Dooley O'Shaughnessy's an Irish immigrant deeply regretting getting involved in the American Civil War. As it's only 1861, he's got several years of it to go. Unless he dies in battle. Or happens to unearth a vampire who tried to sleep out the conflict in a grave.
Remarkable though the odds are, it's the third thing that happens, and Dooley spends the next decade as Constance der Abend's loyal assistant, helping her to slake her thirst on the corrupt or wicked. Robber barons, child killers, highwaymen, people like that. Until someone burns her home, and the native soil within her coffin, forcing Constance to return to the place of her birth. A town sits there now, Sangre de Moro, and it's home to its fair share of monsters.
The book ran 10 issues, split into 5-issue arcs, in 2022 and 2023. The first arc was Constance (or Rosa, as her birth name) trying to get some soil from where she was born, and finding her birthplace now home to some strange cult. She and Dooley are also pursued by Frankenstein's Monster and a creepy little scientist by the name of Griffin. The Monster found God and decided the Lord said kill monsters. Griffin just wants to dissect strange things in the hopes of unlocking the keys to something more.
In the second arc, the quartet have come to an uneasy detente, but new agents move into town at the behest of Dr. Moreau, and play to both Constance's ego (she was a renowned opera singer in New York before the flight west) and her thirst (she's trying to only feed on the evil, but the town is too small and lacking in such people.)
Seeley and Campbell pull in horror elements from a lot of sources. Unfortunately, most of them are ones I'm not familiar with, so any significance kind of whizzes right past me. I recognize Moreau selling the land he'd purchased to a brokerage in England run by a Renfield is a Dracula reference. That the "blind god" Griffin sees when he lets Moreau experiment on him is probably Lovecraftian. Maybe the grey little things roaming the wilderness that cry "ooot!" and have a paralytic tongue are (Canadian?) chupacabras. The fact Constance's father became a werewolf by eating part of the dog he killed trying to protect his wife and child (killing his wife in the process)? Don't get that. Is that a normal method of becoming a werewolf? I thought they had to bite you, not the other way around.
That's probably not an issue, other than I'm missing details. Seeley and Campbell establish that this or that constitutes a Problem, and the cast need to confront it. Terry and Farrell, who illustrate the entire series, keep the threats grounded and solid, only veering occasionally into something that hints at being beyond perception. Moreau's beast-people are basically human, just with animals parts stitched on here and there. But there's a banshee in the second arc, and her face is kept in shadow, save for her teeth, which gleam out of that darkness. In the first arc, the quartet pass through some weak point between dimensions and encounter something that's possessed a horse. Terry and Farrell channeled some strong Berni Wrightson for that creature.
The series really revolves around Constance and Dooley's relationship, and that's where I think it falls short. Not that it's a poorly set up relationship. Dooley feels grateful to Constance for helping him escape the war and educating him, but is growing increasingly uneasy at what he's part of. Constance likes Dooley, probably sees him as a bit of a wayward youth (he's an adult, but she's over 200, so it's a fair perspective) to guide and tease. She cares about him enough to mediate her hunger, but at the same time, resents him a little for his morality that constrains her.
The issue is, Seeley and Campbell leave a lot of things unresolved, or meat on the bone, if you prefer. The first arc turns on Dooley and the Monster, and to a lesser extent, Griffin, deciding to try and deal with this crazy cult leader who has his followers drinking the blood of Constance's father to try and ascend to some higher plane. Constance wants no part of it, until her father (who she claims to despise and want to see dead) points out she cares about Dooley. Then she turns around and shows up to help. Why then, due to words of someone she doesn't care about?
That isn't resolved by the second arc, when Dooley seems bent on trying to protect the citizens of Sangre de Moro from supernatural threats, but can't do much on his own. Even the Monster is limited. A lot of it falls to Constance, who still doesn't really care. Even with her native soil readily at hand, she needs blood, and desires praise from people she thinks are worth it. (Bit of a social climber.) When the eastern businessmen, Moreau's lackeys, show up, talking about bringing the railroad through town, which will mean more people, specifically more evil people, Constance is all ears. That they promise to build an opera house, praise her singing, only makes the offer sweeter.
But even if Constance acknowledges they played on her ego, and she should have listened to Dooley, the core problem is not resolved. Whether she continues to help Dooley with his defender of the night act or not, she's a vampire. She needs blood. Sangre de Moro is a pissant, backwater town in the middle of the desert. If she's going to willingly restrict her potential prey, she's going to starve. No solution is offered, not even Dooley occasionally opening a vein for her. The friction between Dooley's Christian morality, and the necessities of Rosa's existence, remain unaddressed.
(She comments once during their flight west, that if he can't find someone, she may have to feed on him. Dooley treats it as a joke. I don't think it was.)
Maybe if the book continued, they were going to address that, but it's been over 3 years, so I doubt anything is on the way.
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