Black Rose Alice

Writer-illustrator Mizushiro, best known for her Eisner Award-nominated After School Nightmare, pens another tale of youth, loss, and emotional self-destruction via vampires. Dimitri Lewandoski, an up-and-coming Venetian singer in the early 1900s , is caught up in a love square that involves aristocrat Agnieszka, the object of his love since childhood; her fiancee Theodor, who happens to be his best friend; and Dimitri's lover/patron, the middle-aged Duchess Lorenz. However, following a carriage accident, Dimitri is reanimated as a vampire by a floating seed that reanimates his corpse. The prerequisite "in the know" people show up and inform Dimitri of the consequences: sleep with the love of his life just once, and he, too, will go to seed and perish. As Dimitri grapples with his budding powers and desires, the story shifts between past and present, presumably setting up a long tale of obsession with purity. This dual narrative lacks focus. The art is simple but full, with lovely costuming and styling, though the expressions worn by the characters' faces are, at times, a bit flat. Overall, the book reads well but attempts a classical manga feel without quite delivering it. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.