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Nightschool: The Weirn Books

First appearance: 
August 2008
Last appearance: 
July 2010
Status: 
Active

When the mere mortal “day” students go home and the light goes out, Nightschool begins; a special school for witches and warlocks. But there’s strange happenings outside of the school as well; apprentice vampire hunters soon find themselves biting off more they can chew when they encounter a group of folks more interested in biting than chewing. In the midst of it all are Sarah, a new teacher at the Nightschool, and Alex, her little sister who seems to prefer being home schooled. But they’re not immune to weirdness either, of course, especially after Sarah… well, let’s just say something highly unusual happens to her - and in this universe, that’s really saying something.

Creator Svetlana Chmakova described Nightschool as “kind of like Harry Potter meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” which I think is a fairly accurate description. I feel that the plot is rather complicated, though; there seems to be too many threads going on at once, too many characters to keep track of month-to-month. Maybe I’m just dumb, but I think some simplification could be an improvement. Also, the art has a certain flatness to it; flipping between Nightschool and, say, Maximum Ride makes evident that the latter is in a whole ‘nother league art-wise. But it’s certainly sufficient to draw you into the story, so I’m not really knocking it; if nothing else, it’s clear that Chmakova is putting a lot of effort into her latest work and not simply phoning it in.

Chmakova was born in Russia, but currently resides in Canada. Her manga-influenced art was first brought to comic fans’ attention in Dramacon, a three-volume series about the romance to be found at anime conventions. Besides writing and drawing Nightschool, she’s currently working on an animated series entitled My Life Me, to debut in the fall of 2009. Check out the September 2008 issue for an interview with her and some behind-the-scenes Nightschool art.

Chmakova works with an art assistant named Dee Dupuy on Nightschool; they also worked on Dramacon together. Though Dupuy is uncredited on Nightschool and Dramacon’s covers, Chmakova doesn’t keep her assistance a secret.