“Alabaster: Wolves†is a comic that comes from World Fantasy Award-Nominated author Caitlin R. Kiernan that has an intriguing sounding plot. Too bad this plot deserves to be staked with silver and crucified.
The comic is about Dancy Flammarion, a homeless albino demon slayer with a deadly guardian angel. Everywhere she goes death follows. This time the werewolves are coming out in full force and Dancy has to find a way to stop them without her angel.
The story tries to make itself like a righteous and tortured soul trying to rid the world of evil, but instead it comes off as some super religious emo-teen killing werewolves. She just goes from one boring episodic situation to another. It all follows the same pattern: Whine, exposition, battle.
That’s another problem with the comic. The characters are so poorly written and flat that there’s no reason to care about them. They’re just there to serve a purpose and then to be scrapped to the side when they’re not needed. This is especially true with Dancy’s angel. Its only purpose is to show that Darcy had some way to kill people with in the past and to overcome her dependence on it. It, along with that one story plot, is not executed to the fullest and thus comes off as just some cool looking killer angel that belongs on a metal band’s album.
The art by Steve Lieber is the comic’s only redeeming quality. The Lieber has managed to take what was supposed to be a dark story and make it look as ugly, dark and creepy as possible. Everything from the characters to the backgrounds is well drawn and there is no detail left out to make the reader not question the artist’s sanity. The most striking image is the angel. Even though it looks more like a fallen angel with black wings and multiple heads than an angel it fits Dancy’s character perfectly.
“Alabaster: Wolves†is a boring and self righteous story with werewolves thrown in and a whiny teen that is a chore to read. The art does a better job of telling the story than the actual narrative does.
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