Spike and Dru: The Queen of Hearts
[Dark Horse Comics $2.95 US $4.50 CAN]
Written by Christopher Golden / Illustrated by Ryan Sook
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Another foray into the twisted world of Spike and Drusilla, everybody’s favorite vampire couple. This time they’re travelling across country on their way to Sunnydale when they decide to take a detour for some gambling fun on a St. Louis riverboat. Once there they realize something is not quite right about the riverboat’s owner, Mr. King. They probably would have left well enough alone, after all, Spike and Dru don’t really care much about the fate of humanity unless it affects their availability as lunch. But the demonic forces surrounding the riverboat cause Spike to lose at gambling and that pisses him off thus, payback time.

Lots of good Spike and Dru witticisms abound in this issue along with buckets of gore. Christopher Golden captures the nuances of these two characters perfectly right down to Drusilla’s odd precognitive ramblings. Reading Christopher Golden’s two Spike & Dru one-shots has definitely made me happy that he’s been chosen to write the ongoing Angel series.

Ryan Sook’s artwork is, of course, absolutely beautiful. It’s very Mignola-esque in its use of shadow and loving attention to the creepier characters in the story but Ryan Sook brings a freshness all his own to the story. His characters and backgrounds are more well-defined yet never give up any of their spookiness. Again, I would love to see this guy on the ongoing Buffy comic full-time.