Count Crowley, Volume 2: Amateur Midnight Monster Hunter Review (David Dastmalchian, Lukas Ketner)

It’s still the ‘80s, Jerri’s still Count Crowley, the local TV host of bad horror movies, and she’s still battling monsters and attending AA. This time she goes another round with the werewolf from the first book and also a vamp from the big city. Ooo…k.

The team behind the first Count Crowley book reunite for a second volume in the series and, while I’m glad the title’s carrying on, Amateur Midnight Monster Hunter’s definitely not as good as the first - unfortunately, it’s pretty boring.

Jerri looks for info on how to fight the monsters and then goes through the motions once the monsters show up. There’s more sassiness with Freis, the old gent in the nursing home who knows all about monster hunting, and there’s more AA talk. There’s little new stuff here that builds on the first volume and it never really held my attention the entire time.

Lukas Ketner’s art is still spectacular, with the brilliant Lauren Affe on colours. I especially liked the WW2 flashback but really the whole comic looks fantastic thanks to these two.

I like the concept - that Jerri isn’t just battling fantastical monsters like vamps, etc. but also everyday monsters like addiction - and the art team is faultless. But writer David Dastmalchian needs to do something more than just the same old same old in the next book to make this series worth following. As it is, Count Crowley, Volume 2: Amateur Midnight Monster Hunter is an underwhelming sequel to the decent first book.