All this month I'll be reviewing different comic books by African-American creators, based on submissions from the actual creators of the comic books themselves. A quick note - since this month is so relatively short, I'll be featuring an extra comic every week, for a total of 32 comics spotlighted! Here is a list of all the comics spotlighted so far!

Today we take a look at Isaiah Broussard's Transyltown #1-4.

Transylytown is a charming comic book series by Isaiah Broussard that follows the adventures of Timmy, an awkward young vampire, who we meet on his first night out hunting on his own...

He runs into Alicia, the daughter of a famous vampire slayer. She is AMAZING. Such an awesome character. It seems a good deal of her father's fighting technique (and therefore, Alicia's also) was derived from Michael Jackson's Thriller. Come on, isn't that the most fantastic idea ever?

Anyhow, she can sense evil and she knows Timmy is not evil, so they become friends.

As Broussard continues his tales, he slowly introduces new characters based on classic monster motifs (werewolves, demons, etc.) but of course always putting his own spin on them.

One weird thing is that with the second issue, as you can see above, he stopped shading Alicia's skin to make it clear that she's intended to be black. Weird. Unless that's some sort of meta-commentary about Michael Jackson.

Anyhow, this is a delightful "fun for the whole family" comic book series, driven by the powerful strength of the friendship between Alicia and Timmy that is such a great bond that it makes it so easy for Broussard to add new characters to the mix (it reminds me a lot of the Archie/Jughead friendship, which also allows for great mixtures of new characters when needed).

You can buy the first four issues here and you can follow Broussard's current Transyltown webcomic here.