Vamp #5 Review: Mythos Comics Delivers Vampire Noir With Bite

WEPA! Now this is how you sink the fangs in and leave a mark, familia. Vamp #5: Home Is Where The Heart Is Naught is that grimy, stylish, blood-splashed indie horror joint that walks into the room wearing a tailored black suit, cracked knuckles, and a face that says, “Yeah, I cleaned up the mess… but don’t ask what was in the mop bucket.” Jim Eckels and Emmanuel Bazin continue building a vampire crime world that doesn’t just live in the shadows of Las Vegas; it rents out the shadows, charges resort fees, hides the bodies in the service elevator, and still has the nerve to ask if you enjoyed your stay. Deadass, this issue has bite, mood, attitude, and that nasty little noir heartbeat that keeps the series feeling like Casino got jumped in an alley by Near Dark and woke up with a hotel keycard in its mouth.

What makes issue #5 hit differently is how it refuses to be one thing. This ain’t just “vampires in Vegas doing vampire stuff,” though the Sanctus Hotel & Casino material is still deliciously slick and nasty. This chapter expands the emotional geography of the series. We go from old-world religious horror to clinical Vegas cleanup duty, then swing hard into the bruised suburban loneliness of Ben back in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. That shift could have been clumsy in lesser hands, but here it gives the book texture. It gives the blood weight. The series has always had style, but this issue reminds us that behind every monster economy, there are people broken people, used people, hungry people, lonely people trying not to get swallowed whole by systems they barely understand.

Jim Eckels writes Julian like a man built out of control, regret, and a black tie. He’s not your typical vampire-world fixer. He’s not swaggering around like some leather-coat anime thirst trap yelling at the moon. Nah, Julian is colder, sharper, more corporate-dangerous. He’s the guy who makes the disaster disappear before the tourists get off the elevator. The genius of this issue is watching him deal with Sleeth, this grotesque, predatory leech of a creature, while the book quietly reminds us that the real horror in Vamp is not always the monster with fangs. Sometimes the horror is the institution. Sometimes it’s history. Sometimes it’s family. Sometimes it’s a mother in a dim room with a bottle nearby and a child who has already seen too much.

That Ben material? That’s the heartbreaker, son. After all the Vegas madness, the gore, the casino politics, and the supernatural violence, putting Ben back in Ohio is a bold move. Cuyahoga Falls is drawn with this quiet, pale, exhausted energy. The school bus, the house, the kitchen, the awkward schoolyard conversations all of it feels almost painfully normal. And that’s the trick. Normal becomes scary because Ben doesn’t fit inside it anymore. He carries the afterimage of vampires into a place that thinks its biggest problem is bad lunches, mean kids, and suburban gossip. His mother might not have fangs, but the book absolutely understands that emotional hunger can drain a person just as viciously as any undead predator. That’s where the title lands like a brick wrapped in velvet: home is where the heart is naught. Naught. Nothing. Empty. Missing. Oof. That’s not just clever; that’s mean in the best writerly way.

And let’s talk about Emmanuel Bazin, because the art in this issue is doing work, work, work. Bazin has this scratchy, moody, cinematic line that feels like old crime comics got soaked in vampire venom and left under a flickering motel sign. The Vegas pages have that sterile casino underbelly vibe clean surfaces hiding foul business. The historical opening has a dusty, burnt-orange menace that makes the past feel like an open wound. Then the Ohio pages pull back and breathe. Softer colors. Wider stillness. More negative space. It’s like the book lowers its voice, which makes the emotional stuff louder. That’s craft, baby. That’s not random; that’s storytelling.

The creature work is nasty in all the right ways. Sleeth is not glamorous. He is not seductive. He is not twinkling in the moonlight. He is a ragged, pathetic, dangerous thing part wound, part appetite, part consequence. Bazin makes him physically repulsive without turning the pages into empty shock value. The violence is ugly because the world is ugly. Yet the book never loses its strange humor. That’s one of Vamp’s sharpest blades: it can give you a grotesque vampire cleanup scene, then slide in a line or visual beat that makes you laugh like you probably shouldn’t. That dark comedy is the series’ secret sauce. It lets the horror breathe without defanging it.

The opening sequence, with its historical/religious flavor, is especially important because it deepens the mythos without turning the issue into a dusty lore lecture. We get the sense that the vampire world has old debts, old rules, old betrayals, and old blood still wet under the floorboards. The Spanish Inquisition material gives the issue a bigger canvas. Suddenly Sanctus doesn’t feel like some isolated vampire casino gimmick. It feels like one visible node in a much older, much nastier network. That’s how you build mythology without dropping a textbook on the reader’s head. You let the past stalk the present. Smooth.

Now, constructive real talk: Vamp is rich, but it does ask the reader to stay locked in. The tonal jumps are intentional, but for anyone walking in cold, the shift from centuries-old horror to Vegas operations to Ohio family dysfunction might feel like getting yanked across three different rooms in the same haunted house. The issue rewards readers who have been following the series, especially coming off the aftermath of issue #4, but newcomers may need a minute to calibrate. A little more connective tissue between certain scenes could make the transition even sharper. Not a dealbreaker at all more like, “Yo, this meal is banging, but give me one extra napkin because the sauce is everywhere.”

Another thing: the book’s dialogue has personality, and that personality is one of its biggest strengths, but a few scenes lean into cryptic phrasing and multilingual texture in ways that create atmosphere more than clarity. I dig it, because it makes the world feel lived-in and weird, but some readers may want a touch more precision. Still, I’ll take an ambitious indie book swinging with style over safe, beige, committee-approved vampire mush any day of the week. Beige vampires? Nah, we don’t do that over here.

What I really appreciate is that issue #5 understands vampires as a metaphor without losing the fun of vampires as monsters. That balance is harder than it looks. The book has blood, teeth, guns, old grudges, hotel rooms, body disposal, creepy old ladies, broken family dynamics, and a cat who might be smarter than half the room. But under all that pulp electricity is a story about exploitation. Who feeds on whom? Who gets cleaned up? Who gets protected? Who gets abandoned? Who gets called family while being drained dry? That’s the good stuff. That’s where horror becomes more than decoration.

By the final stretch, the issue opens a new door with that Wisconsin angle, and let me tell you, the old lady energy here is dangerous. Don’t let the cookies fool you. This is the type of character who looks like she bakes for the church fundraiser but probably has a body count in the basement and a payment plan for curses. That ending has a wicked little grin to it. It expands the board and makes Ben’s situation feel even more precarious. The poor kid wanted normalcy and got a supernatural collection agency instead. Brutal. Funny. Sad. Perfectly Vamp.

Vamp is stylish, cruel, funny, melancholic, and sharp enough to shave with. Jim Eckels keeps proving that this series has more going on than its killer premise, and Emmanuel Bazin gives every page that bruised indie-noir elegance that makes the whole thing feel dangerous and handmade in the best way. This is a vampire comic with teeth, but more importantly, it has scars. It knows the scariest monsters don’t always kick down the door. Sometimes they raise you. Sometimes they hire somebody. Sometimes they smile and ask if you want a sandwich.

Vamp is a bloody strong chapter that pushes the series beyond Vegas and into deeper emotional horror, while keeping the black comedy and crime-noir swagger that made the book pop in the first place. It’s not always an easy ride, but it’s absolutely a ride worth taking. Buckle up, keep garlic in one pocket and therapy money in the other. This one’s got layers.

CRUSADERS SCORE: 
4/5

Created By: Jim Eckels
Writer / Script: Jim Eckels
Art: Emmanuel Bazin
Cover Art: Emmanuel Bazin
Publisher: Mythos Comics / Mythic Publications, LLC

*Disclosure: Comic Crusaders received a review copy for coverage consideration. This did not influence our opinion.