I read Blood City Rollers by V.P. Anderson and illustrated by Tatiana Hill via an online reader copy. I know that I will not be reading it again when it comes out, or buying a copy as there were several spots that I was not “digging” and felt they were not as fleshed out as they could have been. It might be easy to do roller derby in a graphic novel, but it might not be the easiest subject if you are adding vampires, witches, ghosts and whatever that bat-eared-dog is.
While funny, there are some flat jokes, too. They are overdone, and sometimes you don’t seem them coming so they miss the mark. It is very heavy on the girl power, and the GLBTQ aspects of the characters. There are at least two pages that show us the Roller Derby teams which give position, name and pronouns. Not to mention a not so subtle “love triangle” happening.
One piece of the story leans towards the “blood” reference of the title that is actually a bit over the top is how the team takes their dinner. When we learn that the team our narrator/heroine finds herself on is made up of vampires, it never occurred to me to ask, “What do they eat?” They are after all, ordering tacos, pizza, and a lot of food that if I thought about it, was a lot for the two humans on the team to eat by themselves. Yeah, well, the delivery people give a new meaning to “fast food” and “food to go.”
The way our narrator finds herself on the team is sketchy (she’s kidnapped by the vampires, who look like teens, but you realize afterwards they have various stages of having aged). The cliches are a bit heavy and over it is a pretty normal coming of age story, just with supernatural twists that lean towards a modern way of expressing them. There is some information that feels missing, but hopefully is explored in later issues.
Ages 10 and up should be okay, but remember they are vampires, witches, some monsters and ghosts, with some “edgy” areas. But there is roller derby, so that counts for something, right?