By Stephen Pytak

     For the past two years, there was only one reason 
why I bought new issues of "Vampirella."
     The Julie Strain covers.
     But now, there's a new artist on board, Mike 
Mayhew. And there are some new writers too, namely 
Mark Millar and John Smith. And they've encouraged 
me to open the cover and even read a little bit.
     Let's start with the art, because the number one 
reason anyone picks up this comic is to see the babe 
in all her voluptuous glory. 
     In many recent incarnations, the comic-book 
Vampirella had this comic-book, super-woman kind 
of look. It was kind of unreal. It's kind of hard to 
relate to Vampirella in the first place. How many 
vampire warrior women do you know? So, the old 
art was so-so. 
     Mayhew takes a different approach. His Vampi 
is a goddess but a woman first. She looks sexy in 
the trademark swimsuit. But he's given her more than 
that, real expressions in her lips and eyes. She looks 
very human, like someone we could run into. 
     She could be one of the girls who work in one of 
the clothing stores up in the mall. She could be the 
boss' secretary. The only difference is she's wearing 
that skimpy outfit and she's packing semi-automatic 
pistols.
     I think the fact that he made Vampi more down-to-
earth will give the character much more appeal. 
Anyway, I like it a lot.
     What's also neat about this book now is the action 
and the gore. Opening this book is like popping in the 
DVD for "From Dusk 'Till Dawn (1996)."
     Bullets shatter skulls. Monsters rip people in half. 
Shotgun blasts tear limbs off. Wow.
     Another thing I like about the book is it doesn't 
take itself too seriously. I hate when writers start 
getting all serious about the Vampirella story.
     Christ, the idea here is simple. Here's this vampire 
babe from another world. She's here to destroy evil. 
She looks great in a bikini and she wears it twenty-
four-seven. Why? Who the hell knows? Who the hell 
cares? Just bring her out and let her kick it!
     If Mayhew stays on board, I'll keep buying this ish'.
     If the writers keep paving the road to fantasy with 
neat action scenes and one-liners, I'll keep reading.