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Blood + Water
Adam Heller is dying, but before he can take the big dirt nap, his best friends offer him a chance at immortality and he takes it. Now Adam is a vampire living it up on the wild side and it's everything he could ever want. But the eternal party crashes to a bloody halt when an ancient monster awakens from the dark, forgotten places of the world and comes looking for Adam. The startling reason this monster has come looking for him may be the most horrifying realization of all.
128 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
45 people want to read
About the author
Judd Winick
786 books392 followersJudd Winick is an American cartoonist, comic book writer, screenwriter, and former reality television personality known for his diverse contributions to storytelling across multiple media. He first entered the public eye in 1994 as a cast member on The Real World: San Francisco, where he formed a close friendship with AIDS educator Pedro Zamora, an experience that deeply influenced his later work. Winick memorialized their bond in Pedro and Me, a critically acclaimed autobiographical graphic novel that earned several literary awards and became a staple in school curricula.
Winick's career in comics took off with The Adventures of Barry Ween, Boy Genius and continued with major runs at DC Comics, including Green Lantern, Green Arrow, and Batman. His stories often explored socially relevant themes, such as HIV, homophobia, and identity. He was recognized for introducing gay characters and tackling difficult subjects with empathy and clarity. His work on Batman notably included resurrecting the character Jason Todd as the Red Hood, a storyline later adapted into the animated film Batman: Under the Red Hood, for which Winick wrote the screenplay.
Beyond comics, he created The Life and Times of Juniper Lee for Cartoon Network and served as head writer for Hulu's The Awesomes. In 2015, he launched the Hilo series, an all-ages sci-fi adventure inspired by his own children. The bestselling series has been widely praised and is expected to reach its eleventh volume in 2025.
Winick lives in San Francisco with his wife, Pam Ling, also a Real World alum, and their two children. He continues to create heartfelt and imaginative stories for audiences of all ages.
Winick's career in comics took off with The Adventures of Barry Ween, Boy Genius and continued with major runs at DC Comics, including Green Lantern, Green Arrow, and Batman. His stories often explored socially relevant themes, such as HIV, homophobia, and identity. He was recognized for introducing gay characters and tackling difficult subjects with empathy and clarity. His work on Batman notably included resurrecting the character Jason Todd as the Red Hood, a storyline later adapted into the animated film Batman: Under the Red Hood, for which Winick wrote the screenplay.
Beyond comics, he created The Life and Times of Juniper Lee for Cartoon Network and served as head writer for Hulu's The Awesomes. In 2015, he launched the Hilo series, an all-ages sci-fi adventure inspired by his own children. The bestselling series has been widely praised and is expected to reach its eleventh volume in 2025.
Winick lives in San Francisco with his wife, Pam Ling, also a Real World alum, and their two children. He continues to create heartfelt and imaginative stories for audiences of all ages.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
June 18, 2013
BLOOD AND WATER Trade (collecting #1-#5 of the mini series) from Vertigo Comics.
Okay just finished this last night. Have to say, over all I enjoyed it. The characterization in the first three issues were great. You really get the feel of who these three friends are. (Two of which, just happen to be vampires.)
The setup is simple Adam is dying and his two best friends Joshua and Nikki (the vampires) offer to save his life. The trio is fun and likable and you really feel for Adam and his situation. After the nice pace of the first 2 or 3 issues things jump into fast forward with the final 2 and nails a fast climax at the end. While the ending was satisfying (and left an opening for more), I felt that the story got rushed. If this had not been a trade I would thought I missed a few issues in the middle. I feel this would have been a better story if it was given 8 issues (or at the very least 6) Maybe this was originally scripted to have more issues and for whatever reason, got shortened? I'd like to think this is the reason for the abruptness of it.
But even with these problems BLOOD AND WATER was a good read. And I hope someday there is more.
Okay just finished this last night. Have to say, over all I enjoyed it. The characterization in the first three issues were great. You really get the feel of who these three friends are. (Two of which, just happen to be vampires.)
The setup is simple Adam is dying and his two best friends Joshua and Nikki (the vampires) offer to save his life. The trio is fun and likable and you really feel for Adam and his situation. After the nice pace of the first 2 or 3 issues things jump into fast forward with the final 2 and nails a fast climax at the end. While the ending was satisfying (and left an opening for more), I felt that the story got rushed. If this had not been a trade I would thought I missed a few issues in the middle. I feel this would have been a better story if it was given 8 issues (or at the very least 6) Maybe this was originally scripted to have more issues and for whatever reason, got shortened? I'd like to think this is the reason for the abruptness of it.
But even with these problems BLOOD AND WATER was a good read. And I hope someday there is more.
June 17, 2025
A dark vampire story, basically about a guy dying, his two friend save him by turning vampire, and tus unleashing something terrible. I think this series could have worked better as a 10-12 issue series but at 4 issues it wraps up WAY too quick. The first two issues are great, the last two move by way to fast to get a grasp on the world building. A 3 out of 5.
November 1, 2015
More than half the book - the setup and the world/character building - was interesting and a snappy read. Sadly, once the action starts, it begins getting dull - and worse, dumb - fast. It read like the second half was a rush job, done without thinking things through properly. Perhaps if it could've been expanded slightly, it might have been better.
October 22, 2010
Solid storytelling, fresh take on the vampire genre. An interesting tale with some satisfying surprises and good gritty emo moments. Worth the couple of hours it'll add to your life.
March 12, 2025
The first half is a great first act. This is from 2003, the Age of Decompression, so issue one is pretty much just the premise: a chronically ill and now terminally cancerous man finds out that his friends are vampires and they offer to cure him by making him a vampire as well.
There's some good stuff as hero Adam goes through the process of being turned, acclimates to immortality, is introduced to vampire rules and customs... albeit with some tasteless business about how vampires can essentially date-rape whoever they want with their pheromones, which is treated as just another perk of being a vamp and not as grounds for Blade to pay someone a visit.
There was a similarly tacky bit in Wanted about how newly minted supervillain Wesley Gibson could rape whoever he wanted, but at least Millar was willing to call a spade a spade there. Yes, I'm actually comparing Mark Millar favorably to another comics pro!
Anyway, this being a Vertigo title, you'd expect this all to lead to some trenchant insight or moral or even character arc, but it's like Winick hasn't figured this out beyond the (admittedly killer) opening act, so it turns into pretty bog-standard monster mash stuff. There's super-vampires, Adam himself is a sorta super-duper vampire, there's a random bit of romance...
It's not so much that all this is some betrayal of the more heady first half. It's just that if you're going to be a creature feature, be a good creature feature. And this stuff is way closer to the likes of Charmed than it is to Buffy.
P.S. It'd be mean-spirited to reduce Winick to "the guy who knew a guy who died of AIDS," but a lot of the early plot really gives the impression that he didn't think this out beyond "wouldn't it be great if I could make my friend who is terminally ill into an immortal?" And yeah, sure, there's obvious catharsis in that, I just wish he had pushed that thought further instead of leaving this all wish fulfillment with some fight scenes attached at the end to get it to TPB length.
There's some good stuff as hero Adam goes through the process of being turned, acclimates to immortality, is introduced to vampire rules and customs... albeit with some tasteless business about how vampires can essentially date-rape whoever they want with their pheromones, which is treated as just another perk of being a vamp and not as grounds for Blade to pay someone a visit.
There was a similarly tacky bit in Wanted about how newly minted supervillain Wesley Gibson could rape whoever he wanted, but at least Millar was willing to call a spade a spade there. Yes, I'm actually comparing Mark Millar favorably to another comics pro!
Anyway, this being a Vertigo title, you'd expect this all to lead to some trenchant insight or moral or even character arc, but it's like Winick hasn't figured this out beyond the (admittedly killer) opening act, so it turns into pretty bog-standard monster mash stuff. There's super-vampires, Adam himself is a sorta super-duper vampire, there's a random bit of romance...
It's not so much that all this is some betrayal of the more heady first half. It's just that if you're going to be a creature feature, be a good creature feature. And this stuff is way closer to the likes of Charmed than it is to Buffy.
P.S. It'd be mean-spirited to reduce Winick to "the guy who knew a guy who died of AIDS," but a lot of the early plot really gives the impression that he didn't think this out beyond "wouldn't it be great if I could make my friend who is terminally ill into an immortal?" And yeah, sure, there's obvious catharsis in that, I just wish he had pushed that thought further instead of leaving this all wish fulfillment with some fight scenes attached at the end to get it to TPB length.
December 20, 2021
Something reminded me of this book in 2021 and so I hunted down a copy to read it (because I think I moved the box that had these single issues in it into storage in 2019 and didn't feel like digging it out).
This has a unique plot device that makes the start of this "my BFFs are vampires, and I'm gonna be one, too!" romp pretty cool, which is that the main character is horribly, gruesomely ill with Hepatitis. I vividly remembered the descriptions of how he got it, and something about bad Indian food, and how miserable and gross his existence was, and how all that went away when his friends changed him. That part held up and was close to my memory of things. But then! I forgot that the great start to a series kinda immediately dumps into tropes of "oh no, what have you done, your rash and selfish decision has doomed us all" and "you, the new one, are destined to be stronger than all of us combined! you the chosen one - only you can help!" and then **spoilers**
one of the two BFF main characters dies. ? Like, abruptly and violently and without a lot of preamble or explanation or consequences other than that his vampire life partner is super miserable. That SUCKS man! Then there's fighting and a lot of poorly explained stuff and it all ends very abruptly.
Someone should re-write this series basically from the end of issue 3 (I think it was a 5-shot mini-series) and just, go somewhere else with it. Do something better.
The art is pretty great. Whatever happened to Tomm Coker?
The end.
This has a unique plot device that makes the start of this "my BFFs are vampires, and I'm gonna be one, too!" romp pretty cool, which is that the main character is horribly, gruesomely ill with Hepatitis. I vividly remembered the descriptions of how he got it, and something about bad Indian food, and how miserable and gross his existence was, and how all that went away when his friends changed him. That part held up and was close to my memory of things. But then! I forgot that the great start to a series kinda immediately dumps into tropes of "oh no, what have you done, your rash and selfish decision has doomed us all" and "you, the new one, are destined to be stronger than all of us combined! you the chosen one - only you can help!" and then **spoilers**
one of the two BFF main characters dies. ? Like, abruptly and violently and without a lot of preamble or explanation or consequences other than that his vampire life partner is super miserable. That SUCKS man! Then there's fighting and a lot of poorly explained stuff and it all ends very abruptly.
Someone should re-write this series basically from the end of issue 3 (I think it was a 5-shot mini-series) and just, go somewhere else with it. Do something better.
The art is pretty great. Whatever happened to Tomm Coker?
The end.
April 14, 2020
103/365
De esos cómics de los que no esperas nada y te acaban encantando. Un joven enfermo terminal recibe la propuesta de una pareja de amigos que consiste en salvarlo convirtiéndolo en un chupasangre; él acepta. Ese es sólo el principio. Una pequeña y diferente historia de vampiros con muchos toques que me han recordado a Vampiro, la Mascarada. Fui buscando cobre y hallé... sangre. Lástima que solo sean cinco números.
De esos cómics de los que no esperas nada y te acaban encantando. Un joven enfermo terminal recibe la propuesta de una pareja de amigos que consiste en salvarlo convirtiéndolo en un chupasangre; él acepta. Ese es sólo el principio. Una pequeña y diferente historia de vampiros con muchos toques que me han recordado a Vampiro, la Mascarada. Fui buscando cobre y hallé... sangre. Lástima que solo sean cinco números.
September 30, 2019
A unique take on a vampire story. Really good.
July 16, 2016
I'm not totally into vampires, but this is a pretty fun, fast vampire graphic novel. It's fairly straightforward, but what I liked is how it spent a lot of detail on the siring process (all the gory details) in a way I don't recall seeing lately. But as a quick-shot miniseries, it doesn't take a ton of time to ramp up to the climax before coming to a fast end.
Overall, good for a quick read if you're not looking to get bogged down in a long series or a lot of mythology. Definitely worth it for vampire fans, not sure it's for absolutely everyone, though.
Overall, good for a quick read if you're not looking to get bogged down in a long series or a lot of mythology. Definitely worth it for vampire fans, not sure it's for absolutely everyone, though.
March 9, 2022
I like the first 2 issues. It starts really good in terms of presenting characters to us and their relationship. It was a good start story-wise but the last three issues feel rushed. It would be nice to add 3-4 issues more between issue 2 and issue 4 so the story wouldn't feel that much rushed and end more satisfactory.
November 18, 2016
Another brilliant piece of work from Judd Winick
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews