Art, Story and Cover by: Emily McGovern
Published By: Simon and Schuster UK / Andrews McMeel Publishing
Set in early nineteenth-century Britain, Bloodlust & Bonnets follows Lucy, an unworldly debutante who desires a life of passion and intrigue—qualities which earn her the attention of Lady Violet Travesty, the leader of a local vampire cult.
But before Lucy can embark on her new life of vampiric debauchery, she finds herself unexpectedly thrown together with the flamboyant poet Lord Byron (“from books!”) and a mysterious bounty-hunter named Sham. The unlikely trio lie, flirt, fight, and manipulate each other as they make their way across Britain, disrupting society balls, slaying vampires, and making every effort not to betray their feelings to each other as their personal and romantic lives become increasingly entangled.
Recommended Age: Not given by Publisher; Teen
Content Warnings: (Graphic, Depicted, Mentioned)
Misgendering, Violence, Blood, Gun Violence
Tags:
Regency Period, Comedy, Simplistic Art Style, Vampires, Lord Byron, LGBTQIA+, Gender Nonconforming Character, Bisexual Characters, Cross Dressing, Supernatural, Sentient Buildings, Sentient Animals
Bloodlust and Bonnets is a comic I picked up on a whim and, in theory, should like based on its concept, but I ended up DNF’ing about 60% of the way through. A zany comedy of found family and vampire hunting set during the regency era. And in theory, that should be perfect for any fans of Pride and Prejudice with Zombies, like me. But instead, it was a meandering mess of unlikeable people wandering from location to location as they tried to sort out their emotional problems while hunting the notorious vampire Lady Violet Travesty.
Our rogue’s gallery consists of;
Lucy, a debutante who is struggling to find her place in the world and finds herself more attracted to murder and the vampire lifestyle than walks with suitors around the park;
Lord Byron - yes, THAT Lord Byron - a poet and vampire hunter who constantly needs to be the centre of attention;
and Sham, a gender non-conforming vampire hunter and loner of the group. As they hunt for Lady Traversty, the group wanders about the English countryside leaving mayhem in their wake. Often returning to Lord Byron’s talking castle whenever they need regrouping and respite.
Bloodlust and Bonnets intends for this to be a journey of self-discovery for our characters. However, it is about 100 pages too long for its purpose. And, what readers get instead is a meandering mess. Our hunters wandering from location to location as character development is doled out at a snail’s pace. And while our characters are purposefully unlikeable to present growth for them as they progress. Unfortunately, that progression comes at too slow a pace for it to be engaging, with too much filler in between as McGovern tries to show us as many misadventures as possible. After about the third time that we returned to Byron’s castle, and our characters continued to regress instead of progress in their emotional development, I just gave up.
McGovern’s art is, however, solid throughout the comic. It’s not personally a style I like despite being reminiscent of old newspaper gag cartoons, however, she does managed to convey a lot of emotion through her character’s body movement, despite her character’s not having mouths most of the time. The only thing I found jarring while reading this was that the blood splatter texture does not feel like it matches the rest of the comic’s style.
The work also does something I thoroughly dislike: presenting a gender-nonconforming character - In the parts of the comic I read, Sham’s gender identity is never labelled - but constantly refers to them by their assigned sex at birth. When asked throughout the comic, Sham is asked a variation of “are you a boy or girl?” And each time, they answer yes or no, referring to both genders. However, characters like Lucy, Sham’s eventual love interest, will only refer to Sham by she pronouns. Bloodlust and Bonnets is a historical-fantasy fiction that ignores the homophobia of the period. Characters openly express same-sex attraction and crossdress without repercussions. Yet, it routinely misgenders one of its protagonists. And, frankly, what was the point because there was none in the 120 odd pages I read.
Overall, Bloodlust and Bonnets is just a book that meandered through and failed to grab my attention. Dragging out its initial premise for far too long and did not have substantial enough character development despite the breakneck speed in how often it changed scenery.