Anita Blake is back, for the very first time.

The First Death is a made-for-comics prequel to Guilty Pleasures, the first novel and inaugural comics adaptation of the popular series of pulp vampire novels by Laurell K. Hamilton. Hamilton, along with husband Jonathon Green, provides the story -- which is basically a plumped-up revision to a story she's previously told -- and Wellinton Alves adds the art.

Anyone who loves all things Anita Blake is going to love it. Everyone else, not so much.

The story is empty calories, a slipshod cut-and-paste yarn that plods through the narrative in some places and rushes willynilly through sections that might have benefited from a little more exposition. It's hard not to think Hamilton, who has yet to employ much subtlety or depth in her writing, didn't just dash this one off on the back of an envelope while trying on Nikes one slow afternoon.

The First Death flashes back to the days when Anita worked mostly raising the dead for grieving (or greedy) relatives and worked only occasionally with the police as a slayer-for-hire (although she has already worked up a fearsome reputation as "the Executioner" among the vampire community). Called in on a series of brutal vampire murders in which children are always the victims, Anita offers little to no assistance to police, aside from the occasional quip or vomiting. But she does get to meet the blousy vampire with whom she'll eventually be happily playing "hide the stake," if you know what I mean, and she has a few quality interactions with a completely bland Edward, the assassin otherwise known as "Death."

Without the benefit of any actual police work, Anita stumbles on some villains, sees her partner get tortured and does some hasty slaying. I actually yawned while reading it.

Artwork by Wellinton Alves is half-hearted, although I dare say it's an improvement over the plastic, over-exaggerated work of Brett Booth in Guilty Pleasures.

Bottom line, people: I yawned. And I wasn't even especially tired. Take from that what you will.