Bite Club: Vampire Crime Unit #1

Frank Quitely's cover for this 2006 Vertigo series opener sets the mood perfectly: a sharp-fanged young woman wraps herself in yellow police crime-scene tape — "DO NOT CROSS" — while a squad car's flashing lights glow behind her, blending law enforcement and predatory menace in one provocative image. Howard Chaykin and David Tischman's "Watching the Detectives" promises a world where vampire crime-fighting is very much on the books, and David Hahn brings that world to life inside. It's a slick, confident first issue that earns its mature-readers label right from the cover.