposed to feel about the whole thing and why. The art is another thing that hinders this book. Sometimes with the inking and the art style it is difficult to be able to tell the difference between characters. I had to reread the first series of pages to figure out who was being killed because I couldn't tell from the art. It is honestly a little difficult to tell whether this is because the art itself was hard to make out or the excessive use of black space in the inking is the culprit. Additionally sometimes the action comes a little too fast in the art, giving the reader the impression of near teleportation, which may in fact be the case, given the characters and the preternatural phenomena being dealt with, but it's hard to tell for sure. These things however can be corrected with more time and effort. It's a nice manga style without being cutesy or chibi. In fact, if there were just more backgrounds actually drawn in lieu of black space, the effect would be dramatic. I understand that it's a vampire tale and as such it is happening in the dark and with the genre of story telling that the darkness is supposed to add ambiance; however more details inside the buildings would improve the feeling of setting. Overall, I would stay that Dusk is something to look for and see how it improves as time goes by. If you want to take a look at the comic go to the website at http://www.warpton.co.uk/

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