The Conversation on the Solute
Avathoir and wallflower discuss “American Vampire”
Installment 7: Drive

 

 

 

One is an artist, he is living at home. One is a musician, she is living at home. One is my mother who is good to me. One is my father who is good to me. By some chance, here they are, all on this earth; and who shall ever tell the sorrow of being on this earth, lying, on quilts, on the grass, in a summer evening, among the sounds of night. May god bless my people, my uncle, my aunt, my mother, my good father, oh, remember them kindly in their time of trouble; and in the hour of their taking away.After a little I am taken in and put to bed. Sleep, soft smiling, draws me unto her: and those receive me, who quietly treat me, as one familiar and well-beloved in that home: but will not, oh, will not, not now, not ever; but will not ever tell me who I am.

-James Agee, A Death in The Family

 

wallflower:  American Vampire continues its journey through American history and culture here, moving into James Dean territory:  Southern California, 1954, with teenagers, malt shops, rock and roll, and fast cars.  It continues the deepening of the mythology, and makes it more morally tricky, and at the same time it’s the most sheerly fun installment yet.  We’ll get to the other part soon, but let’s get into the fun stuff first.  That begins with the covers, which are like nothing Albuquerque has yet done, parodies of 1950s ads plus lots of blood and death.  They have a great Sam Raimi comedy/horror feel to them and set the energy before we even get to the story.

 

Then there’s the story itself.  It lives up to the title “Death Race”; the present story is a car chase that takes up three of four issues, and it’s just thrilling as all hell.  Albuquerque gives everything so much movement; the way he bleeds images across panel and sometimes dispenses with panels altogether suits the material and its energy perfectly.  Also, it’s a lot cheaper and less risky to have cars go flying through the air in comics than in films, so we get to see that twice.  The events go so fast and allow for a lot of great, action-movie style dialogue (I literally just opened the book at random and found “taste anything else?”) and characterization, with little reversals coming every few pages.

 

Most of all, there’s Travis.  He’s clearly Elvis here, and the young Elvis, the guy on a mission, desired by all the ladies and just not understood by the squares, man.  (Come to think of it, that would make Hobbes Col. Parker.  As a metaphor, it works fine–the guy who doesn’t understand Travis but wants to profit off of him.)  Snyder and Albuquerque give him the angular look, sunglasses, leather jacket, and scowl, and one more great, funny touch–a set of wooden teeth, because “I like to bite ‘em back.”  Make no mistake, this is what we technically call pure fucking ownage.

 

Avathoir: In our very second installment, we talked about “iconic moments” for characters, the actions and phrases that come to our mind, that send the work as a whole into transcendent territory. We earlier bemoaned how “Hello motherfucker! Got any CANDY?” was not that, though close, and I worried that it would never pass.

Then I reread this and got to “I Like to bite them back” and I cheered. If there’s anything that Snyder has contributed to the vampire mythos and is wholly of himself, no hints of such a thing existing previous, it’s that.  It’s so perfectly conceived (And that fact that we don’t see him actually do it), that launches Travis as the hidden ace of the whole series.

Let’s talk about Travis some more, shall we? Travis is awesome. You could do a parody of the “how to describe Regina George” thing from Mean Girls using him. He gets only more awesome next time we see him. Oddly, of all the characters he reminds me of he makes me think of Henry: charming, music obsessed, unnaturally skilled in combat, and unafraid of death. But UNlike Henry, however, he’s much more of a wild child, a teenager through and through. He kills vampires and doesn’t afraid of anything.

At the same time, he’s got a lot more depth than we’d initially expect. He’s got an appreciation for black artists rather than their white copycat counterparts, he’s self-sufficient, and he’s got an almost superhuman will to live and refusal to back down. But he’s also like Henry very much a damaged person: he’s never recovered from watching those vampires kill his parents, and a lot of his posture (The “gimme back my ring”, the constant “Baby”) is very much affected behavior. It’s sad, watching him practice his dance and combat moves on his own. He behaves very much like a child trying to copy the “tough, cool adult”, and it’s rather tragic, considering his character. His own reasons for wanting to hunt and kill Skinner, knowing he had nothing to do with it but wanting to anyway because then his parents’ killers wouldn’t go looking for him, only amplifies that aspect.

 

wallflower:  One of the things Snyder does well here is that although his characters are iconic, they’re not perfected, and they’re not invulnerable; he’s writing in that tradition that goes back through Marvel comics and all the way back to Greek mythology, that great characters are greatly flawed. Travis made himself a fearless vampire killer, he wasn’t born one, and it shows.  You’re right about the affectation, because that points to someone who doesn’t have a strong identity at his core. Travis adopts the 1950s teenager identity because that’s the time when he lives; if he’d been born ten years later, we’d have gotten a hippie/beatnik-style vampire hunter.  (Which would also be awesome, though probably trickier to write.)

 

I’m not sure how much we should make of this, but Albuquerque uses a strong style for him, one that’s very angular and plays off on bold contrasts, particularly between his black jacket and white shirt.  It’s a style of drawing that reminds me most of Pearl, and goes back to the contrast between the American and the Eurovamps we saw all the way back in vol. 1.  Visually, it helps with the pop-art feel of this story; thematically, it may be calling back to the idea of America in motion that plays all through American Vampire.  As ever, that it looks cool justifies it for me.

 

 

 

What makes Travis and “Death Race” more than just a riff on 1950s pop culture is his sense of tragedy, or more accurately, his sense of consequence, which he talks about toward the end of the monologue that covers the first three parts of the story.  Travis’ identity was born with the death of his parents, and he understands that.  He heads into the last panel of his story fully expecting to die.  As you noticed, there’s a weight and sadness to his actions that harmonizes with but doesn’t negate the ownage.  And all of that anticipates the Big Reveal here:  Skinner Sweet is alive, and he’s been in some way co-opted by the Vassals.  What do you think of that, besides your big smile at knowing I didn’t know what was coming back in vol. 3?  (Don’t even pretend you weren’t smiling, friendo.)

 

Avathoir: I admit it: I was smiling. And I remember the first time I read that very well. At first I was all “Bullshit” but then I realized “Wait, it kind of makes sense”. Skinner is not someone that can just exit a story after he’s served as a villain for a story arc (for one thing, the story of Pearl isn’t over yet. Not by a long shot). He’s not someone that goes gently into the good night, and frankly, life without Skinner making chaos and raising hell is boring. Skinner, put simply, is too vital to die, the hunger to live being too strong and (on a metaphysical sense) his vitality to this world for now keeps him immortal.  As climactic as his “death” seemed, it really did leave a lot of stuff hanging. If he had died. Let’s be honest, what would be left? As much as you and I would love “Pearl and Henry’s Travels Across America”, most people would not. The reason Skinner survived is because he almost sort of needs to exist, as this primal spirit wandering America (an idea we’re going to explore more in the future). I can imagine the American Vampire universe with a lot of characters, but NOT without Skinner. Even if he’d died I bet he’d show up as a ghost or something.
But let’s think about what’s become of him. He lives in the suburbs. He has a haircut. He works for the Vassals. In other words, he has a NORMAL LIFE:  It’s the opposite of everything that defines him (though I must confess: I have fanfiction of this exact scenario for Skinner’s life settled down. Many, many pages. Anthony and I wrote them. We regret nothing.) and this is something of a personal hell. What’s more unwildwest than Leave it to Beaver/Brady Bunch land? Every day must be the worst day of his life.

 

 

The question is though, is what are the Vassals hoping to accomplish? Are they trying to tame him, domesticate him into an attack dog? Is this just revenge? Or does he have a purpose for why they let him live. Hobbes knows about Felicia’s feelings, so why would he do something like this, Felicia being gone or no?

Really, the Vassals are still being utterly mysterious. Speaking as someone reading the series for the first time, what are your impressions of the Vassals in light of this arc, and have you revised your guess regarding what they’re doing?

 

 

wallflower:  My reaction was a lot like yours–first it was the “oh COME ON” feeling, because having characters die and then bringing them back takes away the weight of the death and the tragedy.  Watching how it played out though, makes sense, although it landed for me slightly differently than for you.  What I saw with Skinner coming back–and coming back at that moment–was a summation of the theme of consequence that Travis was talking about.  Everyone has to meet their consequence, and even Skinner.  Like you said, he’s so vital; I’ve referred to him as being the archetype of the Trickster, and Tricksters usually cause consequences for others, not themselves.  Skinner couldn’t get away with something so easy as death, he’s been caught, domesticated, (almost literally) defanged.  It’s almost exactly the fate of Vic Mackey, and it’s way better than confining him to ghost or flashback status.

 

It also makes the Vassals look more ruthless than ever.  What’s been suggested from the beginning is that no matter how particular Vassals might be kind or generous, the organization has a mission and they are not fucking around.  That’s something I like, because you can get some great and universal stories about individuals vs. organizations.  As to the mission, I’m looking at Hobbes here and in “Devil in the Sand” and he doesn’t seem to have aged at all in twenty years.  My guess is that the Vassals are their own race of vampires, or immortals anyway, and they’re not hunting vampires so much as cultivating them.  (Of course, I’m the guy who went 2-for-98 in his guesses about Lost, so I wouldn’t go placing any bets on that one.)  That idea ties back to “Survival of the Fittest” and to eugenicist ideas in America, and I’d like to see that play out.

 

What the Vassals are up to may relate to the other death here, and this one looks like it’s gonna be more permanent:  Henry gets killed, possibly by Skinner, possibly by the Vassals (at the end of the next story, “The Nocturnes,” Pearl says “they killed him.”)  No idea where this one’s going, but the final full-page panel of Pearl’s grief-crumpled body is one of the most moving images of the entire series.

Avathoir: You think you’ve seen Pearl’s grief? Oh, you’re in for it when you get to the covers and volume 5. As for the future, Henry’s still got his role to play, and what comes next will echo significantly throughout the future.

But since we’re here, let’s talk about the Nocturnes two issue arc.. We first see Travis dancing to them, and then we encounter them in the deep South, in a story starring Calvin.

Calvin’s an interesting case, and a character I’m really glad Snyder’s decided to write. From his unexpected vampirism to his cool detachment, he’s quickly becoming a character who’s sort of “not supposed to be here” in a way. Not only is his vampirism an accident, but he’s incredibly competent and seems to exist to throw spanners in the works, to put it mildly. Case in point: The Nocturnes. He breaks a system, but that’s appropriate: He talks about systems. He’s a taxonomist.

What are your thoughts on Calvin, and on this story in general?

 

 

wallflower:  Calvin’s story makes things more layered and interesting.  One on the most basic level, Snyder keeps the story spreading outward here, and keeps the rule of consequences going.  That he got infected with Pearl’s vial of blood doesn’t get abandoned, and he gets his own story.  That’s one of the advantages of a serial genre like comics or television:  the opportunity to take time to chase down ideas, settings, and characters because you’re not obligated to wrap everything up in a complete package.

 

Calvin, of course, is the first black American Vampire, and that allows him to play another symbolic role here.  Like you said, he exists to disrupt, and that’s a great choice of words; his very existence, out and walking and free, disrupts the society he walks through.  In several panels, Snyder places Calvin in the center and has that society on the edges; it’s like a montage from an older film, Guy Walks Alone Through City Streets.  Calvin’s more isolated than even Pearl or Henry, who separate themselves from society by choice.  Calvin already can’t be part of society, even before he was vamped.  He’s one more voicing of a theme Snyder keeps playing:  the way individuals fit and don’t fit in society, and societies.

 

Of course, the difference between Calvin and other black men of the 1950s is that he can fuck up your shit, and that’s another layer to him.  He’s concealing something about himself, but not completely; he can be an active black man in the South in ways that others can’t.  At times, he comes off as a more modern man in this world, and a crystallization of what the white South feared about its black men.  I kept thinking of Eddie Murphy’s great line in 48 Hrs.:  “I’m your worst fucking nightmare!  I’m a nigger with a badge!”  Calvin embodies the possibility that the race you tried to keep down for so long would wind up stronger than you if you didn’t.  Once again, Snyder uses vampirism as an elegant metaphor for the transformation of American culture, and he uses it to bring in one more society that opposes our protagonists.

 

Avathoir:  The sequence where Calvin leaps out of the pool is so cathartic. Here he is, fucking up your shit, and it’s great. But Calvin is very much his own person: he’s not a blaxploitation figure, and Snyder is more careful to put him in the tradition of someone like Ralph Ellison or Langston Hughes then a superhero: An outsider who doesn’t really accept either side, the one that loathes him and the one that needs him. Like Travis before him, and like Skinner before Travis, he’s the ultimate outsider to society, and unlike the former two, it’s not his fault. Calvin WANTS to belong, but nothing goes his way. We saw the horrific, horrific thing that happens to Calvin’s wife (and I do wonder what it was like before he was a VMS, but Snyder’s right to not focus on it: Calvin admits he threw his life away to get revenge), so he obviously hates vampires, but he’s not so aligned with the VMS either (Hobbes is seen dissecting a vampire as it’s still alive as he talks to Calvin over the phone, and it;s clear from his facial expressions Calvin’s struggling to deal with Hobbes’ fundamentalism now that he’s one of “the enemy”). He finds some kinship in the older veterans, only to have THAT betrayed when it turns out they’re his targets, and even though he seems to form an understanding with Zachary (which is born out of a misunderstanding) his kinship is a weary one, that doesn’t really suggest he wants to pursue it. He doesn’t even tell him about the VMS, that’s how alone he is. Calvin’s only friends seem to be Pearl and Henry, and now with what they’ve done to Henry, where can he go?

Which brings me to the final point of this epically long post: Where do you see Volume 5 heading? Henry’s been “killed”, Felicia’s gone missing with Gus, Hobbs is getting more and more anxious about something, Skinner’s been caught, and Hattie’s off god knows where…what are you expecting from this Season finale, of sorts?

 

wallflower:  My experiences with serial drama have taught me never to expect anything, my friend; exactly two of my predictions about Lost were right.  As to what I’m hoping for:  Snyder’s strongest theme in the first four volumes has been the individual and the society.  That’s such a richly American theme, really going back to the Puritans.  As an American, I almost reflexively type “the individual vs. society,” and credit Snyder with making it so much more complex than that.  “Society” in American Vampire isn’t just society-at-large, but also has the meaning of closed societies like the VMS and the Carpathians.  He’s worked with the idea of belonging to (a) society by blood, by history, and by choice.  We have an array of characters that move in and out of these societies and have tricky relations with them, with the most individual, dynamically drawn character (Skinner) having wound up the most captured, and the second-most individual character (Pearl) possibly ready to go after the ones who captured him.

 

What makes a beginning work is the sense of possibility; what makes an ending work is the sense of irrevocability.  Because nothing comes after the ending, the decisions there have to be permanent.  Snyder has demonstrated all through this work that the conflict between individual and society and the conflict of belonging to multiple identities has to be resolved; over and over again, we find there’s no safe space, within or without yourself, away from the conflicts.  (Pearl found that out the hardest way.)  We’re headed, historically, into the 1960s, and there’s a phrase from the period that comes to mind here.  The same idea, possibly the same phrase, occurs in another great horror work that explored ideas of community, individuals, belonging, and the American landscape and pop culture:  Stephen King’s The Stand.  Heading into the end, I hope everyone confronts–and answers with their lives–that same question:  which side are you on?

 

That’s all for this volume of the American Vampire Conversation. Tune in soon for Installment 8: The Bird of Hermes, and Installment 9: The Symphony!