Sometimes an old idea just gets played out the right way. Karin is just that.

Macabre was its upbringing on print; yet the somewhat embarrassing interpretation leaves those unfamiliar with its darker shades in a better place. Alas, all of us are familiar of a romance polygon, high school uniforms, and relational trades such as home-made lunches, confessions, and walking home together.

To be fair, Karin’s vampiricism wouldn’t make a dark interview. What it would make is uncertain, but taking its fair blend of traditional ideas about vampires, Karin paints with a smart brush that leaves us with little to ponder in mechanics, and much more in a generic, plot-device sense. The familial vampire is already an oxymoron; the high-schooler vampire with a family is above and beyond.

Karin’s adherence to tradition leaves only the mechanics in the dust and cobwebs of gothic arts, thanking the morning star. Karin deploys the most expectant, comfortable, and clear methods to plot. Parallels, foreshadows, foils, monologues, flashbacks, norms, jesters, and a wonderful pace. There may be few sophistries, if any, but there is no mistake.

Just how did Karin rise above the horizon of mediocrity? One could nod at the direction of its crazy antics; the artistic rendition of the fount of life–the one that comes not from the Throne of Grace but the nose of a grasshopper? Or merely at the fount itself, as earlier alluded; convolution brings the curious much like a freakshow.

Smarter money rests, probably, on just how it channels the macabre without death and decay; a tragic Juliet in the making as opposed to merely yet another flower aside the well-tread path. Karin demonstrates that sometimes it is good to walk that path, when the sun isn’t out.

A fierce Juliet also helps. /MILF/ anyone?