BLOOD CITY ROLLERS

An injured figure skater links up with a new crew.

For as long as she can recall, Mina’s whole world has been figure skating, so when she’s sidelined by an injury, despair sets in quickly. Just as quickly, perhaps even suspiciously so, a new group of skaters swoop in to save her. The roller-skating, hard-helmeted, kneepad-wearing crew heal her injury and sweep her off to an eerie abandoned mall. The Vamps reveal themselves to be a mostly friendly vampire roller derby team who participate in the Paranormal Roller Derby. According to league rules, they need a human player to round out their squad. Also, they absolutely must win their next match to remain in the league. The stakes are high, and for Mina, there are added complexities—the fear that a wrong move will mean she ends up turning vampire herself, and the equally real fear that she won’t be accepted by her new peers. Roller derby rules and game play intertwine with interpersonal relationships in this graphic novel, which cultivates a shadowy visual claustrophobia born of its setting in an abandoned mall. Mina is light-skinned and has brown hair, the vampires have a variety of skin tones, and their gender pronouns are noted.

An involving, occasionally gloomy story of supernatural team spirit.