Skinner Sweet, the lovable, deadly star of Scott Snyder and Rafael Albuquerque’s long-running, Esiner-winning American Vampire, will take one more ride in October.
The former Vertigo series will find new life this fall as a nine-issue miniseries, American Vampire 1976, under DC’s Black Label banner.
“Scott, Rafael, and I, we cut our teeth together on American Vampire 10 years ago,” said Executive Editor Mark Doyle. “Returning to finish the story we started a decade ago is a thrill. Working on American Vampire 1976 has been so creepy and cool, especially because the parallels between ’70s paranoia and today are really chilling.”
According to the press release, American Vampire 1976 will be the final chapter in the American Vampire story.
“The characters in ‘76 are in a really dark place in terms of the fight against evil,” said Snyder. “The ’70s mirror our current era in many ways: the anxiety, the fear, and the re-examination of American identity. The book opens on Skinner Sweet working outside of Vegas doing death-defying Evel Knievel-style stunts, trying to die. There’s a kind of Son of Sam plot in New York City with Cal and Travis, a political thriller plot with Felicia, and all sorts of ’70s iconography. It’s my favorite arc so far.”
Here’s how DC describe the series:
Skinner Sweet has exhausted all efforts to regain his lost immortality. With his powers and purpose gone, he is now determined to go out with a bang. At a seedy motorcycle rally in the desert where Skinner’s closer than ever to his death wish, Pearl Jones and a shocking partner track him down for one last, desperate mission: the force known as the Gray Trader and its minions are tunneling through the bowels of the world to unleash hell on Earth—just in time for America’s bicentennial. With catastrophe looming, it’s up to Skinner and Pearl to reconcile and change the course of history—or die trying.
American Vampire kicked off in 2010 with a 34-issue run, which was followed by a second, 11-issue series titled “Second Cycle.” It’s been since 2016 now since we last saw Skinner Sweet and his gritty adventures through the United States, and it’ll be nice to see him get the ending he deserves.
Sink your teeth into some preview pages:
