Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake: The Laughing Corpse #1 (of 5)

I have to admit right up front that I've never read any of the numerous books written by Laurell K. Hamilton about Anita Blake, who's known as The Executioner.

Anita lives in a world where supernatural creatures are a fact of life, and vampires and werewolves are common. Anita is a multi-talented woman - she's an Animator, which has nothing to do with cartoons. She can raise the dead as zombies, which comes in handy if you need to interview someone to find out how they were killed. She's also a court-appointed vampire executioner, so she obviously leads a busy life.

The comic is an adaptation of the original story by Hamilton, with Jess Rufner handling the writing, and comics veteran Ron Lim providing the art, with colors by June Chung.

And when did Lim start channeling John Byrne? Some of the faces look like they were lifted right from Byrne's playbook - see page 4 for several good examples. Despite the similarities, Lim is no Byrne. Lim's art has always been solid, though unexceptional - he's a solid, dependable artist. You rarely get anything flashy from Lim, but it is a professional job.

As to the story, it's a decent beginning, as several different storylines are put in place, including a strange request from a wealthy man, the trials of being a bridesmaid, and an investigation into a gruesome murder.

Perhaps it's natural in an adaptation like this, but the comic leans a bit too hard on captions to tell the story - the first two pages are especially word-heavy. My only other major criticism is that the comic doesn't end or lead into the next issue - they just seem to have chopped off the story virtually in mid-sentence. Perhaps it was originally intended for a different format? Whatever the case, this should have been fixed.

This isn't a bad comic at all, and I suspect fans of the original books will enjoy it a lot. I'm not sure if superhero comics fan will care for a book with virtually no action and a smattering of horror, but it's certainly worth a try - although they might be better advised to wait for the collection.

Grade: B-