Review by Comix
“War is Hell.”
This particular sentiment has been muttered by every soldier who has survived the horrors of battle; every man that delved deep into the pit of patriotism and swam back up covered in blood. But what happens when the actions of one man on the war front literally brings Hell on Earth? Such is the premise of Baltimore, both a novel and a comic, about a man who inadvertently wakes up a centuries old vampire that curses all of Europe with a vampire sickness, causing the populace to turn on each other in a rage of blood lust. Though originally out in 2007 under the title Baltimore, or The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire, the work has become a solid, continuous series thanks to Dark Horse’s tenacious love for all things Mike Mignola, which makes sense. Mike Mignola is a bad-ass.
The whole series is centered around a WWI soldier named Captain Lord Henry Baltimore who one day leads a group of men to a righteous enemy battle in the middle of the night. Though his campaign was successful, he loses half his men and passes out in the field, only to wake up to a huge bat trying to eat him. What he doesn’t know is that the bat is actually a vampire and as he lunges for the winged fury with his bayonet, he rips out the bats eye and starts all kinds of trouble. Soon, it is revealed that the vampire is much older and powerful than once thought and in retaliation, he lets loose a wave of sickness that turns the infected into vampires. As Baltimore struggles with the guilt of being the harbinger of the apocalypse, he also finds that by the time he gets home, his family is dead, and his wife – well, the vampire kills her himself. It is here that Baltimore decides he’s done with this shit and goes on the hunt to find the his new enemy, now named The Red King Vampire, so he could splatter his brains all over the ground.
The comic Baltimore’s first incantation was actually not a comic, but an illustrated novel written by Christopher Golden and illustrated by Mike Mignola. Though it sounds like another fancy word for graphic novel, it’s actually closer to a Dante’s Divine Comedy type of book, where the story is accompanied by pictures. Sort of like a really bad-ass kids book with vampires and blood. But don’t mistake the format for something kiddy, the writing is beautiful and very-much gory, with a very poetic undertone similar to a modern Poe. Though Golden is responsible for the writing the novel out, it’s Mignola that is credited with creating the entire story. Why he didn’t write it himself is beyond me, but Golden does an excellent job of conveying the feeling of old-timey Gothic horror, so it’s not that much of an issue. Also, Mignola and Golden have known to work together pretty frequently, releasing two other novels, Joe Golem and the Drowning City and Father Gaetano’s Puppet Catechism, and collaborated on several Hellboy novels, so if you’re liking Baltimore, check out their other works.
After the novel, Baltimore took a bit of break for about three years, and in 2010 came back as a comic that has been going strong ever since. Once again, we find Mignola and Golden take up the mantle of writing the epic out, but unfortunately, Mignola does not illustrate the comics. He leaves that particular task to the ever talented Ben Stenbeck, who has also had a long history of working with Mignola on both Hellboy and other works. Of course, as a huge Mignola fan, I would kill to see him illustrate a comic again, but I’ll have to wait until the newest Hellboy – Hellboy in Hell – comes out before I get to see that. (By the way, that’s happening very soon on December 5. Have your money ready.) The comics themselves stay very true to the original story and continue the journey of Henry Baltimore as he crosses paths with vampires, demonic nuns, and sea ships stuffed to the brim with burning plague victims. As he travels, he befriends strange people and fights evil creatures, the whole while hunting The Red King to seek his ultimate revenge!
Baltimore is pretty widely available at your local comic books stores. The book is still in circulation and the first two story arcs, The Plague Ships and The Curse Bells, have already been collected into some sweet graphic novels. There is also a two comic story arc called Dr. Leskovar’s Remedy and two one shots, The Play and The Widow and the Tank, the latter not yet released. The idea is that there is one more one-shot coming out and that the Dr. Leskovar’s Remedy and the three one-shots are going to be collected into an upcoming collection, so if you don’t feel like getting the loose issues, you can always wait until they release the graphic novel. Whichever you do, if you’re a fan of Gothic horror, or even old school vampires, Baltimore is a great addition to your comic library and is already set to become a modern horror classic.