Woodstake is a mashup of vampires and the free love and rock ‘n’ roll era specifically at Woodstock.

Woodstock, for all you young’uns, was a music festival in the summer of 1969. It had one of the greatest lineups ever for a festival of that era and became famous because of some of the lawlessness that occurred at the event and an incredible documentary on the festival. (In fact, that film is what Charlton Heston is watching in the theater in the vampire film, The Omega Man, not long after the festival. Coincidence?)

Woodstake starts with a flashback to olden times as the nasty vampire is sent packing, but in true vampire fashion it seems you can’t keep a good vampire down. He shakes the cobwebs off in time for Jimi Hendrix to play at Woodstock and starts generational terror.

That’s because a number of the main characters are the ancestors of the characters we meet in the flashback. The balance of our main characters are contemporary to Woodstock and are the teenagers just looking for an opportunity to become the vampire’s next hot lunch.

Well, it’s a vampire story. What do you think he’s going to do? Read him poetry? I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by saying things quickly get out of hand.

The storytelling is fast paced and I tore through my review copy in the course of two evenings…about a two hour read. But, you will slow down because the illustrations are lush and gorgeous.

The art you see above is a sampling of Felipe Kroll’s mix of photo realistic artwork blended with gritty and dreamy atmosphere. He is a master…but…

A problem I’ve had with graphic novels in the past and it rears its head here again is getting a little to artsy. The images here are beautiful, if violent, and probably worthy of hanging in a museum. However, there are times that the dark atmosphere and artistic flourishes obfuscates the action and confuses the character. For instance, one of the female lead characters is a blonde and the other is a brunette, but one of them is wearing a weird 60’s hat for a couple of pages. It was tough to figure out who she was for me…heck, Sluggo never changed his hat or shirt since 1938 and Nancy never seemed to care. It just made it difficult to follow at times and with the breakneck pace of the storytelling, that could sometimes lead to difficulties.

It’s a nitpick, but it did hinder my overall enjoyment of the book, so I had to include it. Otherwise, it is a great page flipper and you will enjoy the trip (pun intended) back to Woodstock. With vampires.

It scores a 7/10 and a recommendation from this reviewer.

Get the book here: Woodstake (Amazon) or direct from SHP Comics: https://shpcomics.com/pages/woodstake

Tim Kretschmann is the host of Dead On Movie Reviews, Now Streaming, and Dead On the Bases. He is also a columnist on OtherworldlyCulture with the column Universally Loved.