I really enjoyed this graphic novel and I devoured it in one sitting. The characters were funny and likeable from the get go and that is something I feel graphic novels can sometimes struggle with but I connected to them instantly.
The plot moved quick and never got dull for me and I was surprised that I was moved by the ending.
The artwork was great and I loved that it was graphic at points. The aesthetics of the diffirent time periods were brilliant.
I will most definitely buy a physical copy of this and I'll talk about it on my you tube channel for my April wrap up.

The Vain follows a group of vampires in mid-20th century America and the FBI agent trying to prove their existence. There's much pleasure to be found in the globe-trotting escapades of this crew of four vampires; some of the sites include Chicago, New Orleans, Las Vegas, and Havanna. The vamps are boundary-pushers, they don't care for convention, but they're also smooth, integrating themselves into whatever era and culture they find themselves in. They're a diverse group, linguistically and racially, but that never seems to be an issue. There are a few interracial relationships too, but they are only there as window dressing, and there's no interrogation into the societal or interpersonal struggle that interracial partners faced in the 20th century. Their morals depend on how hungry they are: They team up with the U.S. government to hunt Nazis, and years later, they set up a scheme to supply themselves with blood by pacifying their victims with hard drugs.

The four vampires, Lost, Fanny, Marquis, and North, often argue over how to maintain their supply of blood, but I'm hard-pressed to define what their personalities are like, what they enjoy, and what they want out of life. Felix Franklin, the FBI Agent, is a bit of cardboard cutout. His life becomes defined by the hunt r even as it causes him to become increasingly alienated from his job and family. Through Franklin, the comic gets closest to expressing an ethos about truth and believability and the compromises that must be made when you face impossible facts. But it never quite coalesces before the sun rises and the story closes.

The art, illustrated by Emily Pearson and colored by Fred C. Stresing, is a mixed bag. There are moments of true beauty in the comic, but too often it feels like a rough sketch that could use more texture and detail in the penmanship and depth or variety of colors. The backgrounds are often plain and oversimplified. There are, unfortunately, numerous moments where bodies are illustrated in unnatural positions. It's not all bad. This story unfolds over decades, and there is a serious effort to track time through the distinct fashions of recurring characters. The last few pages, in particular, are full of striking panels as different sources of light combine to create a kaleidoscope of emotions for two characters. It is a moment that lingers with formal adventurousness. But I'm left wishing that kind of care had been taken throughout the comic.

Read this comic if you're a diehard vampire fan who always wanted to see more queerness and multiracialism in these kinds of stories, but this is more fantasy than a critical exploration of race, gender, love, and bloodlust in the 20th century.

3.5
The Vain, like many other recent examinations of vampires, has taken on the role of examining the inherent queerness of vampires. While the queerness of some of the characters is explicit, it is not the entire focus of the story, but it does add to it. It follows Lost, Fanny, North, and Marquis, a group of vampires that name themselves the Vain that don't play by the rules and commit crimes, as well as violently murdering people. That's to be expected, as this is a graphic novel about vampires! It also follows Felix Franklin, an FBI agent who tracks them for decades, aging as they remain at their prime.

The colors and tone changes throughout out the time periods it takes place in, as well as between narrators. The art style only adds to the story, especially in fight scenes, in addition to adding to the visibility of the characters emotions. I know some may claim there isn't enough gore for a vampire novel, but the amount was fine for me, as the interpersonal relationships were the highlight for me, not the gore.

Some of my qualms are that the ending felt rushed, as well as that they worked for the government when their work of killing Nazis didn't require that and only limited the Vain. There was also intervention in the form of spying in the USSR and Cuba, which was expected but unnecessary. All in all, a good read with a fresh take on vampires.

A fun and quick fluff read about a group of vampires.

My first ARC comic. Loved the colours and how "alive" the characters were.

I really enjoyed this book!
This is like a short/fast pace story that you can read super easily and that grabs your attention from the first page. The story was fun and exciting to read and you are always wanting to discover what happens next
The whole idea of lesbians vampires killing nazis? Loved it! The graphics? Loved it! The friendship between our 4 main characters? Loved it.
This is really good if you want to get into graphics novels if you want to start or even if you already like and want something to read quick

It's been a while since I was attracted to a graphic novel by the cover but this one was just gorgeous, look at all that lovely red! The artists have done a beautiful job in this graphic novel. The colours and tone changes depending on our setting, time and narrator and I felt especially immersed, as though I were watching it play out on a screen and hearing it rather than reading. A good mix of gore and humour in the details.
This was not the typical setting I've seen for vampires (and I grew up with Twilight at it's peak and vampire books around every corner). I genuinely had to think about the logistics of being a vampire in a modern world. Blood bank heists, making most of the opportunity of war and being hunted for what you are. There's tension between the characters as they try to work out how to survive and I love the LGBTQ+ representation, it's shown and written very naturally.
Our main vampires have some . . . strange names but I can get past that. They're all different and I'd be very interested to find out more about their backgrounds and how they came to be as there's only hints of it shown. I really enjoyed the few human characters we also followed, you see their lives unravel over the years whilst the vampires are unchanged. I love the idea of the FBI investigating paranormal activity and the havoc it could create. Both to the lives it could ruin in the search for the truth and the violence committed in chasing and using such formidable predators.
We take a range of settings throughout the few chapters in this novel and I simply wish that each were a little bit longer. It would have given a chance to really explain and relax in to the new settings rather than having a narrator give a bit of an information dump. I would not have been opposed to a much longer story really building up the tension for the equivalent of each of these chapters, it would have been worth it!

While I loved the idea of this and enjoyed the art work, I found it lacking. The story line was hard to follow at times, it jumped around quite a bit. While I did enjoy the art work and gore of it at times, it did not meet my expectations. It had good LGBTQ+ representation and poc characters. Along with a good ending, the story wasn't the best it could have been, but it has great potential. If you enjoy history, lesbian vampires and blood heists, you should give this a shot.
Thank you NetGalley for providing me with an ARC copy

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a free ebook copy!

The art in this story is absolutely stunning! There’s a lot of blood and gore and it’s awesome. I also really liked the color schemes.

This story follows a group of four vampires struggling to find blood on one side, and an officer trying to prove their existence to the world on the other side.

Though I really liked the idea for this story, the story itself felt a bit... boring.
I didn’t really feel connected to any of the characters (though I vaguely rooted for the sapphic romance) and it just felt like it wasn’t scary enough to be horror. A nice concept and beautiful art that just fell flat to me.

Lovely story, nice that it tied it back to real life historical events to give perspective on the time the story took place. It was a real page turner. In the beginning it was hard to distinguish between Lost and Franklin's wife because their character design was so similar, maybe a slight change to either of them would make them easier to distinguish. More distinction between the black female characters to make them easier to distinguish would make the story flow better. But still a good read.

I’m rating this 2 1/2 stars rounded up. The art was decent, but I was unfortunately not enthralled with the content. It started off well enough to keep my attention. Then I started wondering when I would be done. It just wasn’t as intriguing as the beginning.

There was a lot of gore, which, picture wise, was kind of fun. But that’s kind of all there were and then that ending... I was a little surprised, but not very interested in why it ended the way it did. So I just scratched my head and sighed. They can’t all be amazing.

And some people are going to probably think this is awesome. I just can’t really get behind this particular one.

Thanks to NetGalley and Oni Press for giving me the opportunity to read this for my honest and unbiased opinion.

Review will be posted to Amazon shortly.

<b>I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review</b>

First of all, who wouldn't be into a graphic novel about blood-sucking-bank-robbing vampires who kill nazis?

Overall this was very enjoyable. Like most graphic novels it depends heavely on the art to tell a good story and Emily Pearson does a terrific job at selling the concept, the art style is magnificent and got me really connected to some of these characters. The cover is also a great selling point, the main reason I was drawn to the book in the first place.

The story in itself is very simple: A group of four vampires have been living their best life, having fun and stealing blood for decades. They call themselves "The Vain". However stealing blood gets harder and harder with the advance of technology over time and their mistakes get them of the radar of the FBI.

The ending was disappointing to me since I was kind of expecting something that would leave me craving more of this story and characters, but personaly, it was a bit dry and it wasn't the case at all. I feel like the story overall was lacking, we rush a bit through the decades and nothing really super interesting happens, perhaps it would have been better to either take it slowly or focus on the present with a few mentions of their past.

It's a bit inbetween 3 and 4 starts for me and even though I wish it was more complex, it's still a quick enjoyable read.

Something that I truly appreciate about graphic novels is the artwork, and this graphic novel delivered. I think that artistically it was well done, but just be warned that there are parts that are pretty bloody (which makes sense given the story) I liked the fact that there was representation in this graphic novel. There were characters of color, as well as LGBTQIA representation. I truly feel like this diversity made the characters standout and unique, and quite frankly it was refreshing. I think that there were parts of the story that were interesting, but I think that overall it was a tad hard to follow. I think that there was so much going on and so many different changes in locations, characters and themes that I felt a bit lost. I will however say that this was a quick read, and I loved the fact that it was a graphic novel with vampires.

That was such an compelling read. I liked sapphic couple writing/ art style and characters.
A fun and quick read.

This arc was received in exchange for an honest review.

I received this ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I’m so conflicted. I honestly struggled to get through this but I forced myself. the ending had me glad I did though, that was emotional. the story between Lost and Fanny was beautiful, (yay lesbian vampires)! The story still somehow felt flat. So 3 very big stars from me and I’m glad I had the opportunity to read and review!!!

The cover initially drew me in and the premise about four vampires grabbed me even more, I just knew I had to read this!

I finished this all in one sitting, I liked the art work, the fashion, and following the lives of four immortal vampires, however I felt like it was rushed as it would often skip entire decades and would leave me wanting.

I wanted to know about the characters, I feel like I didn’t really know them. There was a parallel story about an FBI agent who spends his whole life dedicated to catching them after he first meets them during WW2. The four vampires are called Orphan, Lost, North and Marquis and there’s LGBTQI rep. I wish I’d seen their origin story as this would have made me sympathise with them a lot more.

As this is about vampires, it’s very gory and bloody so beware if that’s not your thing!

(cw/tw: gore, murder, death, vomit, violence, drugs/addiction, blood, mental hospital confinement, mental illness, and gun violence)

Thank you to the publishers for a free copy in exchange for an honest review!

2.5 stars overall.

Bank robbing vampires? Yes please! (well, in actuality blood bank robbers, but semantics). I loved this idea of vampires in history and how they have helped history along. It was so very interesting and the art style kept me engaged. Maybe a bit bloody for younger readers, but I was thoroughly entranced. We have the bad guys and the good guys, and most of the book, you're left wondering who to root for. Altogether a good read.

"Your mission is havoc. [...] Do not get caught."

This graphic novel had literally everything I want in a story, let alone a vampire story. Badass, (blood) bank robbing, Nazi killing vampires? Sign me the hell up. The history, the diverse cast, the queer rep, the FBI, the art, the relationships, the not-so-secret government use of vampires, and the Thelma and Louise vibes made for a perfect read for me.

Rahal’s graphic novel is an enjoyable read but it does try to unpack a lot within its 150 pages. It a lot of ways it is very successful, but the reader does feel that it is part of an instalment and this maybe the beginning of a more involving story that will come at a later date.

I will write this review based on the above as I feel there is lot more to come. The Vampire genre is interesting and although you go to the beginnings with Bram Stoker or follow it through to the Vampire Diaries, there has been a lot of rules and guidelines broken and set up depending on how you like your vampires. Rahal has his vampires firmly established within the middle of Ann Rice and Vampire Diaries having a soap opera feel to his proceedings and carrying the story forward.

The story is very individual and given it a gay bent gives it the extra something to keep the reader invested. The action and characters are very well established and makes this a fun read. It is an unstoppable experience and keeps it interesting to a genre that sometimes becomes a bit thin due to over saturation.

Rahal does take the genre and make it his own but there are a lot of themes he tries to unpack within its pages and for the most part he does an excellent job but one wondered that if maybe it was longer, or he decided to use less themes he may have been more successful. This does not take away from the overall enjoyment of the graphic novel but I am hoping that this is just the first instalment and there will be much more to come.

His characters are exciting, thought provoking and the reader is truly invested in them and it would be a job to see more and see where their stories will lead you. Overall, loved it just wanted more.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

The Vain is an amazing and innovative graphic novel featuring LGBTQ and PoC vampires! If you enjoyed Twilight, but wish that the vampires had been less "pale," look no further than The Vain. The Vain starts off with a group of four vampires, three of which appear to be PoC, robbing a bank. The vintage visuals of the bank, combined with the colors, made an impressive layout - an image that I will not soon forget. Soon afterward, at the start of the United States' involvement in World War II, the vampires turn from stealing blood to killing Nazis. The story goes on from there. People try to track down the group of four. The four's relationships ebb and flow as decades pass. Overall, this was a very original story, and I had to keep reading to see what would happen next. In addition, the art is fantastic. The faces and eyes, in particular, look lovely, and I could imagine the artist's prints being hung in a new art deco / art noveau exhibit. If the premise of vampires living it up throughout different decades sounds interesting to you, check out this graphic novel.

CW: There is a decent amount of blood and gore.

I have received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Vampires on the run, war, espionage, different eras, detectives, a little bit of romance — this graphic novel gives you all and more. Wow, such an interesting premise, not like and graphic novel I’ve read before! The art style is beautiful and the plot was engaging. Looking forward to reading more from this author!