Count Crowley vol. 3: Mediocre Midnight Monster Hunter
When we last saw Jerri Bartman she had finally found the former Count Crowley, Rich Barnes. Unfortunately, this happened because Rich had just killed her werewolf and AA buddy Steven simply because he was one of the former. Even worse is that Rich is just as sexist and demeaning to Jerri as his mentor Vincent was, and he’s got some crazy plan – involving magical feathers – that’s taking up all of his time now. Our Count also has a new threat to deal with as there’s some kind of spook going around town and snatching up kids. She’ll get right on that after she takes care of her day job, attends the next AA meeting, handles the cop who wants to be more than friends with her, and the vampire who has come to town to find out what happened to the last one they sent here.
With so much going on in this volume, you might feel a little concerned that writer David Dastmalchian has overstuffed the four issues collected here with too much going on. That it never feels like that shows that the actor-turned-comic-book-writer has developed a good handle on the format. That it’s all interesting and full of twists makes it that much better as Jerri’s life keeps getting more complicated and entertaining as a result. So it’s a little disappointing to get to the final issue and see that the main story in vol. 3 ends on a cliffhanger with no new miniseries currently solicited. C’mon David, Dark Horse. You can’t just leave us hanging here!
Artist Lukas Ketner still does great work with both the monsters, spooks, and regular old humans in this volume and there’s more of that to love here. That’s because vol. 3 contains the “Count Crowley/Criminal Macabre” crossover story “From the Pit They Came” where Jerri teams up with Cal McDonald to stop a monster rampaging through a L.A. comic convention and then the La Brea Tar Pits. “Criminal Macabre” is a series I’ve always liked more in concept than execution and that remains true here. I’d say that what’s here is fine if it wasn’t for the fact that the inclusion of this issue is certainly the sole reason vol. 3 costs $5 more than the previous two.